Rob Merrifield

[Research and Development, April 16th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last week, Genome Canada, a federal agency, approved $5.5 million for a stem cell genomics project. The press release was eerily silent on whether the controversial embryonic stem cell research was part of this project, but a call yesterday to a lead researcher confirmed that they are doing research on human embryos in this project.

My question is, why would the government hand over funds for research on human embryos before parliament has even seen a bill on the subject?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, April 16th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask that we revisit motions because I have a motion that I would like to move.

[Reproductive Technologies, April 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, last week President Bush denounced all forms of human cloning. “Life is a creation, not a commodity”, he said. Sadly, science fiction is quickly becoming science fact.

Early last week it was reported that the first cloned baby was on its way. Late last week scientists linked to a group in Quebec claimed to have already implanted cloned embryos in women. If they are experimenting here, there is no federal law to stop them.

On Friday we asked the government to assure us that cloning experiments were not taking place in Canada. We received no such assurance. It is imperative that legislation on cloning and research on human embryos be debated in the House as soon as possible. There are groups out there intent on cloning humans, and the CIHR has pre-empted parliament by saying that research on embryos can go ahead.

Parliament must be heard on these life and death matters, and this time legislation must not be allowed to die on the order paper.

[Research and Development, April 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we warned the government last fall that this would happen. We called for an immediate ban then but it refused to listen. A royal commission reported back in 1993 and it went nowhere. Bill C-47 died on the order paper in 1997. Meanwhile, human cloning is becoming a reality and in fact may already be too late.

Will the government promise that its long overdue legislation will not die on the order paper this time?

[Research and Development, April 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, science fiction is quickly becoming science fact. Today's headlines report another group has begun cloning humans. This is not the first headline that we have seen this week.

Scientists linked to a group in Quebec claim that they have already implanted the first human embryo in women. If they are experimenting in Canada there is no law to stop them.

Could the health minister assure the House that cloning experiments are not already happening in Canada?

[Pest Control Products Act, April 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the hon. member is related to two things. First, there is concern about the safety of pesticides, particularly the new generation of pesticides. The hon. member talked a lot about residue and said only 1% hits the mark. Many if not most new pesticides have zero residuals but I understand his concern. Most consumers are quite concerned about pesticides.

Second, the use of new generation pesticides has been tremendously reduced due to genetic modification of food. Could the hon. member comment on this?

[Pest Control Products Act, April 8th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise and speak to this important piece of new legislation. It is a remarkable piece of legislation and important to all Canadians.

We are all concerned with the environment, our health and safety and what we are doing to our environment, whether it is air pollution, our water supply, or what the person next door is doing. As our population grows Canada and nations around the world become challenged in some ways.

Bill C-53 deals with some of the things we are doing with pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. There is an overwhelming desire for consumers to understand and discern exactly what is happening to the environment. It is important for them to understand what is involved with the use of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides. To that end this is an important piece of legislation and comes at a time of tremendous interest by the population.

I am a farmer and come from a farming background so I have some personal experience with working with pesticides. There is not a farmer I know who really enjoys working with pesticides. It is something we do as a matter of practice because they are a tool that is available for us to efficiently and effectively look after our lands in the most effective way possible

When dealing with pesticides we must realize that there is a need to respect the dangers as well as the benefits of their use. There are a tremendous number of benefits but there are perhaps some fears and other things that we should be cautious about.

One of the things we need to be cautious of when we are dealing with pesticides is their application outside of the agricultural community. We need to be cautious of their use in urban settings where pregnant women and children can be affected. We must be concerned about how these pesticides are applied. It is fair to say that some of them are perhaps applied too rigorously in those situations.

We must recognize the value of herbicides in our society and in our agricultural community. As farmers use herbicides they need to till their soil far less and this results in less air pollution. Diesel tractors go up and down the fields far less times, some say 7 to 10 times less, because of some of the pesticide uses today than compared to what has been practiced before. There is much less soil erosion. Pesticides are able to restore soil and farmers are able to utilize their soil more because they do not have to work the land so much.

