James Rajotte

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because I failed to get an answer to specific questions for three consecutive days from the industry minister. Therefore I feel I have to raise it in the late show. The issue arose at the end of April. It was in a Winnipeg Free Press article concerning the industry minister and his assistant, Mr. Satpreet Thiara. It stated:

Industry Minister...has failed to provide travel records to explain the purchase of more than $5,200 in airline tickets for an aide at the centre of allegations that taxpayers' money is funding [the minister's] Liberal leadership campaign. A three-month Free Press investigation, which involved a request for travel records under the Access to Information Act, found that in the last two weeks of November [the minister's] previous ministry, Health Canada, booked six airline tickets worth more than $5,200 for special assistant Satpreet Thiara. Five of the tickets involved travel to Winnipeg. The date the tickets were used, or whether they were used at all, is not known. [The minister's] office has yet to provide a single expense report showing who authorized the airline tickets, or details of any expenses incurred by Thiara such as meals and lodging. [The minister's] office has refused numerous requests by the Free Press to explain the absence of expense claims and other travel records related to the airline tickets.

Further on the article stated:

Thiara has been a central figure in federal Liberal leadership politics in Manitoba. In an interview last fall, Thiara admitted that [the minister's] leadership campaign spent more than $60,000 to buy party memberships and delegate fees to flood the Liberal party's executive elections in Manitoba on Dec. 1.

Thiara confirmed in that interview he had been in Manitoba frequently during November on government business, which frequently allowed him to work on [the minister's] leadership campaign during his spare time on nights and weekends. Thiara said he had not asked for a leave of absence from his job because he was still primarily involved in government business.

For three days straight the opposition stood in the House and asked the industry minister some very simple questions, basically all coming down to what his special assistant does for him. What does Satpreet Thiara do? What is his job description? Canadians could then know that he is in fact working on government business and he is in fact not just working full time on the minister's Liberal leadership campaign.

I would like the government to give a response to that very specific question which we have asked over and over again. What does this assistant to the industry minister do on official Government of Canada business?

[Ethics Counsellor, May 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister asked the former defence minister to resign after the ethics counsellor ruled that conflict of interest guidelines were violated, yet the contract in question was given in July 2001, the report was presented in November of last year, and the ethics counsellor did absolutely nothing for months. He acted only after the media brought the issue to light and after consulting with the Prime Minister.

This demonstrates how ineffective this unaccountable ethics counsellor is. When will the government finally honour its commitment to appoint an independent ethics commissioner who reports to parliament and has the faith of the Canadian people?

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, May 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from my colleague.

I will speak to the amendment to Bill C-56, which states:

...this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, since the principle of the bill does not recognize the value of non-embryonic stem cell research which has had great advancements in the last year.

As my colleague pointed out, this is really one of the main points which was in the official opposition report to the health committee that studied the draft bill: that we have a three year moratorium on embryonic stem cell research, that we proceed with caution on these serious and grave ethical matters, and that in areas like adult stem cell research where the potential is quite frankly limitless at this point and is unknown, let us use these three years to really examine those alternatives. As the former leader of the opposition, Preston Manning, used to say, where there is an ethical route and a scientific route that converge, that is the route that should be taken.

I do want to quote extensively from an article in the New York Times of March 7, 2002, because it does point to some of the potential of adult stem cell research. It stated:

Adding an important piece to the rapidly changing picture of human stem cells, researchers have found that cells from the blood can regenerate not just the blood supply, but tissues of the skin, liver and gut.

This means that adult stem cells may actually be very potent, which was previously thought to be a criteria that applied only to embryonic cells.

The finding strengthens the emerging view that the body may possess a cache of universal repair cells that could patch up almost any damaged tissue. These repair cells, probably located in the bone marrow and fairly easy to harvest, can move out into the bloodstream and help regenerate any tissue that signals it is in distress.

Such a theory is far from proved, but if true could lead, some scientists believe, to new therapies aimed at enhancing the natural process.

This could be a possible answer to the pleas from people who, as all of us do, know people who suffer from degenerative diseases like Parkinson's. This could be the hope for them. The embryonic stem cells are being held out as the only hope for them when in fact there could be another hope for them in dealing with these diseases.

The article goes on to quote Dr. Helen Blau, a stem cell expert at Stanford University, who stated:

This appears to be a regenerative response we were never previously aware of. It suggests there may be a repair mechanism that goes on throughout life but is insufficient in major disease. If we could amplify this mechanism it could become a whole new form of medicine based on using the body's own cells to treat disease.

Some researchers even say that we should do the embryonic stem cell research because we need that as a comparative study for adult stem cell research, but again, in an area ethically fraught with danger, we believe we should proceed with caution.

