James Lunney

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, March 18th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we are back debating Bill C-13, a very important bill, an act respecting assisted reproductive technologies and related research, as it came to be known. It started as Bill C-56 and our health committee spent a fairly extensive period of time discussing this issue. It came to us in a rather appropriate form as draft legislation. The health committee spent the better part of a year dealing with the very technical aspects of the bill. We came up with a report that we entitled “Assisted Human Reproduction: Building Families”. It was tabled in December 2001. We spent a lot of time dealing with this comprehensive report.

Today, the Group No. 3 amendments with which we are dealing address a significant aspect of the bill. There are quite a number of issues that are being addressed here that are important to the outcome and the application of the bill, and to the effect that it will have on Canadians and certainly on the industry. We want to address these important amendments that have been brought forward.

In our report “Assisted Human Reproduction: Building Families” members of the Standing Committee on Health were united in wanting an end to commercial surrogacy. It happens that the members for St. Paul's and Vancouver Centre were not members of the committee at the time, and these new members of the committee are responsible for some of the amendments that we will be addressing today. The report stated that:

It is contrary to our thinking to treat human beings or human material as commodities that can be regarded in terms of their economic value rather than their intrinsic worth. In particular, we feel that children can never be objects to be acquired or exchanged. Women and men need to know that their bodies and their reproductive material are not for sale or barter.

Some of the amendments that are being addressed here, particularly Motion No. 28 by the member for St. Paul's, would delete prohibitions on surrogacy from the prohibitions and would allow it to be dealt with in regulations, which would allow compensation and commercialization of this aspect of reproduction. Motion No. 29 from the member for Vancouver Centre would allow for the payment of legal and medical services.

There are aspects of the bill that we certainly, as a health committee, were not inclined to want to see advanced. For example, the payment for sperm and gametes. These amendments would allow for donor compensation, but basically we are talking about selling human cells and human life.

A website of a Canadian company working out of Toronto is offering sperm donors--although it is not called compensation, it is just for their expenses in making a donation--$65 per sample. It is recruiting on university campuses for young men to make a donation and allows them $65 for their trouble. They may leave up to three samples weekly. That would total about $200 a week for a university student. That is pretty good part time income we might say, about $800 a month for someone who wanted to take advantage of that.

Furthermore, successful donors are referred to the company by their friends or fellow students. Referrals can be an excellent source of revenue, it says here. If individuals are comfortable talking with others about being a donor, they receive a $10 referral fee for bringing in a friend, but if the friend is accepted as a qualified donor, they receive a $100 finders fee.

This is what our health committee was concerned about. We did not want to see human reproduction commodified. We did not want to see people selling human cells or human parts. For example, we do not pay a kidney donor for a kidney and we do not think we should be paying people for materials to produce babies or for babies themselves, as these amendments would allow.

I am quoting again from the committee report:

Women and men need to know that their bodies and their reproductive material are not for sale or barter. The Committee does not support any elements of trading, exchanging, buying or selling of human reproductive materials. We are aware that, in recent years, commodification, and in many respects, commercialization, have occurred in the field of assisted human reproduction. We want to ensure that the legislation will prevent the commodification of children, women's bodies, human reproductive material, and reproduction.

The fact is commercialization is already taking place in the United States. People who have a desperate need for a baby are able to buy one with the help of numerous surrogacy agencies.

A quick Internet search under “surrogacy” returns over 54,000 website hits revealing the vast amount of commercial businesses available to people who are willing to buy and sell babies. How much are people willing to pay for someone to have a baby for them? What should be an altruistic gift to an infertile couple could wind up costing that couple as much as $50,000 U.S. or even more if they want twins or a surrogate mother that is experienced.

How much can a woman sell her baby for? The going rate for a surrogate mother in the Untied States is about $20,000 U.S. and more if the woman has experience or if she is willing to carry twins.

Is that what we want to pursue in Canada, the buying and selling of children? That is really what it amounts to. That is what will happen if the amendments that the members would like to bring in are passed. They would take out the clauses that prevent sale, surrogacy and commodification. That is what will happen if the legislation is amended to reflect the motions put forward by the member for St. Paul's and the member for Vancouver Centre.