There is more moisture conservation. We hear of a fear of global warming and the lack of moisture allowing farmers to grow crops and yet with the use of pesticides a tremendous amount of moisture is conserved to sustain agriculture in areas that would never possibly have been sustained before.

Agricultural efficiency has enhanced tremendously because of the use of herbicides and pesticides. Chemicals are tools that protect the environment from being overrun by pests from other countries which come in all the time and are difficult to control. We have herbicides for different foliage and weeds that come in from around the world and it is a way of keeping them in balance. If we never had pesticides we would have a very difficult time dealing with that problem.

Recently I have seen many advancements in safer chemicals. There is much less residue in herbicides used today than what was used back in the sixties when the first piece of legislation came to be. It is important that we discern and understand the new technologies coming in and take advantage of some of that technology, but at the same time we must be careful to think of the safety and health of our society. Our number one overwhelming responsibility is to look after the people we serve.

I make these personal remarks because of my understanding of where agriculture is at and what I sense as being some of the problems with the application of pesticides. I also have a primary hat that I would like to wear today as the senior opposition health critic.

The Canadian Alliance would generally support the intent of health and safety in the bill but we must be cautious listening to the minister's remarks. We will be interested in getting this to committee where we can take a good look at exactly how this piece of legislation would be applied. Generally we are in favour of a piece of legislation that would address the health and safety of the population but I will reserve my judgment on it until we get it into committee and we take a good, serious look at it.

We support the goals of strengthening health and environmental protection, making the registration system more transparent and strengthening the post-registration control of pesticides. However it is important too that our current regulatory framework, dating back as late as the 60s, be updated to incorporate the modern risk assessment concepts, to entrench current practices into law, to account for new developments in pesticides in regulations around the world, and to reflect the growing concerns for the health of children and others.

We believe there are some shortcomings in the bill and a number of amendments should be made. I will outline some of those concerns later in my presentation.

The primary objective of the bill is sound. It is to prevent unacceptable risk to people and the environment from the use of pesticide control products.

As health critic I am committed to promoting and protecting the health of Canadians. The health of Canadians should be paramount when it comes to pesticides. I believe that most farmers who use pesticides are committed to protecting human health as well. Their livelihoods depend upon producing safe and healthy food products.

There are three main objectives in Bill C-53. I will speak to each of them in turn.

The first objective is strengthening health and environmental protection. These are important goals. Increased efforts to protect the health of infants, children and pregnant women are welcome. Entrenching in law current practices of additional margins of safety for pesticide use around homes and schools is appropriate.

We support the provisions related to the labelling of pesticide products and the requirement that the product safety information be available in the workplace where these products are used or made. Those who make and use pest control products deserve to know what they contain and how they are to be used with appropriate and safe measures.

Labelling on containers, from my experience, is very important. We have come a long way when it comes to that. One of the problems we saw at the farm gate level when dealing with pesticides was when metric conversion happened in Canada. It became difficult for the agricultural community to be able to discern exactly how to mix appropriately. Labelling has come a long way. We must enhance that and become even more clear on the labelling. If members have ever read the labels on containers, it is easy to become confused

The second objective is to make the registration system more transparent. The objectives of increasing transparency in pesticide regulation is noteworthy. Who would oppose more openness in the operations of government, particularly in the matters of health and safety? To that end we support the proposed establishment of a particular registry that would allow access to detailed evaluation reports on registered pesticides.

We believe that this commitment to greater transparency is so important that it should be carried over into areas of drug safety regulations because we have a serious problem when it comes to drug safety.

We think that the pesticide problem is large and is endangering our society. I will be explaining in the next few weeks just how dangerous it is and what actually is happening on the drug safety side of our society. I will not dwell on it now because of the bill that is before us, but I would suggest that if we can have such concerns when it comes to pesticides that we certainly can follow this as a pattern on the drug safety side.

