Bill C-56 (Historical)

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

An Act respecting assisted human reproduction

Pest Control Products Act

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

It is the same thing. My colleagues from the Bloc are correcting me, and I thank them for that. I was saying that the Liberal members of the committee get on any bandwagon, knowing that their work and their decisions will amount to nothing anyway. It is not only the opposition that was taken in; so were our friends across the way. They accepted an amendment, and were slapped on the wrist for it. The government told them “Do not do that. You have no right. We do not agree with that”. They apologized and promised to correct their mistake in the House. They will all vote in favour of Motion No. 7, despite the fact that all committee members approved the amendment. This is not serious. It is terrible.

People complain about the rigour of the committees. The Liberals, especially those in the back, close to the curtains, are saying that the members must have a role to play in committee. When they play their role, they get slapped on the wrist. Then, they say “We made a mistake. We did not think that this would make such an impact”. Perhaps they should read more about history.

That being said, let us talk about the second motion that was approved. It changes an amendment which we proposed. It is scandalous. Is it the lobby of big business that put their backs to the wall in only a matter of days?

What was said is very simple. There were two elements, clauses 43(4) and 43(5), which were to apply together as far as protection of confidential information is concerned. Clause 43(5) refers to components and then adds “of health or environmental concern”, and we are not doing anything to that. What is this bill about? Is it for businesses or individuals? All we did was add an and. The government's reply was “No, we are going to put back the or”. This gives an out to companies that do not want to make public confidential information that might have an impact on the environment and on health.

I recall certain Liberals on the committee talking about the necessity of “looking after pregnant women and unborn babies. We must think about future generations”. I think that thought was given instead to “present and future businesses”. It was simple and we are very much disappointed.

They were taken in as far as the Senate and the joint committee were concerned. This proves their inability to connect with reality. Now they are changing and heading off to spend the summer at home, saying “We were wrong, we would have liked to give the House of Commons more power but we are not entitled to do so”.

Lawyers came before the committee, people who are experts on parliamentary procedure. We could have asked them the question but were told “No, it is fine. They are right and we agree.” This is very disappointing. It has taken 30 years to review this legislation.

One thing is clear. There are advertisements on the radio and on TV, or in the newspapers, there are campaigns. They say “What do you have against bugs?” A person goes into a store and ask the clerk “What do you have against bugs?” meaning “to use against bugs” and the answer is “Nothing”. “What do you have against dandelions?” “Nothing”.

This has two meanings, since it can also mean “What objection do you have to bugs?” It shows that people are already starting to be more careful about the use of chemicals. Some will say that there are advantages to use, that is true.

The issue of cosmetic use and the issue of the precautionary principle were both rejected. All they wanted to do was bring the law up to date, but we are still ten years behind what the public wants to see, and what it already knows, ten years behind what the municipalities and provinces are doing.

I have said it often before and I will repeat it: the Liberals only have one single vision, one single strategy, it is for the Liberal party. They have no vision, no strategy for the country. Look at the legislative program, it is paltry.

In committee, people work like dogs to try to get some good work done. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens. All they want is to save this government and this political party.

With all due respect, Liberal members are simply machines; machines that say yes or no. Why did the committee members not stand up to the minister, who wanted to undo what they had voted on in committee? Why would they not stand up to her?

I believe that the time has come to reform the committee system, the House and parliament. However, more importantly, it is time to change governments.

For many people, Bill C-53 may not be a big deal, but again, this is ample proof of all the work that can be done in committee and all the trust that can be built in committee. There is another bill, Bill C-56 on reproductive technologies, being considered in the health committee. We will try to begin the debate before the House recesses for the summer.

When I look at the work that I did on behalf of my party, there were arguments for and against. We have been trying to build trust between the different opposition parties, and also between all of the parties, including the government party. Amendments have already been passed, and we have principles that we would like to discuss and adopt, if possible, in order to speed up the process.

We know that clause by clause consideration is slow. It is very slow. We go about this in good faith. We wanted the labelling to be more complete, but we were defeated on this point. We forgive them. They have no vision, but they are forgiven for it.

However, when we are able to agree on an amendment, which is passed, we expect all of the committee members to defend this amendment, every one of them, from both sides of the House.

Unfortunately, once again, the relationship of trust that was established in committee disintegrated, and this does not bode well for the trust between the people of this country and the government for the next few years.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to address Motion No. 1. My hon. colleague mentioned that it adds the information that would be allowed for confidential business information. This is also specified in the bill. In the original framing of the wording in the bill, we understand that companies which have developed many different products, are rather nervous about the information already available. Also a reading room will be made available for people to read through the information but no information can be written down. Therefore this amendment makes them a little more nervous.