I want to continue quoting this article because it is interesting. It stated:

The new finding is based on patients who received transplants of blood-forming cells from relatives after cancer treatments that had destroyed their own bone marrow cells.

...In a similar study reported this January, patients' own cells were found to have become incorporated in transplanted hearts. But this is the first report that human donor stem cells, presumably from the bone marrow, can populate several different kinds of tissue.

There is another quote, from a Dr. Donald Orlic of the National Institutes of Health, the advisory board to the president, who stated:

What is so good about this study is that it is showing bone-marrow derived stem cells demonstrating a high degree of plasticity because they have repopulated three organs.

Stated the article:

Plasticity is the stem cell's ability to become several types of mature cell.

Biologists have believed until recently that each tissue in the body has its own dedicated source of stem cells that repair just that tissue. While this idea still seems true, bone marrow has begun to emerge as a source of general purpose stem cells that work to repair damage wherever it occurs. It is not clear if the system of stem cells found in particular tissues is entirely separate, or somehow dependent on the bone marrow system.

What does seem clear is that the bone marrow stem cells are far more versatile than the tissue specific stem cells.

Physicians have already learned how to make the blood-forming stem cells rush out of the marrow into the bloodstream by injecting a person with a natural factor or cytokine called GCSF. The stem cells can then be harvested from a donor's bloodstream and used instead of a marrow transplant.

The patients studied by [this] team received blood-borne cells harvested from their donors in this way. Though the cells that contributed to the patients' skin, gut and liver presumably came from the donors' bone marrow, this has not been proved.

This suggests that there needs to be more research in this area to see exactly what the potential is.

The article went on and stated:

But experiments with mice have revealed the bone marrow as a source of versatile stem cells that can incorporate into several tissues, including the heart.

Bone marrow stem cells may in fact repair many, if not all, tissues and perhaps on a daily basis. But the repair system obviously fails to cope quickly enough with major damage, such as the loss of tissue in heart attacks. Perhaps, with the use of cytokines like GCSF, the marrow repair system could be brought to bear in many types of disease.

The...researchers said they were considering several such approaches, including collecting marrow cells from a donor's blood and injecting them directly into a damaged organ. “We might see the first clinical data in two or three years,” Dr. Körbling said. Dr. Orlic is working along these same lines and plans to see if GCSF-induced marrow cells can reverse heart attacks in rhesus monkeys before testing the approach in people.

It seems to me that particularly when we are embarking upon this new area of research where we have great potential in adult stem cell research, we ought to focus our efforts and resources in that area rather than embarking upon the ethically fraught area of embryonic stem cell research. That brings me back to a point I made in my previous speech. The bill fails to include or refer to arguments of first principle, that is, we are discussing issues on the surface without defining some of the most fundamental things before we get into those arguments.

The official opposition has asked that the preamble be amended by including the phrase “the dignity of and respect for human life”. That needs to be in the bill. It was in the Liberal majority report. It was in the official opposition's minority report and it needs to be in the forefront of the bill. It also needs to be in clause 22 of the bill as the primary objective of this new assisted human reproductive agency. It needs to have that as a guideline.

I come back to the whole issue that was highlighted, as I mentioned before, in the discussion between Preston Manning and Ms. Françoise Baylis from Dalhousie University. Ms. Baylis stated:

The first thing to recognize in the legislation and in all of your conversations is that embryos are human beings. That is an uncontested biological fact. They are a member of the human species. What is contested is their moral status. The language we use there is technical and that's where we talk about persons.

Therefore, the distinction for her is the distinction between a human being, which an embryo is, and a human person, but what has to be done in the bill and throughout the land on all of these life issues, I think, is that we then must distinguish between a human person and a human being, if there is a distinction. Maybe there is not a distinction. That is the debate we need to have in this place.

Ms. Baylis stated:

I think what becomes very clear is that when you're talking about embryos, you don't need to have a debate about whether or not they're human or human beings. The answer's yes. That's a biological claim. The term “person”, however, is not a biological term. It is not a term about which there are facts. It's a moral term. It's a value-laden term about which people will disagree, and they will then point to facts to try to tell you that their definition is the right one.

It seems to me that this is the main issue for us to debate here. Quite frankly I am not one who will stand in the House and say I know all the answers as to what exactly makes up a human person and a human being, but I have studied the issue. I have read the words of people like George Grant, one of the most pre-eminent Canadian philosophers of all time, who said this is the most fundamental question for any society because it impacts on so many other pieces of legislation and it impacts on how we value human life. He said that we have to decide what it is that is common to human beings and yet unique to them, so that we can stand up and say we have a charter of rights that says human persons have a right to life.

If human persons have a right to life, then we had better justify why it is they have that right to life. Is it the exercise of reason? Is it the capacity to exercise reason? Is it free will? Is it the capacity to exercise free will?