Ms. Phyllis Creighton is a member of the Health Canada Advisory Committee on the Interim Moratorium on Reproductive Technologies. She spoke to the health committee on September 25, 2001. I would like to reflect on some of her comments. She stated:

Canada should learn from the U.S. experience, with its unsavoury catalogues of surrogates and Internet marketing. Sound public policy must be based on the principle of the best interests of children. Baby brokers are not in the best interests of children.

Commercial surrogacy is vitiated by its morally unacceptable premise that a baby is a product to be exchanged and transferred for money. Brokers may claim that payment is for the reproductive service that the surrogate mother renders, but since she's not paid the full sum agreed to in the pre-conception arrangements until the baby is received into the custody of the commissioning parents, it is the baby who is being paid for.

Ms. Creighton concluded:

We do not pay the expenses of kidney donors for their donation in circumstances of life-threatening need. Childlessness is anguishing and worthy of compassionate help--

We certainly agree with her on that.

--but it is not a life-threatening condition. And it ought not to be done unless the best interests of children are secured.

The issues raised in these amendments are very important ones. There is donor compensation and whether we want to pay people for their gametes. Furthermore, other aspects of the bill allow for the import and export of gametes. Why, we might ask, would we allow for gametes to be imported from other countries where we cannot control the quality of the collection or the persons they are being collected from? We did hear evidence at committee that semen samples that are arriving at sperm banks in the U.S. are being sought out and also received from prisons in the United States.

Mr. Speaker, we are addressing some important aspects of the bill. I am wondering, given the importance of these amendments, whether I might receive unanimous consent from the members to continue my comments for five more minutes.

[Question No. 149, March 18th, 2003]

What was the total cost of the expense accounts of Vivian G. Albo, Chairman of the Board of Canada Post Corporation, during the fiscal years 1995-1996, 1996-1997, 1997-1998, 1998-1999, 1999-2000, 2000-2001 and 2001-2002?

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, February 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, again I am pleased to enter the debate on Bill C-13, a very important bill dealing with reproductive technology and related research. The Group No. 2 amendments, which are the subject of discussion today, involve a very important section of the bill that deals with matters like reproductive cloning. It deals with the delicate area of research in terms of embryos. There are some extremely important matters to be discussed in this section and the amendments that have been brought forward are very important to the way this bill will be implemented, if indeed it is passed.

The issue of cloning is an extremely important one. We hear a lot about cloning today and in the last few years in particular. There was Dolly the sheep and Matilda the sheep. Matilda, the Australian version, died when not quite three years old. There was a news report just recently that said “Australia's first cloned sheep dies of unknown causes. She appeared to be remarkably healthy” and now she is gone.

Dolly the six year old Finn Dorsett sheep, and the most famous one, was unexpectedly euthanized as she had progressive lung disease. A sheep ordinarily would live 11 or 12 years.

Scientists are alarmed about the dangers of human closing. The bill purports to ban cloning. However the hon. member for Mississauga South very ably addressed his concerns this morning that the scientific terminology was very loose in the bill. In fact there are many procedures now whereby cells can be manipulated and can step around the prohibitions that appear in the bill. The definitions in the current bill related to cloning are not adequate to protect Canadians, as the language of the bill would purport to do.

There is a group of people, the Raelians, running around. We have heard that name mentioned a few times today. The Raelians are a cult and they work through their company called Clonaid. Their vision is to perpetuate human life by creating a clone. Again the hon. member for Mississauga South used the Acting Speaker, the Speaker before you, Mr. Speaker, as an example. He said that if we took one of his cells, extracted the nucleus and put it into an ovum, one could stimulate it electrically and allow it to grow. The so-called therapeutic clone would be to take the immature model of Mr. Speaker and extract an organ, if he needed one, killing the clone in the process. That is so-called somatic nuclear cell transfer or therapeutic cloning.

Scientists, including many of the ethicists such as Dr. Françoise Baylis, Dr. Bartha Knoppers and I believe Patricia Baird as well as our stem cell scientists such as Dr. Worton and Dr. Alan Bernstein, the head of the CIHR, and many others, said at committee that we should open it up for therapeutic cloning. They do not want to close the door.

Frankly, there is very compelling reasons, ethically and morally, why we would not want to do that. I think Canadians would be averse to that as they came to understand the implications of the bill. Also, we feel many members of the House are just beginning to delve into the depths of this. The weighty matters involved with this and the scientific terminology causes some to bail out and take a whatever approach.

