John Bryden

[Human Reproductive And Genetic Technologies Act, October 31st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Jonquière for his question. I do not think there are any easy answers for that.

It is very difficult to make a branch of scientific research into a criminal offence. I hate to bring up such a subject but it is like abortion which is a medical practice.

When you apply the Criminal Code to that type of activity, Mr. Speaker, it is a tremendous moral quagmire because scientific research, scientific and medical understanding is always a two-edged sword. On the one hand, in the case of chemical weaponry or germ warfare research we should condemn these activities and practices as criminal.

On the other hand, chemotherapy for cancer is a direct result of the development of mustard gas bombs during the first and second world wars. The aerosol spray can is a product of research on germ warfare. Penicillin, the antibiotic, was developed as a result of research into germ warfare.

When we enter into the field of reproductive technology we are fearful. It is, after all, just another step in a scientific endeavour and the expansion of the understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. We want to apply moral standards and rightly so.

The principle of applying Criminal Code sanctions against scientific research is dangerous. I prefer that the moral, ethical and irresponsibility problem is dealt with-with penalties-in a separate body of law, separate from the Criminal Code.

[Human Reproductive And Genetic Technologies Act, October 31st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted you are in the chair because your great love of literature is well known to us all and I will take the House on a literary voyage this afternoon.

First, I will make a few remarks on Bill C-47 which address how the government and this country will manage the reproductive and genetic technologies that face us in the next century.

It is to a great extent a bill I support but it is a bill based on fear. We now realize we have attained the technological ability to actually manipulate the human entity, the physical human being.

There are some prohibited practices which are particularly horrifying. I think I speak for most Canadians when I say we are very nervous when we read of this type of thing being possible, the actual genetic alteration of genes and changing the very character of the human being which may be born in next generation. The cloning of human embryos is something that is straight out of science fiction novels. It is something that we may see in "Star Trek". Now as a government we see this as a possibility and it is something we want to prohibit.

One prohibited practice is the creation of animal human hybrids. It gives us shivers to think of the possibility we now have the technology that may make it possible. The transfer of embryos between humans and other species is something which is horrifying. The creation of embryos for research purposes seems to lower human dignity to the point where only scientific endeavour is important and not human dignity.

We are all concerned about and abhor these things to a greater or lesser extent. Fear sparks the bill, a very legitimate fear that has its origins in our culture and in our literature.

I will take the House back to Frankenstein , a novel by Mary Shelley in 1818. Frankenstein is probably one of the most well read or distributed novels in the English language. It has probably been translated into every imaginable language.

The story deals with a scientist in the early 19th Century who harnessed electricity. As as result he found he was able to animate a human being that he created out of body parts obtained from cemeteries. He was engaged in body snatching. At the time that Mary Shelley wrote the novel-and she did it in about three days-body snatching for medical research was a common and accepted practice in Britain although the public was horrified by it.

In any event the monster was created. He was not a monster initially. He was seen by Dr. Frankenstein, the scientist, as something he could create as a result of science. He could put these body parts together and give this being life. For a moment Dr. Frankenstein became like God. He animated life.

We know what happened. The human being that was created by the scientist became a monster in the eyes of humankind. He was an individual with a sense of emotion, a sense of wanting to belong, who eventually committed murder. He was so horrible and monstrous to look at that he was pursued and destroyed.

The picture of Frankenstein is something that has echoed down through the years. It is a part of our culture. It is a part of the francophone culture as well because the Hunchback of Notre Dame , for example, is about another monster in our society that could be created by humankind.

Another novel comes even closer to the type of prohibited practices we talk about in Bill C-47, The Island of Dr. Moreau , which was written in 1896 by H. G. Wells. H. G. Wells is famous for having written the novels The Time Machine which involved going back in time and War of the Worlds which involved an invasion of earth by Martians. The Island of Dr. Moreau is less well known. In this novel a young man is marooned on an island where experiments are being undertaken by a surgeon-scientist by the name of Dr. Moreau. Dr. Moreau takes creating human beings a step further. He has travelled to a remote island and he is in the process of taking animals and reshaping them by surgery into human beings. The island becomes filled with various types of beasts who resemble humans.

The theory at the time was that if body parts were changed around to make an animal look human it would acquire human characteristics including speech. On The Island of Dr. Moreau these various animal humans had the power of speech. Our hero on the island is very frightened by them.

Let me read a bit from the novel. This part describes the hero encountering the creations of Dr. Moreau. It reads:

The two most formidable Animal Men were my Leopard-man and a creature made of hyena and swine. Larger than these were three bull-creatures who pulled in the boat. Then came the silvery-hairy-man, who was also the Sayer of the Law, M'ling, and a satyr-like creature of ape and goat. There were three Swine-men and a Swine-woman, a mare-rhinoceros-creature, and several other female whose sources I did not ascertain.