It is important to understand that the bill is not only about pesticides and what pesticides can or cannot come into the country or go out of it, it is also about health and safety There are two sides to the argument. The extreme side says that no pesticides should be allowed into Canada. The other side says it is difficult for us to be competitive with our neighbours to the south and other international countries because of our slowness in and restrictions on allowing pesticides into the country.

Many of the new pesticides which are being restricted are much safer and better than the ones we presently use. This kind of negative incentive to the companies that would bring products into Canada would be put in jeopardy many of our farmers and our agricultural community. They are not looking for a competitive edge. They are looking for a level playing field with many of our trading partners. Therefore it is very important for us not to entrench this confidential business information any more than that we already have. That would be a difficult one for us to support.

We discussed Motion No. 7 in committee in a pretty significant way. It is a very important amendment because it goes to the root reason of why we are here. That is to represent the people who put us in office, to express their will and to conduct business of the nation in a way that is respectful and representative of the people for whom we speak.

The amendment says that on a seven year review, the legislation could go directly to the Senate and a Senate committee for review. The Senate is unelected, unrepresentative and friendly to a prime minister of the government in power. Therefore it is not a sober second thought. It goes against the fundamentals of democracy when a review of a piece of legislation as important as this does not come back to the committee of the Commons that dealt with it originally.

We talked about this at some length at the committee. It was very important because as the debate went around, all parties in the committee agreed with the change to the bill. They agreed that when the bill came up for review that it should not go to a Senate committee but rather to a committee of the House of Commons. It is very important that we not jeopardize the democracy for which we fought so hard. It is very important that committee work be dealt with in a respectful way. That subamendment was considered with forethought and with definite ideas that it was important to the legislation.

We might think that this might have been originally an oversight in the bill. However Bill C-56, which deals with the ethics of the nation, uses exactly the same language. That bill is subject to a three year review. It too could go directly to the Senate for review, an unelected, unrepresentative group of individuals who are friendly and appointed by the prime minister, instead of parliament and the health committee.

This amendment must absolutely not be accepted. We must be allowed to continue in the manner in which the health committee recommended. I strongly oppose Motion No. 7.

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[The Speaker]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading of Bill C-56.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Public Safety Act, 2002

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the previous speakers for their remarks, which I think were very good and right on the money.

This whole thing seems ironic to me. We are talking about a bill that is a response to the assault of September 11, and it turns out that like so many bills the Liberals have now it is an assault on parliament. It tries to restrict parliament's control and role in so many things. Just a few minutes ago we talked about Bill C-56 and the same concerns were raised in that debate. The same concerns were raised with the bill prior to that one. The problem is that the government is trying to restrict parliament from doing its duty and is trying to remove the role of parliament from many aspects of government legislation.

It is ironic that Bill C-55 is here only because parliament complained so much about Bill C-42 that the government withdrew it and replaced it with Bill C-55. I believe that is proof positive that parliament does play an important role in reflecting the interests and concerns of Canadians. However, this bill again restricts the role of parliament in so many ways and it goes along with so many actions by the government to adopt and establish agencies that are out of the reach of parliamentarians and committees. It has adopted foundations that distribute money and has privatized organizations like Nav Canada so that we can no longer have access to information for reports on safety and on the aspects of aviation that are so important to Canadians. This is a constant thing. Every single bill that comes forward seems to have an element in it that takes away our role in parliament, even though the very existence of this bill is proof positive that parliament does play an important role.

The bill takes tremendous powers from parliament and gives them to a minister. It is hard to believe that the government has even proposed such a bill. The interim orders that a minister can establish can remain secret for 23 days. They can go 45 days without cabinet approval. A minister can create a military security zone and not even seek cabinet approval for 45 days. What can possibly be the excuse for that? Why would it take 45 days to get the cabinet together if there is an emergency that justifies such a measure? Why is that not a few hours? Someone has proposed 72 hours. Why is that not acceptable? Why do we have to wait 45 days to get cabinet approval, much less keep it secret for 23 days? This is just absolutely amazing and there is no need for it. It must be an attempt by the Liberals, or the officials working for the Liberals, or someone, to establish power, maintain it and take it away from our parliament.