The members of committee sat through, waded through and listened to the scientists and experts who tried to help us understand this and work through the tangle. I have to compliment the member for Mississauga South for the efforts he has made to inform himself, as a layperson, on the very profound scientific implications of this bill. In fact he has probably become one of the most reliable experts around here. The work he has done and the book he has produced on stem cells to try and raise the level of understanding on all sides of the House is very commendable indeed.

The Raelians want to take some of their cells, take a human egg and implant some of themselves into this new being. They somehow feel that they would be able to transfer their being into a new clone that would look like them. We have to wonder where people are going with this.

The bill also deals with hybrids. Some amendments in Group No. 2 deal with the creation of hybrids. Motion No. 26 would bring some restrictions. Motion No. 27 and Motion No. 23 address various aspects of creating a hybrid for the purpose of reproduction. Motion No. 23 would add paragraphs into the prohibitions, paragraphs (j) and (k). Motion No. 23 states in part:

(j) create a hybrid for the purpose of reproduction, or transplant a hybrid into either a human being or a non-human life form; or

(k) combine any part or any proportion of the human genome with any part of the genome of a non-human species.

We have to think about the question of chimera. That is another word with which Canadians may wrestle. What on earth is a chimera. We are talking about these hybrid life forms. We have to wonder why would scientists want to take genes, or cells or cell parts from lower life forms and plant those into human beings, just to see what we might get out of it. It is kind of alarming.

Recently the Friendship Group of Parliamentarians for UNESCO met. The subject of the day was reproductive technology and Dr. Françoise Baylis was one of the invited speakers. She is an expert from Dalhousie University. I was rather shocked Dr. Baylis' remarks regarding chimera. She said:

I am asking people to think about chimeras because they represent for us the possibility that we will say one day that personhood right now means that human is a necessary but, for some, not sufficient condition for moral status. Chimeras between the species will force us to ask the question, ‘‘Do you even have to be human to get personhood?’’

What does she mean by this? She also said:

It is fascinating from a moral point of view to understand chimeras, intelligent computers and the world toward which we are moving because we will need to make fundamental value decisions about how to treat other beings.

Is it the purpose of scientists to create some other being? I may be part mouse and part human. Are we talking about something like Greek mythology, some kind of creature with a goat body and human trunk and a head? Where are we going with this? What do we hope to get out of it? Is it possible that she is contemplating that we would create another species with human life, part of it maybe has a human head, human ears and eyes and a mouse body and we will use this for research, but it will not be considered human.

Where on earth are they going with this? Why would we need to go there with the resplendent array of human genetic material we have available to us? There are about six billion of us on the planet. We come in various sizes, shapes, colours and with various racial descriptions. We are pretty well represented in the House of Commons in the type of human beings who are available on the planet. What an array of genetic diversity there is available to us. Why would we need to mix human life with other life forms?

From my knowledge of how viruses work, I am very concerned that this kind of research has the potential to open the doors to the transmission of viral diseases from other life forms that would never have crossed to human beings and offer the potential for catastrophic consequences. We have seen some nasty examples, such as growing human polio vaccine on monkey kidney and monkey brain cells. We ended up with monkey virus, like SV40, being transmitted to human beings. Health Canada right now is looking into whether over nine million Canadians have been infected with a cancer causing virus because of growing a virus on another species to which it would never have had access. Therefore the possibility of spreading disease is there.

The member has raised some excellent amendments in the Group No. 2 motions. They bring some measure of accountability to the bill. I hope all members of the House will look at them seriously and will vote the right way when it comes to voting on these motions. They will tighten up the bill and the definitions and restrict the creation of the mixing of animal and human genes.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Mr. Chairman, the problems faced by our Newfoundland fishers and fisheries is not dissimilar to what we have on the west coast.

In the case of the hake, it was an abundant resource but it was a resource that Canadian fishers were not that interested in while there was an abundance of other fish stocks, like salmon, halibut and other species which were more desirable. However, as we ran into problems with other fisheries, suddenly hake came up in importance. The plants had to convert to be able to process the hake.