One of the most chilling moments in the novel is when the hero on the island tries to escape from the compound of Dr. Moreau and enters the jungle. He encounters these animal humans and is chased by all nightmarish creatures that are half animal and half human. There was a chillingness. I would like to read the passage but it would take too long. It was a chilling to imagine this man going through the dark and moonlit forest and being chased by various creatures that were half leopard and half man.

This image of horror achieved by H. G. Wells just about 100 years ago entered the psyche of English speaking society of the day just as the novel Frankenstein and similar novels dealing with cloning and the creation of human animal creatures have done. We have this sense of horror when we even contemplate the concept of marrying the human being with the animal, with a creature.

Obviously both these novels spring out of Christian traditions from the Middle Ages, medieval paintings of the devil's creatures as being half man and half beast. Literature and the arts have an effect on culture like a pebble thrown into the pond. The ripple goes down through the ages and touches all people. We do not need to have actually read the novels. We do not need to have read The Island of Dr. Moreau to have felt the effect of the story told by H. G. Wells at that time.

The reason we react so negatively and we feel Bill C-47 is necessary is that we see the possibility of creating animal human hybrids. We experience the same fear innate in the novel Frankenstein or the novel The Island of Dr. Moreau . In many respects we are reacting to something in our culture as a result of our literature and our religion.

There is one problem. What will happen in the future when we pass these laws, when we forbid as we will do genetic tinkering? What will happen a decade from now when a married couple want to have children but carry the cystic fibrosis gene or the muscular dystrophy gene? Will there not be a huge pressure to do something to prevent these couples from having children who will die by age 30? I had a friend who had a daughter with cystic fibrosis. It is a terrible wasting disease of children. Their lungs fill up with fluids, a thick mucous. Muscular dystrophy is similar in a sense that it is a wasting disease. It is a tragedy to see young people suffer from it.

In both instances they are genetic illnesses. It may be possible through genetic tinkering to prevent the embryos from carrying that genetic defect. There will be a huge pressure to go around the essence of this law when it comes to tinkering with human genes. There will be people who will be wanting that change to have healthy and whole children.

There is another aspect. Science marches on. Science is something that humans at various points in history have tried to stop. They have tried to stand in its way because they feared the results coming down the road. We are not the first ones who have tried to pass legislation that prevents the development of new technology. In this case it is human technology but there are many times in the past when there has been an effort to prevent changes we are afraid of.

I will quote again from the book The Island of Dr. Moreau''. This is the doctor himself speaking. He is explaining why he has undertaken this fearsome experiment of creating human beings out of animals. We should all take note of what he said:

You see, I went on with this research just the way it led me. That is the only way I ever heard of research going. I asked a question, devised some method of obtaining an answer, and got a fresh question. Was this possible or that possible? You cannot imagine what this means to an investigator, what an intellectual passion grows upon him!

While I support Bill C-47 absolutely, we will never be able to stop the progress of science that heads in directions of which we are fearful. The very technological possibilities we fear will nevertheless become subjects of curiosity and research. Ultimately I am sure research will continue on those subjects.

I have a few more words of Dr. Moreau. He was talking about these beast humans he created. He said:

To this day I have never troubled about the ethics of the matter. The study of Nature makes man at last as remorseless as Nature.

I will use the opportunity of speaking to Bill C-47 to make a prediction. There are a number of prohibited practices here including those I have mentioned. I predict that in 50 years two-thirds of these prohibited practices will be legal in this country and one-third will have been tried somewhere in the world.

[House Of Commons, October 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I take peculiar pleasure in speaking to this motion. This is quite incredible because it pertains to one of my direct ancestors. I refer to one Thomas Percy who, on November 4, 1605, was chased by the soldiers of James I because he had been involved in the gunpowder plot.

Thomas Percy joined up with Guy Fawkes and they rented a building next to the Houses of Parliament, spent six months burrowing through the wall into the cellar under the House of Lords. They filled it with 20 barrels of gun powder and intended to blow up the entire House of Lords, the privy council, James I, and hopefully get his successor as well.

The plot failed, as members know, and my ancestor was pursued on the road to Dover and was captured at an inn where the king's

men rode up in the rain. Thomas Percy and other members of the conspiracy had laid their gunpowder out to dry in front of the fireplace and a spark ignited it. There was an explosion and the king's men successfully captured my ancestor, Thomas Percy. He was hanged, drawn and quartered, all in the name of trying to obtain parliamentary privilege for members of Parliament.