If we compare this to the Emergency Measures Act, which is designed to do much the same thing, only for different reasons perhaps, it really brings out the differences, the anomalies and the unacceptable conditions in Bill C-55. The emergency measures must go to parliament within 7 days, not 45 days. They must come back to parliament and we must vote on them here in parliament. Under the actions in Bill C-55 we would never vote on that. Why? Why would the Emergency Measures Act require a vote in parliament and Bill C-55 not require a vote in parliament?

Parliament could actually turn down an emergency measures recommendation or order by a minister. Under Bill C-55 parliament cannot even touch a recommendation. Under the Emergency Measures Act every regulation must come back to parliament and must be reported within two sitting days. Under Bill C-55 they never have to come back to parliament. Bill C-55 would come into effect immediately. There is not even a declaration of the implementation required under Bill C-55. There does not even have to be a petition to bring it in. Bill C-55 must be reported only 15 days after the House returns to sit again. If it does not sit, this is not reported at all. There is no requirement. There is no debate, no accountability, no nothing. It cloaks every aspect of Bill C-55 in secrecy. Parliament is left literally completely out of the loop.

This is a public safety bill but we should almost have a parliamentary safety bill to protect parliament. We should bring in a bill to protect parliament and our role to make sure that we still have a role in issues such as these, issues such as security and safety, a role that the bill tries to take away from us.

As the privacy commissioner said, as reported by the previous speaker, he takes total exception to this and says that the Liberals are trying to create a totalitarian society. Their response is to attack the privacy commissioner. This is a new strategy of the Liberals. They recently had an array of members of parliament attack the auditor general when she came out with a report they did not like. Now they have attacked the privacy commissioner. The Liberals establish these positions and support them, but if these people do not agree with them, they attack them. Then there is the ethics counsellor, who just does exactly whatever the Prime Minister wants him to do.

It is a serious issue. Many Canadians are concerned about the direction the government is going in. They are concerned about the intrusion of the United States on our sovereignty with this whole security aspect and the demands of the Americans to have their customs throughout Canada at our ports and in our airports. They want to take over our military by creating a perimeter security philosophy. What they really want to do is to control it; they do not want to share it. They want to control the customs officers in Canada. Again it seems that the Liberals are falling for this and going along with it. Although the United States is a very important friend to Canada, we must maintain our distance and our sovereignty. I hope that we do not move any closer and comply with some of the requests that the Americans continually are coming up with.

Our industries are now finding that the Americans are changing the rules every day. When truckers arrive at the border with a load of goods or even seeds or agricultural products, they find that the rules have changed and that they cannot proceed in the same way they did last week or the week before. The Americans are trying to control trade, security, the police and the military. This is a very dangerous direction to take and Bill C-55 plays into those hands.

Under the bill, the powers given to a minister require that cabinet be notified only after 45 days. I come back to that again because I think it is so unacceptable that cabinet does not have to approve some of these actions that a minister can take. It puts tremendous power in the minister's hands. That should be changed, if nothing else.

We support the amendment today because of these actions, because they put so much power in the hands of a minister when it is not necessary. I have no idea why the Liberals have come up with these conditions in the bill for transfer of the power to ministers. It is not necessary. They have lost total respect for parliament. They want to keep parliament out of the loop. They want to have just a very small number of ministers over there, not even the entire cabinet, making all the decisions and having all the power, and they want to have all the Liberal members stand up like trained seals and say yes, that they support it and they will do it. It is amazing that they continue to do this.

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[Jim Abbott, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise again to debate the issue in the main motion. It is an issue that crosses all party lines. Its is so valuable and important I hope the government and all House leaders will see fit to give members the opportunity to vote as they see fit and according to their consciences. It would be unconscionable for party discipline or any other force to silence people on this important issue.

We in our party have had an opportunity to look at Bill C-56 and are concerned about a number of issues contained in it. The bill is about improving human life. The Canadian Alliance strongly supports research to this end whenever it is compatible with the dignity and value of human life. As I said when we were debating the amendment, that is absolutely the key issue. Everyone must come to this place with great courage and look at the issue of the dignity and value of human life. It is something the Canadian Alliance will strive to protect.

Bill C-56 is about the best interests of children born of assisted reproductive technologies. The Canadian Alliance will work to protect them. The bill is about access by prospective parents to the best assisted reproductive technologies science can ethically offer. The Canadian Alliance will work to preserve this. As I said at the outset, MPs from all parties should have a free vote on the bill at all its stages.