Certainly there was a promise made that if the plants made the investment to process the hake they would be given more of the resource. I am very pleased that the minister followed through with that, so that we could have employment. These were coastal communities that basically were facing de-population without some kind of employment. I know now that people are working again. The plants are working. The money that is coming from the plants goes into the town coffers for infrastructure, sewers, water supply and so on. It is benefiting the community greatly.

Yes, I think value added is really important in the softwood industry. Whether we are talking about softwood or our fisheries resources, we should be trying to maximize employment for our people so that we all prosper from the resources that are available to us.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Mr. Chairman, the aquaculture debate is certainly one in which people are interested. Aquaculture is a new industry. We also want to differentiate the shellfish aquaculture from fin fish on the farms. Most of the controversy, frankly, other than the interruption of the beautiful coastal views that shellfish farms represent in the disturbance of the natural scenery, is about the fin fish.

As an early industry, like any industry, there are things we are going to learn. There were a lot of mistakes in siting, problems with the nutrification of the sea floor and problems with inadequate flow in shallow bays initially.

The industry has recognized the great problems with predation, with predators getting in the nets and with nets and equipment that basically did not handle the storms well. Some of those problems have been handled by industry with better nets, double walled nets now that are much more predator proof for example, and they are anchored by great big weights that handle the storms better, so escapes are down for that reason. I think that improvements in the industry and the way it manages things have helped.

However we went through a moratorium under the previous provincial government that prevented new sites. This caused problems because although some of the farms would have liked to have moved their farms to other sites to reduce the challenges of nutrification, they were not allowed to have a new site. That compounded some of the problems that might have been eliminated with better management.

My personal view is that these industries can be developed in a manageable way but we need to have honest discussions. There are other issues like the arc lamps, the use of lights at night. There are still some issues related to that which need to be sorted out. Some simple science should be able to answer that. It appears that the farm fish are not eating the small fry coming through that might be attracted by lamps but there are other concerns that the lamps may attract predators.

There is the great concern about siting near rivers, especially during migration, and whether they should be fallowed and moved to an alternative site while the fish are migrating.

Those are all important questions that we hope will be answered very quickly with the appropriate science. I am glad DFO is going to invest in further scientific studies. Hopefully we will find the answers to help develop sustainable employment. Many people in our aboriginal communities are even finding employment in my riding working with the aquaculture industry. That certainly is something that we want to see developed in a manner that does not harm our wild stocks but provides employment opportunities so that we can do both in a responsible manner.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Mr. Chairman, in addressing that I have to say that British Columbia has gone through a very difficult economic period, beginning about 1995. The B.C. economy was very much hinged to the Asian economy, Japan and Hong Kong. Around 1997 we all remember that Hong Kong reverted to China and there was a lot of money being exchanged.

B.C.'s economy was doing very well up until about 1995. As the Asian flu hit, as the Japanese market for our softwood products largely dried up in Hong Kong, and as the transfers of money diminished, B.C.'s economy really plummeted.

Of course, there were the problems in the fishery. We have a lot of displaced workers. There were problems in the forestry. Now of course we have had a great softwood lumber problem for the last two years. Our economy is in great distress.

With regard to oil and gas exploration there is certainly hope. Frankly, in my riding we have seen de-population. Many people from across the country retire in my riding. In fact, my riding has two of the six oldest communities in Canada within a few kilometres of where I live.

People like to retire in my riding but many others are seeing members of their families, who used to work here in fishing and logging, moving off to Alberta for jobs. We have grandma and grandpa here on the island but their kids and their grandchildren are off in Alberta because that is where the employment is.

Many people are looking to oil and gas as a possible spark plug, as they are in Atlantic Canada, for an economy that has faltered. We are hopeful this can be done. It is not as though we are the first people in the world to do this. We are hopeful that we can do exploration in a responsible way and develop our resources in a manner that will not disturb or damage the fisheries.

[Fisheries, February 26th, 2003]

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to enter the debate tonight with so many other members who, by and large, are members of the fisheries committee. They are members who take these issues to heart because they have studied these issues. I know that members from all parties are concerned.

We have heard a lot of issues addressed tonight, but I would like to bring a perspective from my party and from my own riding of Nanaimo--Alberni on Vancouver Island.

There are some serious issues here. These issues involve the livelihoods of men and women, and communities who draw their life from the sea. Each of these issues is serious to those individuals directly involved by them. The members from the east coast have addressed the crisis in the ground stocks in the cod fishery. It is a serious situation there right now and the minister is facing some important decisions. Communities no doubt are in angst about them.