We have to decide exactly why it is we say that human beings or human persons have a right to life and the right not to be deprived thereof, or that for certain things such as an embryo, even an excess embryo created through IVF, somehow we can destroy that life and use it for research purposes. We need to answer that very fundamental question and debate that question in the House before we decide on what particulars the bill will have. That is the main point. That is why the official opposition has introduced this amendment, quite frankly: to ensure that this issue and this debate receive full deliberation and to ensure that in this very sensitive area we move very cautiously and prudently.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, May 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the two previous members who spoke to the legislation. They made some very thoughtful comments.

I rise today to address Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction. The legislation deals with some very difficult medical, scientific and ethical issues.

The bill has been expected for a long time, ever since the royal commission on new reproductive technologies reported in 1993. It is of course a direct response to the report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health which reviewed draft legislation and made a series of recommendations on December 12, 2001.

I would like to publicly commend all members of that committee for their work, particularly our health critic, the member for Yellowhead, and the former member for Calgary Southwest, the former leader of the opposition, Mr. Preston Manning.

As the two previous speakers said, this is one of the most important issues we will discuss during this parliament. What does the bill do specifically? The proposed bill prohibits unacceptable practices, such as creating a human clone for any purpose, reproductive or therapeutic purposes; identifying the sex of an embryo created for reproductive purposes except for medical reasons, such as sex linked disorders; creating human/non-human combinations for reproductive purposes; paying a woman a financial incentive to be a surrogate mother, commercial surrogacy; paying donors for their sperm or eggs or providing goods or services in exchange; and selling or buying human embryos or providing goods or services in exchange. The official opposition generally supports these measures.

I would like to point out in particular the prohibition of sex selection for reproductive purposes. In 1994, as an assistant to the former MP for Surrey North, I had the opportunity to work on a private member's motion that sought to do exactly this. I commend the government for finally putting forward this measure in legislation.

The legislation would also establish the assisted human reproductive agency of Canada. This agency would operate as a separate organizational entity from Health Canada reporting to the Minister of Health. It would have up to 13 members on a board of directors reflecting a range of backgrounds and disciplines. I would suggest that whoever determines the agency, such as the minister, should consider someone like the former member for Calgary Southwest, Preston Manning, as a member on that board.

The agency would also be responsible for licensing, monitoring and enforcement of the act and its regulations. It would maintain a donor offspring registry. Finally, it would provide reliable information on assisted human reproduction to Canadians.

Our main concern about the agency is that it would report to the Minister of Health. We question whether it would have the independence required of such an agency to be truly effective.

The most contentious issue in the bill is obviously embryonic stem cell research, in particular, the fact that excess embryos would be used for research purposes. The bill would prohibit the creation of embryos solely for research purposes, something which I very much support.

I want to respond to the previous speaker whose comments I felt were well thought out. If we were to allow excess embryos from IVF, how could we be sure that they were not created simply for research purposes?

The member also indicated that the embryo was life and that if an excess embryo were created and subsequently killed, through death would we not seek to help other lives? That is partly true ethically, but the question is, are we unwillingly killing an embryo? This is not a willing person giving his or her life in a defensive situation for another life. There is no consent and that is something we have to consider.

This is a very difficult medical issue. My uncle is a diabetes researcher in Edmonton. I know many scientists are looking at embryonic stem cell research and see a lot of possibilities in it. They are looking at helping people through this research.

My main concern with this legislation and with other bills that come before the House is the lack of guidance by first principles. The majority report of the health committee suggested we include in the preamble of the legislation the phrase “the dignity of and respect for human life”. That has to be in the bill at the very beginning. We have to be guided by that first principle.

That was stated in both the majority report from the Liberals and the minority report from the official opposition. It should be included in clause 22 of the bill as a primary objective of the new agency.

That brings me to the biggest question we face, which is the question behind the bill. It seems that many people do not want to answer the question of the distinction between a human life, human being or human person. It is interesting to note that philosophers in ancient times always defined terms in the preamble or before they even got down to the serious work. That is what we have to do here. We have to define these terms.

The definition of a human being under section 223(1) of the criminal code, as it is currently written, states:

A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not

(a) it has breathed,

(b) it has an independent circulation, or

(c) the navel string is severed.

Frankly, that definition is unacceptable to me and it is unacceptable to most ethicists and people in the medical community in Canada.

I would draw the attention of the House to a question Mr. Preston Manning asked during the health committee discussion on this draft bill. He wanted to know what the moral status of the embryo as captured by the legislation should be and how we would establish and define that moral status in law? That was an excellent question.

Ms. Françoise Baylis, from Dalhousie University's department of bioethics, gave the following response:

In philosophy, we would refer to this as an essentially contested concept. There is no answer to it because it is not a matter of fact, and there are no more facts to put on the table that will resolve the question, though there are more facts about human development.