This issue of privilege goes back for centuries in parliamentary tradition. In fact, the English civil war was fought over this issue. It is not just a matter of summoning documents, it is also a fundamental issue of free speech and the ability of MPs to have freedom from arbitrary arrest or interference by the crown, by the state. James I, who was the target of the gunpowder plot, on several occasions arrested members of Parliament. This led directly to the English civil war which, I am happy to report, parliamentarians won against the royalists. This is one reason why we have privileges entrenched in the Canadian Parliament today.

I should say that privilege, the right to speak freely in the House of Commons, the right to order documents, the right to have true witness from those we call before us, is something that has been fought long and hard for in the British tradition.

However, we Canadians were fortunate because in 1867 we adopted these privileges in the Constitution Act without a war, without bloodshed and they became an essential part of our parliamentary tradition and an essential part of the way the House of Commons functions. If we cannot have immunity from arrest, if we cannot have freedom of speech and if we cannot summon the evidence that we must have in order to make our decisions clearly, then this Parliament cannot function adequately and serve the people who elected it.

I come to Motion No. 42 from the member for Scarborough-Rouge River. He raises the question of whether we have left behind the sense of privilege. Is there something the matter? Are we getting the return on the sense of privilege as it pertains to the summoning of documents and questioning of witnesses? I suggest we are not.

Indeed, what was conferred on us by the Constitution Act of 1867 we are losing through a process of neglect. As MPs we have over many decades failed to establish our need and our right to have the proper documents and the proper testimony from witnesses who come before us.

Indeed, I regret to say that when I was elected as an MP for the first time in 1993, veteran MPs who had been in the House previously told me that there was not much point in taking part in standing committees because it was all by rote. It was all decided by the government in power. It was all decided by parliamentary secretaries who sat in the standing committees.

There has been criticism in the House about the performance of standing committees. Nevertheless I have been very satisfied, for the most part, that MPs who are willing to speak out in standing committees, whether they are opposition MPs or government MPs, can be heard and can make a difference.

It is true-and this is where the motion of the member for Scarborough-Rouge River is so very important-that the one place where we hit a log jam is the repeated instances where officials called before the committee have refused to testify or have refused to give an answer.

The motion is long overdue. It merely reminds Parliament of a privilege it has had for centuries, centuries of parliamentary tradition that should require proper testimony and evidence before the committee.

I remind the House of something that we implement very rarely. Parliament has the option of compelling testimony under oath. This is one occasion on which we can bring people before us. If they fail to satisfy us, they are actually subject to a penalty equivalent to perjury.

In conclusion, looking down the centuries I must say that we in Parliament should remember the origins of privilege in the British tradition which wars were fought over. We should remember that every one of us on all sides of the House have a fundamental obligation to defend the rights of every MP to obtain good information and adequate testimony both in committees and in any other location on Parliament Hill.

[Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, does the member for Capilano-Howe Sound think that another country's current track record on human rights violations should have any bearing on the timing of Canada's signing of a free trade agreement?

[Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thought the member wandered a little bit off the mark in the sense that the free trade agreement with Israel has already been signed. All that is left is for this Parliament to endorse that deal. It cannot be changed as it stands at the moment.

I am very proud of this country and especially this Parliament for the way in which we exchange very differing ideas in a spirit of tolerance of one another's views and a great respect for the dignity and rights of others, regardless that perhaps some of the members may even seek to break up the country. Yet, we respect the dignity of one another.

My problem is that there is a new regime in Israel that has set a new mark for Israel in terms of respect for human rights and human dignity by embarking on a hard line approach to the Palestinians. As the member has stated, it is a provocation and has led to deaths in the Middle East, mainly of Palestinians.

I would like to repeat a question for the member which I had put to the member for Verchères, who I did not feel answered it very directly. Does the member feel that if this Parliament endorses this free trade agreement, are we at the same time endorsing the hard line attitude of Mr. Netanyahu toward the Palestinians? Are we endorsing his view of human rights and respect for human dignity?

[Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for some excellent remarks.

I would like to draw his attention to something that was said by the minister in his speech yesterday. I quote from Hansard . The minister said in reference to the free trade agreement: ``Why Israel? Israel and Canada have long enjoyed close relations. Our relationship is rooted in common values and shared democratic beliefs, the belief in freedom and the dignity of the individual''.

Yet we have a new regime in Israel under Mr. Netanyahu which has taken a very hard line with respect to the peace process, a very hard line with respect to the Palestinians. We have seen an outburst of violence on the West Bank.