I regard the time that I spent on the fisheries committee as some of my most meaningful and enjoyable time in the House of Commons since I was elected. The committee heard from witnesses and prepared a fine report on the issues relating to the Grand Banks and the east coast fishery.

There are two main issues. First, is the custodial management issue that the committee addressed. We felt there was a huge problem with the Grand Banks because the nose and tail are not within Canadian jurisdiction. This is part of our continental shelf. It has been abused by international fishers because it is outside the 200 mile zone. It has been abused by overfishing, by bycatch, and sometimes even targeted catch for moratoria species.

Because it is our continental shelf, it is time for Canada to take action and do what is right, and manage this for the people closest to the resource and the ones who manage it with the future in mind. I support our members and the committee report because it was excellent work and something the government should take seriously.

The second important issue involves the seals and we have heard other members address this as well. Many Canadians need a reality check regarding these sea predators. The minister has allowed a cull of about 350,000 seals per year over three years. Herds of seals range from 6 to 8 million, and a sustainable herd is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2 to 2.5 million. Seals eat tonnes of fish a year, but they do not eat the whole fish. It is not like they take one and take it up on the shore to have a barbecue with their friends and be satisfied with one fish. They take the choice parts out of the belly and the liver, but the fish dies, leaving most of it to waste in the sea. There are about 4.5 to 5 million seals each eating a tonne of fish a year. Is it any wonder the ground stocks have not been re-established?

People in Newfoundland and Labrador and the other Atlantic provinces who depend on these resources ought to have access to these resources. As Canadians, we ought to make decisions that will make it possible for them to benefit from those resources.

My colleagues from Delta and Skeena talked about the disaster on the Fraser River this year. This is a management issue. Some 15 million salmon returned to the river and yet the catch that was allowed was only about 3 million, allowing some 12 million to escape past Mission and up into the spawning grounds. This was a terrible loss to our fishers and the commercial fishermen who depended on salmon for their livelihood. Fishing has been withheld for years now because of wrangling with the department.

This has gone to the point where we wonder what the department's mandate is. Is it trying to drive people out of the industry? We estimate there was about a $200 million loss to the industry, but not only did it damage the people who depended on the industry, it also damaged the spawning grounds. Surely, we can do better than that.

I would like to address a smaller but an important issue to the people involved in my own riding, and that is the rock cod fishery on the west coast. There is also pressure on this resource, but we do not know a lot about the rock fish. It is an interesting species that dwells very deep. There are some scientific things we do not know about this species, but some concerns have been raised recently about the sustainability of this fishery.

There are presently about 70 rock cod boats, many of them from my riding. These are boats that fish the inside waters. For the past year and for current and projected allotments, they are just not sufficient to sustain a livelihood.

I know the member for Vancouver Island North presented a request to the minister recently about a buyback program that perhaps could be supported even by stamps that would relate to the sport fishery that also takes these fish. This is an important issue and I hope the minister will address it. It is a small number of people but when it is one's livelihood it is just as important. Therefore, on behalf of the rock fishers on the coast, I hope the minister will take this issue seriously.

I would like to address the Pacific hake fishery briefly. Our committee had a lot of discussion about this recently and the minister made a decision to see this resource processed on shore. I certainly heartily endorse that. Processors were under great stress in my riding and they have benefited from handling this resource on shore in Ucluelet and Port Alberni. We applaud that decision, but at the same time there are big concerns that there is a problem with the scientific joint review group which recommended a total allowable catch between 96,000 tonnes and 133,000 tonnes for 2002.

The U.S. simply would not agree with the joint scientific review. It went ahead and set a quota at 130,000 tonnes, basically scooping the whole of what was recommended by the scientists. Canada allowed 40,000 tonnes plus an additional 10,000 tonne carryover because of what was not harvested the year earlier. The total catch was about 180,000 tonnes and this has put the resource in an unacceptable stress. We have to get this sorted out. I hope the minister is working on this now to see that this is managed properly so that the resource is available for years to come.

I cannot enter this debate without addressing the issues that are related to the coast guard: MCTS, Marine Communication and Traffic Services, the dive team, and the government's chronic failure with regard to the coast guard.

