Peter Goldring

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, by dividing Bill C-15B the question really becomes: How was it divided and why was it divided? The answer has to be rooted in Bill C-15B being inherently flawed and should simply be thrown out or not divided at all.

Because of the confusion of the Senate and the House and the delays, will the upcoming July 1 deadline for registering shotguns be once again delayed or will the government finally give in and throw out the registry of long arms altogether? What does my hon. colleague say to that?

[Iraq, March 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow at 12 noon thousands will gather on Parliament Hill to stand up and show support for the allied forces in the fight to free Iraq. The allies fight to remove the butcher of Baghdad. They fight to remove the threat of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. They fight while weaker leaders dither and quiver behind public opinion polls.

Will the Prime Minister listen to the calls for our government to stand up with our allies to help free the people of Iraq? Will he?

[Iraq, March 21st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, as we speak, Saddam Hussein's Iraq is under siege. The “Butcher of Baghdad” has scant days left to his evil rule.

Saddam has for too long been a harbourer of terrorists, a killer of his own citizens and a user and purveyor of weapons of mass destruction. Saddam personifies the new world's most evil threat, post-September 11.

While Great Britain, the United States and Australia together do their part to rout Saddam, we do not stand with our allies today. We stand in the shadow of the United Nations' failure to act. We stand aside because of a Prime Minister who failed to help. We stand aside, due to a Prime Minister interested more in personal popularity polls than safe, secure world order.

Shamefully, our Prime Minister is more ready to continue the “Butcher of Baghdad” and his evil threats, than to accept and help the most and the best of the free world marching to end Saddam's reign. God save the Queen and God bless America.

[Budget, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to ask a question with regard to the accountability. We all know the problematic files, from firearms to GST to HRDC to Groupaction, and the list goes on and on. We also have the homeless file, where $753 million has been put in over the last three years supposedly to help the homeless. The three years is up this year. The homeless count is up 60%. The shelters are full. There are people sleeping on the street and sleeping in the LRT stations for emergency shelter. The question really becomes, “Where did the money go?” That comes around to the accountability of it.

I would like my colleague's opinion on the importance of accountability and proving the accountability of past money before we put new money into it.

[The Budget, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will preface my question to the hon. member by asking her what has happened with the $753 million of homeless funding initiated three years ago and now at the end of its three year program?

Homeless counts are up 60%. Nationally, few shelter spaces have been added to the system. In Edmonton this winter, an LRT station was opened to put homeless people up on a few square feet of concrete floor. That is the progress that has been made in three years with $753 million. In Edmonton alone, some $20 million went into homeless funding and the result has been people sleeping on LRT floors. There has been no progress made if that is the result of it.

I ask the member opposite, what exactly does the government intend to do with the additional $400 million? Will the homeless count be up again?

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

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is very appropriate that we take the time to wish the men and women of the Canadian navy from the HMCS Iroquois well following the tragic crash into its deck this morning of a Sea King helicopter. I hope they arrive back in Halifax soon to be with their friends and their families. Our wishes and our prayers are with them too.

Defending Canada's interests and freedoms has a toll, the price of peace can be very high. This should remind us all of the increased cost as lives and health are at risk in dated equipment. Today it is a 40 year old Sea King helicopter. Yesterday it was an under armoured and under gunned Sherman tank put up against Tiger tanks in World War II.

Perhaps this bill being discussed today has relevancy to this. Imagine the injured, the wounded, the high toll of World War II and what advances will be made by stem cell research over the next years, and how that could have aided our past generations of wounded from World War II.

I am pleased to speak to Bill C-13 today. It should be noted that we support a number of aspects of the bill. We fully support bans on reproductive and therapeutic cloning, animal human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, the by and selling of embryos and paid surrogacy. We also support, with changes, an agency to regulate the sector.

We oppose human cloning as an affront to human dignity, individuality and rights. We have repeatedly spoken out against human cloning urging the federal government to bring in legislation to stave off the potential threat of cloning research in Canada.

In September we tabled a motion at the health committee calling on the government to immediately ban human reproductive cloning. The Liberals deferred a vote on the motion. The preference was to deal with cloning in a comprehensive reproductive technologies bill. However Motion No. 13 seeks to clarify the bill's current cloning prohibition.

What the bill says is that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction must be given priority. Human individuality and diversity and the integrity of the human gene must be preserved and protected. We support the recognition that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction should be given priority.

In fact the health committee came up with a ranking of whose interest should have priority in the decision making around assisted human reproduction an related research: children born through assisted human reproduction; adults participating in assisted human reproduction procedures; and researchers and physicians who conducted assisted human reproduction research.