I would like to ask my colleague whether he thinks, in supporting Bill C-61 which in essence ratifies the free trade agreement, we also endorse the policies of Mr. Netanyahu with respect to the Palestinians on the West Bank.

[Petitions, October 10th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to table a petition signed by some of my constituents of Hamilton-Wentworth, who are requesting that, in the event of a Quebec referendum in favour of separation, Parliament partition the province of Quebec to allow Quebecers living in regions where a majority of voters would have expressed the wish to remain within Canada to do so.

[Pledge Of Allegiance, October 9th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this debate on the motion moved by the member for Carleton-Charlotte, especially after having listened to the speech by the member for Bellechasse. I was much moved by his remarks because I feel they came very much from his heart. He presented to the House his dilemma as a Quebecer who feels a first allegiance to Quebec. He does not discount the rest of the country. Indeed, he spoke of a collective passport. I think he certainly is torn very much in his heart with respect to his loyalty to Quebec and to the country at large.

The flag was born 30 years ago in the midst of just such a debate as we have here in the House of Commons now. Lester Pearson felt that Canada was threatened with division and even separation and contrived to start a debate on the creation of a Canadian flag in order to solve the problem at that time.

I was a young man during the time when the maple leaf flag became our national flag. About 20 months later I was hitch-hiking in France with a young English student. The Englishman had a Union Jack on his flag and I had my Canadian flag and we set out in France. The Englishman asked: "What is that red smear that you have on your rucksack?" I said: "Well, that is our new flag". He said: "Well, our Union Jack has been around for centuries".

When we were in Normandy we were standing by the roadside and a French farmer came pedalling by on his bicycle. In those days it was typical for them to wear blue serge and a blue beret. He stopped by our two rucksacks. He looked at the Englishman's rucksack and the Union Jack and then looked at mine. He said: "Vous êtes Canadiens. Les Canadiens sont bons". He then jumped on his bicycle and pedalled away. That took place a mere 20 months after our flag had come into existence.

That flag in the past 30 years has become a flag that is recognized around the world as a flag which identifies Canada. I have to say, as did the member for Durham, that had I had on my rucksack a flag with the fleur-de-lis that Frenchman would not have known that I was Canadian and came from a separate country because the fleur-de-lis is a symbol used by other countries.

Wherever we go in the world, our flag now means that we come from a country that is noted for its tolerance and its ability to debate away its differences which is part of the genius that is Quebec.

Mr. Pearson brought in the flag in answer to a very difficult period that Canada was going through with its French Canadian component and it created a symbol which is very much a world symbol. That world symbol belongs as much to Quebec as it does to the rest of Canada because it was Quebec who caused the debate and created the flag.

The debate today is on the pledge of allegiance. When we go through this similar debate today I am absolutely convinced that as long as there are members like the member for Bellechasse, who will give his real feelings to the Commons and to the country so that we can solve our problems, I think we are well on our way to becoming not a distinct society of various provinces but a distinct society that is very much Canada.

The member said one thing that I would like to comment on. He said he did not think our differences were reconcilable because he had a first allegiance to Quebec.

There is one thing we differ on, and it is only a nuance. When I think of Canada I think of belonging to B.C., belonging to Newfoundland, belonging to Quebec. He says that Quebec is his nation. I say to him that Quebec is my Canada too. Quebec is my nation as well. I am sorry I do not speak French fluently but I am working desperately on it because that is all part of the wonderful exercise that brings us every now and then as Canadians to debate and to examine our identities.

We will always find that we are a tolerant and understanding people. We are constantly looking to our consciences because of Quebec.

[Petitions, October 4th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I present an entirely spontaneous petition from all across the country that would call on Parliament to take measures to withdraw charitable status from special interest groups.

By special interest groups I believe the petitioners mean those groups that lobby on behalf of particular interests and yet receive government funding because of their charitable status.

Canadians from one end of the country to the other would support the initiative in this petition 100 per cent.

[Criminal Code, October 4th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the member's judgment and sincerity in all the issues he addresses.

If I may say so, he put his finger on what is the precise problem with this kind of legislation. It is that it springs from consultation with the courts. He has said that the courts have been consulted on this legislation and then it was written.

I submit that this is one of the great problems we have in legislation in this House all the time. It is not remembered that this House of Commons is the highest court in the land. It is we the MPs who look to our constituency to try to understand the nation, to try to understand who we are as Canadians and to write the laws. It is wrong in my view to consider legislation and to consider how the courts will interpret that legislation rather than considering its moral and ethical impact on society. It is putting the cart before the horse.

I am not prepared to give the judges of the land who sit in their chambers a better acknowledgement of what Canada is all about than members of Parliament. It is we who have to interpret the ethics and the propriety of the laws.