In 1995 the coast guard was dumped from Transport Canada and landed in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I guess it made sense to some people because they both use boats, but frankly their mandates are quite different.

MCTS, in particular, has gone through downsizing, amalgamation, cross-training and repeated least cost analysis. Our committee tabled an excellent report just recently on this issue recommending at least a $2 million infusion to enable MCTS centres to do their job. I hope the minister will take that seriously. We do see more money coming into the budget but where it is allocated is not specified. There is a great concern to see this money appropriated to this service so the officers, who are under such stress, will be given the tools they need to do their jobs properly.

I would like to address the aquaculture issue. It certainly is a topic that inspires spirited debates on both sides of the issue, both for and against. It seems that if people have an opinion at all on aquaculture, it is either very strong on one side or the other.

In my riding of Nanaimo--Alberni we enjoy unparalleled natural beauty. That is one of the reasons that many people, including my wife and myself, moved out to this area. It has the mountains and the oceans, and it was a lifestyle choice when we moved out there. We are concerned about the health of the environment, the habitat and the future of our precious resource, the pacific salmon. However we also have small communities that look to the ocean for their livelihoods and we want to ensure an adequate standard of living and employment for their citizens.

There are some very important issues at stake here. I personally believe that we can achieve both a healthy environment and sustainable employment, but we need to use good science.

A conference was held at the University of British Columbia just last weekend to discuss the effects of sea lice. The effect of sea lice on wild salmon stocks is a big concern in my riding right now and on the entire coast. As a result of the conference, we have a made in B.C. solution to achieve a better understanding about these complex issues surrounding farm and wild salmon, a better understanding of the factors that affect the wild stocks.

We know that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has a plan to address this and I am sure they also will be considering the information that has come out of the conference at UBC. It has a plan for increased scientific scrutiny of the issues in the Broughton archipelago. We hope it will use the insight from the UBC conference and apply this with some wisdom. I believe that if we look at the science seriously and work together we can find the answers that are necessary to see sustainable employment and see our wild fisheries protected as well.

[Criminal Code, February 20th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Wild Rose said, it is sometimes a pleasure to enter the debate in the House, but this bill is certainly not a pleasant thing to address because of the subject it deals with. In short, Bill C-20 is about child protection but it does not provide what it purports to do. My party wants to address why we feel that way and why we feel it is an illusion.

Ever since the Supreme Court decision in the case of John Robin Sharpe, Canadians have been waiting for the government to take the initiative and provide some genuine protection for Canadian children. Unfortunately, Bill C-20 fails in the effort and therefore it fails Canada as a whole.

I remember when the John Robin Sharpe decision came down in British Columbia because there was a huge public outcry in our communities. Members have received many letters and have presented many petitions in the House. I have tabled two petitions with over 1,000 signatures. Petitions have been submitted by all members of the House and in both official languages.

Most Canadians do not realize the extent of this plague of child pornography that is among us. I want to share some of the thoughts that have come in the deluge of mail I have received in my office.

Mrs. Hilda Higgs of Lantzville, B.C. wrote that she was appalled that someone could see anything artistic when it comes to child pornography.

Gerald Hall of Lantzville, B.C. quoted Job 9:24:

When a land falls into the hands of the wicked, he blindfolds its judges. If it is not he, then who is it?

He wrote a second time and said that the minds of our children are too precious to allow misguided individuals like Mr. Sharpe to overturn perfectly common sense laws that are in place to protect society.

Marilyn Burrows of Port Alberni. B.C. wrote expressing concern that the John Robin Sharpe decision would set a dangerous precedent for our children.

Isabel Zenuk of Qualicum Beach wrote that children are our greatest natural resource and that we must work to close the loopholes in our child protection laws.

Dr. Maureen Keane from Qualicum Beach wrote and asked that the age of consent be raised and that the artistic merit defence be removed.

Dorothy Thomson from Parksville, B.C. sent a white ribbon and said that child pornography is a heinous crime against our children and our grandchildren and that it must be stopped.

Helen Metz of Parksville, B.C. wrote that artistic merit was a subjective quality, so anything could be judged to have artistic merit. She sent a white ribbon and asked us to close the loopholes in the legislation.

Joan Groot of Parksville, B.C. wrote that it was unbelievable to think that child pornography could have any artistic merit, and that this could not be the Canadian way.