Clause 40 of the bill says human embryos could be harvested if the new agency was satisfied it was necessary for the purpose of proposed research. The discretionary power must be reduced by defining in the bill what constitutes necessary. In my public life people have come to me to talk about various decisions that have been made in the legal system. Not being a lawyer, one of my frustrations has been looking at legislation and seeing the words necessary or intent suddenly appearing in it. Such words may be common to members of parliament but what they mean in ordinary discussion can be totally different from what they mean in an court of law. That is why the word necessary must not be left to regulations or the agency to define.

The purpose of research on human embryos is not specified in the bill. It must be restricted to creating medical therapies that assist in healing the human body. More importantly, we are looking for a delay in the passage of the bill because of the rapid changes in research that are happening as we speak. Rapid change is taking place within the whole medical community in terms of what we can learn from adult stem cells as opposed to embryonic stem cells.

The modification of the phrase from the majority standing committee report should be replaced in clause 40 of the bill with the following: “Unless the applicant clearly demonstrates that no other category of biological material could be used from which to derive healing human therapies”. This is not an incidental amendment. It is an absolutely key amendment because we must respect human life, and embryo life is human life.

To stop licensees from producing more embryos than are necessary with the ulterior motive of harvesting them for research, a new clause should be added: “No licensee will produce more embryos than are reasonably necessary to complete the reproductive procedure intended by the donors”. Again, this goes to the issue of respect for human life.

We are creative. I am dating myself when I speak about the fact that I can recall turning up to work early one morning and seeing the headline at the newsstand “Man on the Moon”. We have moved so far past that point it is unbelievable. The concept of being able to safely go to the moon, land on the moon and walk on the moon as Armstrong did was beyond my comprehension. How much further are we than that? We are 100 or 1,000 times further than that with our research.

Again, there are possibilities for research. Although it is essential research, possibilities can happen in the context of adult stem cell research, placenta cell research or other materials that do not get to the issue of terminating human life.

Bill C-56 specifies that consent of the donor would be required to use a human embryo for experimentation. The bill would leave it to the regulations to define donor. However there are two donors to every human embryo: a man and a woman. Both donors or parents, not just one, should be required to give written consent for the use of a human embryo. Both the woman and the man have the right to consent or not consent to the use of the embryo.

This is where we seem to be drifting apart as a society. We seem to be drifting away from the concept of procreation between a man and a woman in a marriage situation which results in children and what is called the nuclear family. We are now into recreational sex, which is fine. However talking about sex for procreation is considered old fashioned. That is what God created it for in the first place. If we talk about donors why do we not use the correct term which is parents? That is what they are. If one parent dissents the embryo should not be harvested for experiments.

One thing that bothers me as much as anything when it comes to legal jargon or interpretation, particularly in the political realm, is the use of euphemisms. To harvest embryos for experiments sounds terribly scientific, does it not? However what we are doing is taking human life. We are not harvesting it. We are taking human life, experimenting with it and then discarding it. Even the word harvesting is somewhat problematic from my perspective. That is why language is important. To accord the dignity and respect due to the human embryo the word parents should be substituted for the impersonal word donor wherever the bill refers to both male and female contributors to a viable embryo.

There are concerns about experiments with human beings. Stem cells derived from embryos and implanted in a recipient are foreign tissue and thus subject to immune rejection, possibly requiring years of costly anti-rejection drug therapies. Stem cells taken from embryos and injected into rats grew brain tumours in 20% of the cases. Dr. Roger Barker, a researcher from Cambridge University, said:

I don't think this will be a treatment in humans for quite some time.

In an editorial in September, 2001 the editor in chief of Stem Cells magazine stated:

I continue to think that clinical application is a long way off for at least two reasons. Prior to clinical use of embryonic and fetal stem cells, it will be necessary to thoroughly investigate the malignant potential of embryonic stem cells. In addition, a much more comprehensive elucidation of the immune response is necessary to provide the basis to prevent transplanted stem cells and their progeny from being rejected by the transplant recipient.

This is important to note. There have as yet been no successful therapeutic applications for embryonic stem cells.

We seem to be rushing forward at light speed. The health minister has said that she wants the bill through the House of Commons and on to committee so it can be considered over the summer. I am saying that we should hold on a second because there have not as yet been any successful therapeutic applications for embryonic stem cells. Therefore, why are we rushing forward at this light speed?

I think one of the greatest lessons I have learned is that when legislation comes to the House not infrequently it ends up slowing down.

