Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak in the House, particularly when there are more pages than members of parliament in the House. That aside, this is an important issue. It is one I am glad to speak on, the tumbleweeds blowing through the House aside.
The opposition has been calling for legislation on this subject since 1993 when the royal commission on new reproductive technologies reported. The then minister, which I believe is three or maybe four health ministers ago, introduced a voluntary moratorium on some technologies in July 1995. The government introduced a bill on June 14, 1996 prohibiting 13 uses of assisted reproductive and genetic technologies, but the bill died on the order paper at the call of the 1997 election.
That is an important point. We often talk in the House about the importance of certain legislation. There can be nothing more crucial than the regulation and government consideration and oversight over the creation and disposal of human life. What is more essential than that? However, the government in its haste called an early election in 1997 because it saw an opportunity to win a campaign then. That kind of opportunism killed a very important bill and a very important debate that this House and Canadians were expecting from their legislators.
Those are some of the technicalities and realities that the government uses political opportunism in order to call a quick early election. Frankly that is one of the reasons the Canadian Alliance and its predecessor, the Reform Party, has always believed in the principle behind fixed election dates. It is exactly for situations such as this one, so that important legislation does not suffer the whims of the political capriciousness of the prime minister of the day.
After the 1997 campaign draft legislation was submitted for consideration to the Standing Committee on Health on May 3, 2001, four years later. The committee presented its report “Building Families” in December 2001. In March 2002 the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, followed by Genome Canada, pre-empted parliament by publishing rules to approve funding for experiments on human embryos and aborted fetuses.
Here we have a case where legislation was on the table but it died on the order paper because the Prime Minister wanted to say he had another majority government under his belt. He called a very opportunistic early election campaign and the legislation died.
It got to the point in March 2002 when the government still had not tabled legislation that people outside the House of Commons had to do the government's business for it. The provinces have to pick up the slack and do the government's business for it on the health care side. Now on the most fundamental issues of when life begins, how it is regulated and so on, people in the private sector are doing the government's business.
I want to spend the bulk of my time talking about the agency that will oversee the regulations. First I want to talk briefly on what my colleague from Blackstrap, Saskatchewan was talking about, which is the issue of the rise of adult stem cell research and its promise.
Canada is already a leader in adult stem cell research. For example, by supercharging adult blood stem cells with the gene that allowed them to rapidly reproduce, a team of Canadian researchers at the University of British Columbia healed mice with depleted blood systems. Some day these adult stem cells may be able to reproduce bone marrow for transplant in humans. These are promising advances in medical technology.
There are numerous examples of recent advances in adult stem cell research beyond that as well. Here are a couple.
Researchers found evidence that stem cells circulating in the bloodstream can grow new tissue in the liver, gut and skin. Adult stem cells are therefore more versatile than previously thought.
University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute researchers showed that adult born marrow stem cells can become blood vessels. The researchers said “the findings suggest that these adult stem cells may be an ideal source of cells for clinical therapy”.
Duke University Medical Center researchers turned stem cells from knee fat into cartilage, bone and fat cells. The researchers said “different clinical problems could be addressed by using adult cells taken from different spots throughout the body, without the same ethical concerns associated with embryonic stem cells”.
The official opposition's minority report called for a three year prohibition on the experimentation with human embryos to allow time for the use of adult stem cells to be fully explored. It recommended “that the government strongly encourage its granting agencies and the scientific community to place the emphasis on adult, post-natal, stem cell research”. A three year prohibition would also coincide neatly with the three year review already mandated by the bill.
The idea of having a three year moratorium is entirely justified. I know that there are Liberal members of parliament who agree. The member for Mississauga South circulated to all members a publication on the idea of having a three year moratorium on embryonic stem cell research.
It makes perfect sense because when we think about it, science is transnational. It crosses the boundaries of borders. It is not relevant to the jurisdiction where discoveries are made so much as it is that the discoveries are made. Just because other jurisdictions have more liberalized their capacity to experiment in embryonic stem cell research does not mean Canada has to rush to the fore. It is my view and the view of the majority of my colleagues in the Canadian Alliance, that rather than rush into science and hope for ethics and a respect for life, we should rush into ethics and respect for human life and hope for sound science. That is the appropriate balance most Canadians, if asked, would really hope to see.
One thing about the bill that we do applaud is the ban on commercial surrogacy. Although it is reasonable to reimburse actual expenditures made by surrogate mothers, commercial surrogacy should effectively creep in simply by inflating the expenses associated with it. Clause 12(2) should ensure that this cannot happen by adding “and the expenditure is reasonable, necessary and directly related to the objects above”.
We fully support the ban on human and therapeutic cloning, chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, buying and selling of embryos and paid surrogacy. These are steps in the right direction.
Given that I do not have a whole lot of time left, I want to address the agency as I said I would. The mandate of the agency in clause 21 of the bill is to “promote the human dignity and human rights of Canadians”. If this is not reflected in the preamble of the bill, this contradiction can be resolved by including the following statement in the preamble. The proposition we are going to be tabling is taken mostly word for word from the majority report of the health committee. It states:
It is hereby recognized and declared that assisted human reproduction and related research must be governed by principles and practices that respect human life, individuality, dignity, and integrity.
The assisted human reproduction agency of Canada will not report to parliament but only to the minister. It should be made into an independent agency for reasons that are self-evident. Principally if we are talking about human life, when it begins, how it is regulated and how it is overseen, it should be a decision by the entire House and by extension therefore of the entire country because this is an issue for us all. This is an issue of the fundamental premise of what all government is. As a mentor of mine said, governing in politics is answering and hypothesizing about a sequence of questions: what is human nature; how does it intersect with power; how therefore can power be formed to the realities of human nature. It is a cycle that goes around and around.
Adult stem cell research and embryonic stem cell research is a core issue that fits right into that cycle. It is an issue for broad discussion and broad consultation with as many voices as possible having an opportunity to speak.
Clause 25 allows the minister to give any policy direction she likes to the agency and the agency must follow it without question. The clause also ensures that such direction will remain secret. If it were an independent agency answerable to parliament, such political direction would be more difficult. The entire clause must be eliminated.
Members of the board should also have fixed twice renewable terms of three years to ensure that the minister simply cannot get rid of a non-compliant board member or keep one on forever. This was recommended by the majority report that came out of the health committee. The chair of the agency should be appointed for a five year rather than a three year period so that this appointment surpasses the electoral cycle. This will minimize political pressure on the agency.
The performance of the agency should be evaluated by the auditor general rather than the agency itself and the review should be made public.
Those are obvious areas of accountability. If we asked some six year olds to organize a group to make a tree house and they all pitched in 25¢ a week, they would have better managerial oversight of those 25¢ contributions than the government seems to have over the management and regulation of the creation and destruction of human life.
The licensing process for new fertility clinics should be made transparent and should become a public process.
With respect to the records kept by the agency, in the current bill there are no reporting requirements. At the very least an annual report to parliament must be mandated.
Also we need to keep in mind on this issue that reproductive technologies is a matter of provincial constitutional jurisdiction. If we studied and understood sections 91 and 92 of the constitution as most members of parliament should, we would all recognize that this area is one of provincial responsibility. There needs to be some federal oversight for continuity between jurisdictions, however, the application of this is indeed one of provincial jurisdiction.
The government's attempt to limit the contributions of members of parliament, of the committee and of the provinces is hardly a way of desensitizing the moral implications of the bill because we need to broaden the discussion and have more input so more Canadians can have as big an input as possible into the creation and potentially the destruction of human life.
