Mauril Bélanger

[Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, May 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on May 23 the Ontario health minister, Tony Clement, announced that the heart and vascular surgery unit of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario will close in April 2003.

When the CHEO unit closes, eastern Ontario children requiring vascular surgery or emergency cardiac procedures will have to travel approximately 400 kilometres to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children to receive the medical attention they so desperately require.

CHEO serves a population of approximately 1.5 million people in eastern Ontario. Why would 140 children per year who require cardiac or vascular procedures travel to Toronto when an effective unit exists already at CHEO? Not only will this put some children at risk, it will worsen the almost unbearable stress already experienced by these children and their families. Centralization is not the best way to improve health care delivery in Ontario.

While he attempts to explain this most recent announcement to eastern Ontarians, I wonder if Mr. Clement will declare that Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children will offer its services in both official languages, as the CHEO has been mandated to do.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak this morning to Bill C-56. The purpose of the bill is to create a legislative framework for assisted reproduction, as well as to prohibit certain practices such as cloning, the sale of human embryos, and the creation of chimera. It also addresses DNA, that is genome alteration, and the issue of cloning for therapeutic purposes. The third element of the bill addresses the creation of an agency, one of the responsibilities of which will be monitoring research in this field.

First I would like to address the aspect that seems to have captured the attention of most of my colleagues who have had the opportunity to speak so far: stem cell research. All of my colleagues have made the distinction between adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. A number of them seem to acknowledge the usefulness of research using adult stem cells but seem opposed to research using embryonic stem cells.

I will address the issue. A colleague on this side of the House criticized the Canadian Institutes of Health Research because only 1% of research money for stem cells is dedicated to adult stem cells. This would stand to reason because the ability to use adult stem cells is rather recent. There is a certain lag in allocating research money to recently discovered areas of research. I expect that over the next months and years we will see an increased percentage of money allocated to adult stem cell research.

However that does not detract from the valid position the government is taking in allowing embryonic stem cell research. A number of groups in our society look forward with great hope to the results of such efforts. I have received correspondence from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation which is supportive of it. I will quote a respected gentlemen from our community, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, who published an article in the Ottawa Citizen earlier this week. Rabbi Bulka said:

For those who were silent when embryos were being discarded--and that includes just about everyone--why the sudden outrage? It makes no sense to be silent when the embryos are being discarded but to scream “murder” when the embryos are being used for potentially life-saving research.

He also said:

As regards the slippery slope, I find it hard to defend that argument if doing so compromises the potential to cure pernicious illnesses. There is nothing wrong, and everything right, with using embryos that would otherwise be discarded.

I concur with that view. Perhaps the attention of the agency should be focused on the number of embryos that can be created to assist families in having children. The surrogate debate we are having on abortion is ill placed and ill advised. We should be focusing on the research potential of embryonic stem cells that would otherwise be discarded.

My other concern is that banning such research would stand to harm us in the long term. Other countries have not banned it. Great Britain has taken the position that embryonic stem cell research should be accepted. The United States, our neighbour to the south, has stated that public money can only be used for existing stem lines. Nothing bans private research.

According to the World Health Organization $8 billion of research funding went into genetics research in the year 2000. Some $6 billion of it was spent in the United States. Most was from the private sector. If people think no embryonic stem cell research is going on in the United States I suggest they think again. That is not the case.

Banning embryonic stem cell research when no one else is doing so would erode our research capacity over time. It would put us in the unfortunate situation of not being able to provide the kinds of medical advances to our citizenship that other countries are providing theirs. It would be a rather irresponsible position to take.

I have other reservations about the bill, but I will still support it because of the three year review. One of these reservations is that we might be too restrictive in other areas as well. For example, we would ban the transmission of genetic modifications to our DNA. There are 4,000 genetic diseases, so if I can cure genetic diseases in my DNA and transmit them to my children, I would be guilty of a crime according to the bill. Yet if I transmit the disease I am not. That is a reasoning that has to be verified.