In spite of the member who spoke earlier, I thought I heard her making some allusions that we had to consider art in this. I hope I misunderstood her, aside from the fact that I was a little distracted at the time with other matters.

Denzil and Rose Merriman of Nanaimo, B.C. wrote that children are a precious inheritance and should be cared for and looked after, and that the idea of child pornography had artistic merit was utter nonsense. I wholeheartedly agree.

Carol Rae of Errington, B.C. called the office to say that we must do something to prevent another Sharpe decision. She was worried that the new legislation would not stop child pornography. I share her concern, as do many members on this side of the House.

The government has brought in the public good defence as a legal defence instead of artistic merit. Most Canadians would have a hard time understanding that any depiction of an adult abusing a child sexually could have any artistic merit.

It is time for our artists to have a reality check. It is time for the House to deliver such a reality check with very clear legislation that removes such defences and makes child pornography, as the member for Wild Rose said, eliminated in our society. We can do it. We have the ability to do it. We need to do it to protect our children.

Most Canadians are not aware of how pervasive this problem is. I do not think all members in the House have any idea.

Some of us were here when members of the Toronto police came to the Hill. They apologized for having to subject us to the protrayal of such graphic images. Their officers, after dealing with this stuff and looking at it, sometimes have to go on leave because of the sickness they feel after seeing those images.

Some members here who viewed those images had to leave the room. Some could not bear to look at the images. I am still haunted by some of the images we saw brought forward by the Toronto police, by what is out there on the Internet, what people are feeding on and what is being spread in our society, hundreds of images through computers and through other means, and yet the courts want to say that there is artistic merit in some of this. We need to get this stuff out of our society. It is poisoning the minds of our citizens and it is leading to abuse of our children. It needs to be stopped.

One of the most glaring failures of the legislation is the proposal that the legal defence for child pornography has been sufficiently narrowed to prevent harm to children through using the so-called “public good” defence.

In the Supreme Court case involving John Robin Sharpe, the chief justice remarked in paragraph 70:

“Public good” has been interpreted as "necessary or advantageous to religion or morality, to the administration of justice, the pursuit of science, literature, or art, or other objects of general interest.”

The glaring problem is that asking whether or not a piece of child pornography has artistic merit is the same as asking whether a piece of child pornography is necessary or advantageous to the pursuit of art. The answer is very likely to be the same in the courts.

The concerns of my constituents are very likely to be borne out, that justices can look at the images that John Robin Sharpe had as artistic merit, they are likely to be approved under this public good defence.

The government wants us to believe the same legal procedure for defence will result in a different verdict and that children will be protected. I call that smoke and mirrors. It is not good enough. We need to close the loopholes, not change the names they go by.

If the Supreme Court found that pornography had artistic merit, it certainly could find that child pornography was necessary and advantageous to the pursuit of art. The defence is the same, why would the result be different? There should be no defence for child pornography.

The age of consent is another glaring disappointment in the proposed legislation. It fails to raise the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16. That is for sex between adults and children. It is hard to fathom why the government refuses to make this much needed amendment to the criminal code. The police chiefs are asking for it. We have young girls at 14 years of age who think they know everything about the world. We were young once and we thought we knew a lot, but at that age they are children. They have not had enough life experience to resist the luring and the abuse that adults expose them to. The fact is that 14 year olds are being abused. We need to raise the age of sexual consent.

Whereas Canada was once recognized as a global leader in combating the sexual exploitation of children, the international group, ECPAT, the End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism and which is now called End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking, released a report in November 2000 stating that Canada's regressive age of consent laws, flawed legislation and an overall lack of planning by the federal government are turning Canada into a venue for sexual exploitation of children.

The report, titled “Looking Back, Thinking Forward”, also criticized Canada for increasingly becoming a hot spot for sexual tourism. Predators are coming from all over the world to take advantage of our lax age of consent laws, and Canadian children are paying the price.

Maximum sentencing is another failure. The government proposes increases in maximum sentencing but, frankly, maximum sentences are hardly ever used. We should be raising the minimum sentences so that we send the message to our criminals out there that they will pay a price if they abuse our children.