In conclusion, I have appreciated the opportunity to speak to this and I look forward to the debate from the other members.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity to address this bill, which deals with very personal values and moral issues on which every member of parliament must reflect before taking a position which, in the end, will not necessarily be a party position, but a personal position based on all the values that we inherited through our education and that we developed throughout our lives.

What is the object of the bill on assisted human reproduction? This legislation deals with the use of embryonic stem cells. As we know, this is a very controversial area in medical research.

What are stem cells? They are cells that have not reached maturity and that have the ability to either specialize to form various human tissues or organs, or reproduce themselves. According to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, these cells have huge potential to help better understand human development and to treat degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis.

Stem cells used for research can come from three main sources: embryos that are at a very early stage of development, fetal reproductive organs, which also have stem cells that could potentially be used for a number of purposes, and adult tissues, such as skin and muscles, which are stem cells with limited possibilities.

There are pros and cons about this. This is not an issue that is easy to settle. However, it is obvious that the lack of legislation in this area opens the door to possible abuse. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and not legislate in this area. This is why it is appropriate to have this bill before us.

In recent years, the Bloc Quebecois has been pushing this issue in a significant way, particularly through the hon. member for Drummond, who once introduced a bill, which was considered but died on the order paper before an election.

We then decided not to introduce a new bill, because the government had pledged to introduce legislation. It took a long time, but it now before us and we must evaluate it.

In my opinion, a vote at second reading stage will be a vote to indicate whether or not we want legislation in this area. The details and the position need still more study. I plan to hold a roundtable in my riding, which will enable me to get advice from experts as well as to sound out the public on this reality.

Because in certain aspects—as has been shown by the arguments in favour—as a historical argument, in the 1970s, DNA research was strongly objected to. After the establishment of government guidelines, however, not only was there a good framework but this also made it possible to develop human insulin for diabetics.

There are therefore some aspects such as these which need to be addressed in order to see whether indeed a more advantageous situation will not be created which will make it possible to cure disease, to remedy situations and to improve the lot of human beings in general. On the other hand, this must not be unconditional and without a very specific framework.

Many of those who argue in favour state that research on embryonic stem cells has a very high potential for curative medicine. As a humanitarian argument, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has pointed out that research is indispensable if the situation of those with diabetes is to be improved.

A number of experts have pointed out that hundreds of frozen embryos are being allowed to thaw out in Canada's fertility clinics because they are no longer needed, while they could be used to discover treatments for such diseases as cancer, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

It can be seen from this example that this is a not a black and white situation, but rather a grey one. It deserves some framework in order to avoid potential excesses.

There is one other argument in favour. This is that certain women's groups and certain legal experts argue that, in our current legal framework since 1988, the supreme court has been obliged to recognize that not only is a fetus not a human being—which civil law also acknowledges—but that it could not be considered viable before the 20th week of gestation.

If a fetus is not a human being, then tissues from it are not tissues from a human being. This shows just what very basic concepts we are dealing with, the basic values of individuals.

There are opposing arguments. This research on stem cells from human embryos stirs up controversy, particularly because it leads to the destruction of the embryo. This is a reality we have to come to grips with.

According to the Catholic Church, the creation of embryos for research purposes and the use of embryonic stem cells are actions contrary to the will of God, for whom reproduction must always be a conjugal act. This position does not perhaps reflect the general public perception, but it gets us thinking deeply about fundamental issues, such as that of the belief in God, which can have repercussions. Members of this House may have different beliefs. That is all the more reason for a free vote. In these circumstances, I believe that the assisted human reproduction bill, which has been some time in coming, deserves to be considered.

In order to ensure the health and safety of those who turn to assisted reproduction, this bill stipulates that individuals thinking of donating an ovum or an embryo for assisted human reproduction or research purposes must give their informed consent in writing before any procedure. In effect, a certain form of charlatanism is avoided if consent is required.

Children born through the use of reproductive material will have access to medical information on donors, but will not necessarily have access to their identity, donors being free to decide whether or not to divulge their identity. Many issues will have to be considered by the committee. The committee will hear from experts and determine whether, in fact, the bill goes far enough. I think that we must really take the time to consider this bill, get opinions and determine what Quebecers and Canadians want in this regard.

The legislation would also prohibit unacceptable activities, such as the creation of human clones for any reason whatsoever, i.e. for purposes of reproduction or for therapeutic purposes. The legislation would also prohibit creating an embryo for purposes other than creating a human being or improving assisted reproduction techniques, creating chimeras for reproductive purposes, or providing financial inducements to a woman to become a surrogate mother. This situation exists in our society. We want there to be a clear framework, and a debate is therefore relevant.