I support the legislation now because it is still a science at a beginning stage. We are not yet sure of the consequences of changing our DNA and therefore the prudent method would be to say no for now. I am willing to go along because in three years the bill would be revised. The ability to cure some of the 4,000 genetic diseases affecting hundreds of thousands of Canadians, if not millions, is an idea that we should not abandon. We have to be careful there.

My other reservation, and it is a controversial one, is therapeutic cloning. If we were to develop therapeutic cloning to the point where diseases can be cured, would we not be wise to lock that away forever? Our understanding of human genetics is at its early stages so perhaps we should leave well enough alone in terms of going along with this. I am prepared to go along with it as long as there is a three year review in the bill.

During the debate, which I have followed fairly closely, two or three other points were raised. I would like to address two of these.

Our NDP colleagues advanced the idea that the board that would administer the agency created by this bill should be made up of an equal number of men and women. I find this an attractive idea and trust that they will support this bill so that it may be referred to committee and this question studied there. I personally am very open to this idea, depending on the arguments advanced. We shall see.

The other argument my NDP colleagues raised for voting against this bill concerns the matter of patenting life forms.

They cannot support the bill since it does not contain prohibitions against issuing patents either on human genes or on live forms. I agree that we should ban the patenting of human genes, a practice that has been going on in this country for nearly 20 years. We should be careful about issuing patents on life forms. We will see what the supreme court decides on the Harvard mouse case presumably some time this fall.

I agree with the NDP that parliament should initiate measures to ban cloning. However this need not be in the bill. As has been argued by a member of the NDP, it would be better if it were in a separate bill. The patent legislation we have is incapable of dealing with the science and the progress we are making in genetics. We should review it and create another bill entirely.

My colleagues from the NDP should consider supporting the bill and not opposing it on the grounds that it does not contain prohibitions on patenting of a higher life form, of human genes, and the notion of having male-female parity on the board of the agency. One of these issues could be addressed in a separate piece of legislation and the other could be addressed in committee.

Overall the government has presented a balanced bill, but one that will not meet everyone's acquiescence. That seldom happens of course. The bill would provide sufficient protection yet would not ban our ability to make progress in curing diseases that afflict too many of us.

[Radio-Canada, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, there have been labour troubles within the French network of the CBC for some time now, too long in fact.

Last week we had hopes of a solution to the conflict, but it was unfortunately turned down. This week there are other rumours that developments may be forthcoming at any moment.

Could the Minister of Labour tell the House of any recent developments there may have been in the labour dispute at Radio-Canada?

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, May 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I note that the member favours the avenue of providing one's own stem cells, adult stem cells I presume he meant, for one's own illnesses.

Would the comments of the member still apply if the requirement were to have one's own embryonic stem cells? That practice would be banned by the bill, in terms of the actual taking of the genetic material from an embryonic cell and then putting in one's own genetic material and producing material which would definitely not be rejected by the body.

Would the member's view still hold if he had to obtain stem cells from such a source?

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, May 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I missed the beginning of the presentation by the member for Lac-Saint-Louis. However, I heard that he was mainly referring to the issue of embryonic stem cells. He is firmly opposed to what the bill is proposing. I respect the fact that my colleague may have this opinion. I hope that he too will respect the fact that others may have a contrary opinion.

My question for the member is this: Can we assume that the rest of the bill is well founded and deserves the support of the majority of members of this House, or does he see other problems he would like to share with us?

[Payment Clearing and Settlement Act, May 9th, 2002]

I invite the members across the way to show some courtesy. Although they do not seem to be willing to, I will keep talking.

The evolution of the industry—with the specialization of various stock markets and stock exchanges in Canada, especially that of the Montreal Stock Exchange—is important for the Canadian economy.

I believe that the bill we have before us—and I am not the first one to say so since all parties seem to have recognized the bill entitled an Act to amend the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act—will improve the competitiveness of the Montreal Stock Exchange compared to foreign stock exchanges offering a similar range of products.

I wish to congratulate its president, Mr. Luc Bertrand, for his efforts in explaining to the government and opposition parties the timeliness of this bill which will modernize the legislation and, in a way, correct this flaw.