The first thing to recognize in the legislation and in all of your conversations is that embryos are human beings.

Her response contradicts the definition that is currently in the criminal code.

She went on to state:

That is an uncontested biological fact. They are a member of the human species. What is contested is their moral status. The language we use there is technical and that's where we talk about persons.

She has distinguished between a human being and a human person.

She went on to state:

I think what becomes very clear is that when you are talking about embryos you don't need to have a debate about whether or not they are human or human beings. The answer is yes.

She said that debate had been decided. She said that it was a biological claim and stated:

The term “person” however is not a biological term. It is not a term about which there are facts. It is a moral term, a value laden term about which people will disagree and they will then point to facts and try to tell you that their definition is the right one.

I think that was a very illuminating exchange between Preston Manning and Françoise Baylis. That to me is the crux of the issue here. If it is, as she said, decided that the embryo is in fact a human being but it is not technically a human person, then that is what our debate should be about today.

If we all agree that the embryo is a nascent human life but it is not necessarily a person, what is it that distinguishes a human person from a human being? What characteristics or criteria do we use? When do embryos become persons and what is the distinction?

In researching this I went through some of my old essays. One essay was by the Canadian philosopher, George Grant, one of the most pre-eminent philosophers this country has ever seen. In discussing another issue, he said that we have to think as a society about what it is that is common to us as a species but unique to us as a species so that we can stand up and say there is a charter of rights in which we as human beings have a right to life. We do not do that. The definition in the criminal code is simply biological, not ethical. That is a debate we should have.

The reason the Canadian Alliance and the official opposition are very hesitant about embryonic stem cell research is not only because of the potential of adult stem cell research but because it is part of our conservative philosophy that we define things, as Aristotle did, not simply as they are, not simply looking at what they are today but at what they will potentially be. That was his famous concept of actus et potentia in which we examine an acorn, not just look at it but examine it, knowing that it will become an oak tree. We also look at an embryo not just as an embryo but we look at it knowing that it will become a human being.

In conclusion, I encourage all members to deliberate on these very difficult medical, scientific and ethical issues.

[Government Contracts, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the questions will keep coming if we do not get any answers from the other side.

Why would the owner of Groupe Everest make an exception for the minister? It is clear that he wanted the minister to give him favourable consideration in the future. As Mr. Boulay himself said last week in an interview on television “You don't have to be a Liberal to get a contract, but it helps.”

The minister placed himself in a position of obligation to Groupe Everest by accepting a personal favour from its owner. This is unacceptable behaviour from a minister of the crown. Will he do the honourable thing today and resign?

[Government Contracts, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the owner of Groupe Everest, Mr. Boulay, affirmed to the press that he does not normally rent his chalet but that he made an exception for the minister's family.

Will the minister of public works admit that he received an exceptional personal favour from a company which receives millions in contracts from his own department?

[The Environment, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the industry minister has written a secret letter to his cabinet colleagues to lobby on this issue. He stated reservations in Alberta on this issue. It is incumbent upon him as industry's advocate to stand up in the House and state exactly where he stands on Kyoto.

The fact is the cabinet is divided on this issue between the environment minister and the industry minister. We need to know where the Government of Canada stands on the issue.

Will the industry minister, as the advocate for industry, as a potential prime minister, stand and state where he is on this issue?

[The Environment, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the recent revelation about the industry minister's views on the Kyoto accord follow statements he actually made in Alberta recently expressing serious reservations about ratifying the accord. He was concerned about the impacts on productivity, on investment and on our standard of living. He vowed to serve as industry's advocate in cabinet and publicly favoured an approach based on innovation and technological advances.

Will the Minister of Industry stand in the House today, express his reservations and state his official position on the Kyoto accord?

[Technology Partnerships Canada, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is an insult to taxpayers. The government has handed out $1.6 billion since 1996. It has received $20.1 million back. That is a 1.3% return. Technology partnerships Canada is a corporate welfare program and the minister should admit it.

The finance minister stated in the 1995 budget:

Across government, we are taking major action in this budget to substantially reduce subsidies to business. These subsidies do not create long-lasting jobs. Nobody has made that case more strongly than business itself.

What happened to the minister's own words? What is he doing to ensure that the government gets money back from these corporations?

[Technology Partnerships Canada, May 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, according to the annual report of technology partnerships Canada, corporations that have received grants under TPC have only paid back 1.3% of the money owed. When the finance minister announced the program in 1996, he said that TPC would be able to fund itself and would pose no more risk to taxpayers than it would to the private sector. Clearly he was wrong.

My question is for the Minister of Finance. How much will it cost the taxpayers to shoulder the burden of all of these bad investments by absorbing the losses of TPC?