The third objective is to strengthen the post-registration control of pesticides. The provisions requiring pesticide companies to report adverse effects are of obvious importance. Effective and meaningful provisions must be in place to ensure that pesticides, once on the market, can be reviewed and if necessary pulled from the market. Again, this hearkens back to the drug safety issue.

Regarding the required re-evaluations of pesticides that have been on the market for over 15 years, we are somewhat concerned that this might unduly strain the resources of the pest management review agency.

As mentioned, we support the overall direction of the legislation but we have a number of concerns. Let me briefly outline some of those.

First, the bill's laudable objectives may be difficult to achieve if management problems and the misallocation of resources at the Pest Management Regulatory Agency are not corrected.

My colleague, the member for Selkirk--Interlake, the Canadian Alliance agriculture critic, is perhaps better able to speak on some of the shortcomings of the PMRA. He has done so on numerous occasions and will undoubtedly do so again as he speaks to the legislation.

Suffice it to say that there are fundamental flaws at the Pest Management Regulatory Agency which the bill has not sufficiently addressed.

Accordingly, we propose the following amendments. First:

That the PMRA be required to consider credible research and acceptable data from re-evaluations done in other jurisdictions where the pesticides are used under similar conditions.

I note that the bill specifies in subclauses 17(2) and (3) that information from other OECD nations and from other federal and provincial jurisdictions can trigger special reviews of registered pesticide.

On the positive side, the bill does not specify that information from such jurisdictions could or should be used to support the registration or the re-evaluation of the pesticide.

We would like to see the PMRA work more closely with the regulatory bodies in other countries and end unnecessary duplication and thus save valuable resources. We would also like to see it help to ensure that safe and efficient new chemicals come from the Canadian market more quickly.

Farmers in this country have expressed repeated concerns over the inability to access some of the new products because of the roadblocks set up by the PMRA.

Second:

That the re-evaluation provisions be amended so that the chemicals are only re-evaluated if an effective alternative product exists.

This is necessary to prioritize scarce PMRA resources.

We would also amend the bill to include specific approval procedures for minor use chemicals.

Unlike legislation in other jurisdiction, the bill requires manufacturers to show that their chemicals are more effective as part of the approval process.

I would like to refer to clause 7(6)(a) which states:

During an evaluation, the applicant has the burden of persuading the Minister that the health and environmental risks and the value of the pest control product are acceptable--

The notion of value is defined in the bill definitions under clause 2, Interpretation and, among other things, includes the notion of efficacy. The requirements to prove efficacy may add unnecessary costs and time to review the process.

The PMRA should only be concerned with safety. The market will decide if a pesticide is efficient and few companies will go through the process for a chemical that does not work.

We look forward to discussing and debating those proposed amendments in committee.

I would like to note that we were pleased to see that the bill did not impose a ban on the use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes. We believe the government is correct in allowing municipalities to maintain control over such decisions.

While the official opposition is supportive of developing and using proven alternatives in urban environments, we do not believe that the moratorium on pest control products should be in place before there is a substantial body of conclusive scientific evidence that unequivocally links such products to human disease or ill health.

The official opposition believes that proven, sound science, domestically and internationally, should continue to be the cornerstone of debate.

In conclusion, we look forward to reviewing the bill at committee, to hearing from the interested parties and to proposing amendments that will produce the best legislation that we can.

[Pest Control Products Act, April 8th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to split my time with my colleague from Selkirk--Interlake.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 8th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege for me to rise and speak on the bill, but once again I have to shake my head when I think about how the good idea of protecting animals could result in such a bad piece of legislation. I guess we should not be all that surprised. It seems to be a trend in the government, which has somehow managed to take an idea such as safer streets and turn it into a $700 million attack on law-abiding citizens with gun control. We can see a sort of trend coming forward from the government. We have the responsibility to make effective legislation, the responsibility for the needs of all Canadians. This attack on rural Canadians must stop.