Finally, I wish to congratulate my colleagues for their cooperation, even if we do have our differences about the bill's origin, for instance. All have recognized its relevance and necessity. It goes to show that when we want to, we can easily cooperate get things done in order to help our financial institutions be competitive.

[Payment Clearing and Settlement Act, May 9th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, in a former life, before I came to the House, I was a securities dealer for several years and was thus able to learn about this industry but most of all about its importance for the Canadian economy.

I thus followed with interest the progress of Bill S-40 from the other place to this House, in order to give it my support.

I also followed to a certain point the development of that industry, even if I am otherwise concerned.

[Health Care Spending, May 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, using the term invention in connection with the human gene strikes me as a bit bizarre. Human genes already exist. We did not invent them. We discover them, just as we discover the properties of elements. At some point, therefore, the law should be reviewed.

If I understand correctly, the only consideration has been an economic one. Philosophical and political considerations have not come into play, just the economic one. That is all that matters. I am here to defend the common good, to defend the public, not the private sector. I am here to defend and improve, if possible, the condition of our entire species, not just here, but worldwide. This emphasis on the economic means that only private and corporate interests are being considered. I admit that this is where I have a problem.

I hope that there will be an opportunity to debate this issue again when the committee set up by the government tables its report, which is expected in the spring of 2002. We should have it soon.

[Health Care Spending, May 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, some time ago, I asked the Minister of Industry a question about a practice which is accepted in Canada, the granting of patents for human genes. I was wondering if we should maintain this policy.

The minister replied that the issue was under review and that there had been some precedents. In fact, I believe we have been issuing patents for human genes since 1985; in the meantime, I have learned that the first application for such a patent came from the United States, from the University of California, in 1978. The first gene was patented in 1983, I believe. Therefore the phenomenon is not new.

I have three concerns and four minutes to explain them. The first one is political and philosophical. I have a hard time accepting that human genes can belong to the private sector.

I think that this knowledge we are acquiring, at a cost of billions of dollars in research, mostly done by the public sector even if it does not remain in the public sector, this knowledge on the genome sequence of the human species, or other species, belongs to all of humankind. It can be compared to the knowledge that benefited all of humankind when we first established the properties of the elements, when the periodic table was created.

I believe that if someone found a new element and wanted to take out a patent for it, he would be shown the door. It is not conceivable, for instance, to have a patent on oxygen, hydrogen, sulfur or whatever.

This practice is allowed for human genes or genes of other species. Philosophically speaking, I have some difficulty with this and with the policy we have. I believe that scientific knowledge should be shared and it should not be patentable. Knowledge of human gene is scientific knowledge. This philosophical aspect of the issue is the first reason I question this practice.

The second aspect is an economic one. It has been said that this will help our economy, but I am not convinced. At the moment, there is a case before the courts dealing with the patenting of a gene for breast cancer. A company is using this patent to stop research on other processes connected with this function of the gene. I look forward to seeing the ruling on this case.

The third concern deals with international development. In its report ,the World Health Organization says that in 2000 $8 billion was spent on human genome research and of that amount 80% of this was spent in the United States. It is understandable that this research is being carried out in the United States, in some European countries, in Japan, in Australia and in Canada, all industrialized and developed countries.

If we pursue this policy of patenting human genes or genes of other species, it is conceivable that some day between 20 and 25 developed countries will have all the patents for all species. There will be some 150 or more countries left behind, because they do not have this capacity to acquire knowledge. They will have to pay private companies to get the capacity to use the knowledge in order to develop.

These were my concerns. I hope to have other opportunities to talk about them and that other members of the House will do the same, because I believe it is a fundamental issue.

[Private Members' Business, May 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago, in response to my question, the government House leader admitted that the system for private members' business was not working well, to say the least, and invited us to take part in a round table. Last week, I and about thirty other members did just that. The discussions were productive. A number of consensuses seem to be emerging.

My question is for the chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. When does he expect to report to the House on what was discussed at this round table so that we can take this further?