While the preamble recognizes the priority of assisted human reproduction offspring, other clauses of the bill fail to meet this standard. Children born through donor insemination or from donor eggs are not given the right to know the identity of the biological parents. The bill's preamble does not provide acknowledgement of human dignity or respect for human life.

The bill is intimately connected with the creation of human life and yet there is no overarching recognition of the principle of respect for human life. This is a grave deficiency.

Our minority report recommended that the final legislation clearly recognize the human embryo as human life and that the statutory declaration include the phrase “respect for human life”. We believe that the preamble and the mandate of the proposed agency should be amended to include reference to the principle of respect for human life.

We have several concerns with stem cell research. The first would be that embryonic research is ethically controversial and divides Canadians. Embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the death of the embryo, early human life. For many Canadians this violates the ethical commitment to respect for human dignity, integrity and life. An incontestable scientific fact is that an embryo is an early human life. Complete DNA of an adult human is present at the embryo stage. Whether that life is owed protection is what is really at issue here.

Embryonic research also constitutes an objectification of human life, where life becomes a tool which can be manipulated and destroyed for other even ethical ends. Adult stem cells are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. Sources of adult stem cells are umbilical cord blood, skin tissue, bone tissue, et cetera. Adult stem cells are easily accessible, are not subject to immune rejection and pose minimal ethical concerns. Embryonic stem cell transplants are subject to immune rejection because they are foreign tissues. Adult stem cells used for transplants are typically taken from one's own body.

Adult stem cells are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's, leukemia, MS and other conditions. Embryonic stem cells have not been used in the successful treatment of a single person. Research focus should be on this more promising and proven alternative. Our minority report called for a three year prohibition on experiments with human embryos corresponding with the first scheduled review of the bill.

Bill C-13 states that embryonic research can be undertaken if the agency is satisfied that such research is necessary.

During its review of draft legislation, the health committee recommended that such research be permitted only if researchers could demonstrate that no other category of biological material could be used for the purposes of the proposed research.

During the committee's review of Bill C-13, members tried to restore the spirit of this recommendation with an amendment specifying that healing therapies should be the object of such research. No embryonic research should be done for the development of cosmetics or drugs or for providing instruction to assist human reproduction procedures. The committee rejected this amendment and the Speaker rejected it coming forward for the report stage debate.

Bill C-13 specifies that the consent of the donor of human embryos is required in order to use a human embryo for experiments. The bill leaves it to the regulations to define donor. There are two donors to every human embryo, a woman and a man. Both donors, parents, should be required to give written consent for the use of a human embryo, not just one. Motion No. 17, put forward by our party, calls for a complete prohibition on embryonic research.

[Petitions, February 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present a petition put forward by many Canadians.

This petition calls for support for ethical stem cell research which has already shown encouraging potential to provide cures and therapies for illnesses and diseases. The petitioners call upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research to find the cures and therapies necessary to treat the illnesses and diseases of suffering Canadians.

[The Budget, February 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for his comments about accountability in another file that has been very evident to Canadians of recent. I am speaking of the homeless file where $753 million has been spent over the past three years but absolutely nothing for independent living homes; $753 million in funding that has gone into a system and this winter we have people sleeping on the streets. We are opening up LRT stations in Edmonton to put up homeless people. This is the gain after three years of funding into the system.

If $753 million was spent and the homeless count is up 60%, how much higher will those homeless numbers go with the $400 million that is in the budget now?

[The Budget, February 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I would first like to make some observations and comments. We have had $753 million in homeless funding over the last three years. Where did it go? There are no homes. Today in Edmonton an LRT station for homeless people is being opened. The shelters across Canada are bulging. People are sleeping in the street. Three years of homeless funding of $753 million and it has been an abysmal failure. Now the government wants to throw another $400 million into a system that is already abysmal, without a plan and without a strategy.

I would like to ask the member opposite a question. He previously stood in the House to make the statement that the affordable housing funding to be approved would be for families, not for singles. The $753 million of homeless funding has gone for naught because the homeless are on the streets. It should be recognized that the people who are homeless and living in shelters are singles. There was $680 million for affordable housing which did not go into it.

Who exactly will be housing those single people who are in such dire need? Will any of this new funding be appropriated for single people or is it all for family housing? The singles on the streets in Edmonton and those sleeping in the LRT station will still be there next year. Will that be the case?

[Petitions, February 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a petition put forth by many concerned Canadians. These petitioners ask the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice to stop the exploitation of our children in child pornography. They demand that Parliament take all necessary steps to ensure that all materials that promote or glorify pedophilia with children be outlawed.