Canadians are supportive of the current legislation of protecting animals under the criminal code. Instead of strengthening the penalties that violators face under the current legislation, the justice minister has brought forward a far-reaching piece of legislation.

There are two major concerns that I have about Bill C-15B. First, the definition of an animal is way too broad. The bill's proposed definition of an animal includes non-human vertebrates and all animals having the capacity to feel pain. Let us just take a couple of examples that would fit into those categories.

Rats feel pain and have vertebrae. I come from a province that is rat-free. We spend millions of dollars a year dealing with the problems of rat control within our province. Because of the natural boundaries of the Rockies on one side, we pushed back the rat population as much as we possibly could into Saskatchewan, yet under the application of the bill that could put in jeopardy. As well, the gopher problem is rampant in the prairies. The member from Lakeland, who sits next to me, could be called to task under the bill for bringing forward a private member's bill to introduce gopher poison.

It is not so much that we have a problem with the criminal code or with protection of animal rights, which we believe in; it is how the bill can be applied that gives us a great deal of concern. The new definition would provide new legal protection for a number of living organisms which have never before been provided with that kind of protection. My second concern with this piece of legislation is that it removes a protection currently provided under section 429(2) of the criminal code for persons who use animals for legitimate, lawful and justifiable practices, moving animal cruelty from under the umbrella of property offences into a new section emphasizing animal rights as opposed to animal welfare.

This throws it wide open to jurisdictional interpretation, where judges are allowed to perhaps favour special interest groups when it comes to animal rights. I see this change elevating the costs that are already overburdening our court system as frivolous lawsuits from animal rights activists skyrocket.

In my riding of Yellowhead, raising animals on farms for food has been a way of life for generations. I have raised dairy cattle and beef cattle and I currently raise elk at the same time. I know a little about what happens. The reality is that if we treat our animals poorly they will not be healthy. Sick and injured animals are not able to be productive and if they are not able to be productive, one is not going to be a farmer for long. I do not believe that is actually is happening on most of our farms that deal with the husbandry of animals. The fear of much of the agricultural community in my riding is that they have had the experience of activist judges or aggressive animal rights activists calling the shots. The skills of raising animals on farms have been developed and handed down from generation to generation.

Madam Speaker, if you have ever been on a farm you will know that everything that happens with regard to animals is not necessarily pleasant. Castration, dehorning and vaccinations might be seen by the outside viewer as harming the animal. The truth is that they are necessary for the strengthening and survival of the herd. It is not much different from a spoonful of honey making the medicine go down for children. We must do it because we love the child. Most farmers I know love their animals, look after them and do whatever is necessary to keep them healthy.

We must look at what motivated the former Minister of Justice, the hon. member for Edmonton West, to give animals special status. In a fundraising letter in the winter of 2002 the director of the Animal Alliance of Canada claimed responsibility for the minister's narrow election win. Could Bill C-15B be political payback for its work on her behalf?

I cannot emphasize enough the importance the Canadian Alliance puts on the welfare and safety of animals. The provisions currently in force within the criminal code could provide the required protection through increased penalties for violators. The scope of Bill C-15B is not clearly outlined. It would provide the government another opportunity to target law abiding farmers and hunters as criminals. I therefore cannot support Bill C-15B.

[Drug Safety, March 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, two years ago today, 15 year old Vanessa Young collapsed and died in front of her father. The Oakville teenager had been taking Prepulsid, an anti-heartburn drug that had already been linked to 80 deaths in the United States and 25 deaths in Canada.

CBC Marketplace warned about Prepulsid back in 1999. Health Canada knew about the concerns in 1996.

A coroner's inquest into Vanessa's death heard about serious problems in adverse drug reporting schemes at Health Canada. The failure to adequately inform doctors and patients about associated risks was highlighted.

The jury recommended one year ago that a joint body be created to review and monitor drug safety in Canada.

We are calling for an independent drug safety agency. The government's inaction has left a trail of deaths. The time for action has long since passed. Human lives are in the balance.