Police and prosecutors still do not have the tools to deal with child pornography cases effectively or efficiently. Children must be protected from abuse at the hands of all adult predators, regardless of whether that relationship is a so-called trust relationship or not. The Liberals' failure to prohibit all adult-child sex leaves children at an unacceptable risk.

The artistic merit defence needs to be eliminated, not changed into a public good defence. That is a charade. Higher maximum sentences will not be effective. We need higher minimum sentences. The age of sexual consent for adult-child sex must be raised to protect our children.

I hope that members will consider this bill and make the amendments necessary to protect our children. It is time we took action in the House for the good of our citizens, for the good of our children and for the good of our society.

[The Budget, February 19th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we are concerned about the mixed message coming out of Health Canada. For example, in the statement today by the member for Vancouver North he said that there were advertisements in Vancouver for marijuana grow-ops, and I have seen ads in my own riding. People can grow their own medical marijuana and supply it. One of the people advertising this is a convicted felon. He has been convicted of growing and distributing marijuana and carrying firearms.

The message out there is that somehow marijuana has already been approved for use and that smoking marijuana is okay. What kind of message is this for young people? If marijuana is going to serve as a medical instrument, surely we would want to measure it, quantify it and prescribe it in appropriate doses rather than allow people to grow their own.

I submit that Health Canada is sending a mixed message to our young people who are very vulnerable. This is not only causing confusion but it is opening the door to the whole criminal element.

[The Budget, February 19th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, on February 7, I asked the Minister of Health a question regarding the medical marijuana being grown by Prairie Plant Systems in Flin Flon, Manitoba. Actually my question concerned the hundreds of pounds of marijuana being grown down in the depths of the mine. I said that Canadians wanted know what was being done with the pot from the rock garden and how the joint venture benefited Canadians.

The problem here is that there is no transparency on this issue. On May 7, 2002, the Minister of Health told the health committee that the first harvest produced approximately 185 strains of marijuana. She failed to mention the quantity of marijuana and its intended use.

Since then there has been no mention of the first crop of marijuana or of the subsequent second crop of apparently research grade marijuana. I believe Canadians would like to know the fate of hundreds of pounds of taxpayer funded pot.

Another problem I am concerned about is that there is an obvious disconnect between the way Health Canada handles the marijuana file and the way it is handling the tobacco file. The federal tobacco control strategy has committed over $500 million over five years to get people to quit smoking and the government also gives permission to hundreds of Canadians to smoke marijuana. What is wrong with this picture?

Even though Health Canada admits it has not assessed marijuana use for medical purposes for its safety, efficacy and quality, it has granted licences to Canadians to smoke the substance.

As of February 7, Health Canada has issued 541 authorizations to possess, of which 537 are still active, 353 personal productions licences are out there and 32 designated person licences.

Health Canada offers us three categories for medical marijuana access. Category one is for terminally ill patients with a prognosis of a life span of less than 12 months. I do not think anybody would withhold marijuana from somebody who is dying.

Category two involves those suffering from specific symptoms associated with certain serious conditions, like multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, spinal disease, cancer, AIDS/HIV, severe forms of arthritis and epilepsy.

Category three is for those who have symptoms associated with a serious medical condition, other than those described, where conventional treatments have failed to relieve their symptoms.

Nowhere does Health Canada tell the public how many of these people are terminally ill, category one, or how many belong in each category.

This is a problem. The medical community acknowledges that marijuana produces 50% more tar than the same weight of tobacco. Marijuana smoke contains 70% more benzopyrene than tobacco smoke. Smoking two or three marijuana cigarettes is widely estimated to have the same effect on the risk of cancers and the prevalence of acute and chronic respiratory systems as smoking 20 or more cigarettes.

To gain access, a declaration must be made that the benefits to the applicant from the recommended use would outweigh the risks, and that includes the long term risks.

If people are supposed to get their own marijuana, which is untested for uniformity, for safety, for efficacy, how is a medical doctor supposed to determine if the benefits outweigh the risks except in terminal cases? If a patient's level of drug tolerance and the depth of inhalation vary greatly and impact significantly on the amount needed to obtain the desired level, how can a doctor in good faith prescribe a correct dosage for the patient?

Why is Health Canada sending mixed signals to Canadians: that it is okay to smoke marijuana but it is bad to smoke cigarettes? What has been done with the pot? How are Canadians benefiting from this exercise?