There is also a very important aspect of the bill in terms of regulating assisted reproduction techniques. As far as I am concerned, it is very important to have the resulting regulations and guidelines on the most contentious aspects of the legislation in short order, so that we know what the regulations will actually contain.

Given that this is a very sensitive bill with long term repercussions that will undoubtedly establish the foundations of a policy that will be in place for many years, it is important to ensure that the regulations do not contradict the will of legislators. We must be careful to study this issue in depth and be able to see the regulations beforehand.

The bill contains a number of the main recommendations of the Standing Committee on Health, made in December 2001, which the Bloc Quebecois supported. We have already spoken to these recommendations contained in the bill.

However, Bill C-56 does have some deficiencies. For example, it states that Health Canada will consult with the provinces regarding regulations on research and activities related to assisted reproduction. We must ensure that this promise is kept. We must give the bill some teeth to guarantee this measure.

It is critical that Canada's policy is developed in co-operation with the provinces and that there be an unequivocal recognition that this is an area of shared jurisdiction.

This is a bill that touches on fundamental questions. I believe that all members of the House should be allowed to vote on this according to their conscience, that it be a free vote. This does not prevent discussion in caucus or speeches in the House, but at the end of the day, we must have legislation that the House of Commons can be proud of and that reflects our society's vision on such a controversial subject.

In closing, I would invite all of my colleagues to reflect on this bill and to participate in the different debates that will take place. I personally intend to organize a roundtable on this issue in my riding.

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise for a second time in debate, at the second reading of Bill C-56. In my initial remarks on the bill, I outlined at some length my objections to the approach taken, or rather not taken, in the bill to the protection of embryos from manipulation and destruction in the process of research.

I suggested, as have many of my colleagues, that the government take note of the enormous potential presented to medical science through the experimentation with and research on adult stem cells. By adult stem cells, I mean essentially non-embryonic, non-fetal stem cells. Even stem cells taken from the umbilical cords of newborn babies provide enormous potential for the sort of scientific advances that the advocates of embryonic stem cell research seem so interested in.

I would like to yet again endorse the principle of the Standing Committee on Health in its report: that stem cells ought only to be harvested from living embryos if there is clearly no other option. That high standard set by the all party committee is not reflected in the legislation before the House today.

In fact the legislation today takes no position. Rather, it leaves this matter entirely in the hands of a self-governing agency, which will presumably be made up, in part, of research scientists who, frankly, have a professional and personal interest in the acquisition and manipulation of embryonic stem cells, whose first and greatest concern when they approach this tremendously sensitive matter is not necessarily the moral consideration of the sanctity of human life but rather the utilitarian ethical framework that governs the drive of so many scientists to use life for the purposes of research.

In those earlier remarks, I also suggested that the government should be proposing at least a three year moratorium on embryonic stem cell research in order to allow the scientific community more time to demonstrate the enormous advantages presented by non-embryonic stem cell research.

In fact I would go a step further and suggest that the government, if indeed its objective as stated in the bill is to in part advance such research, ought to be increasing funding to and making a high priority of the development of non-embryonic stem cell research, so that three years hence we could as a parliament revisit the question of whether in fact embryos must be created, collected, manipulated and destroyed in order, purportedly, to advance medical science.

In that speech I also responded to the point raised by the hon. Minister of Health in her remarks in defence of the bill when she first introduced it, at which time she said that if embryos created and frozen for in vitro fertilization purposes are not at some point used for research or implanted in their mother's uterus, at some point they are thrown in “the garbage”. She suggested, I think erroneously, that these were the only alternatives: either research or, as she would have characterized it, wanton destruction of these nascent human lives.

I think that she and her advisers fundamentally have missed a third option, which is for us to embrace and promote the emerging new field of embryonic adoption. At first that sounds like a somewhat absurd idea, but indeed it is not.

Let me just address three reasons. The strongest pragmatic objection would be, as the minister has said, that these conceived embryos simply are thrown in the garbage. Let me offer three arguments against this.

First, if there are a significant number of embryos left over at in vitro fertilization clinics, then the real question is not what to do with extra embryos but why so many extra embryos are being created in the first place. At a minimum under this legislation, IVF clinics should be restricted to producing the least possible number of embryos necessary to result in successful conception. Research to allow IVF clinics to reduce the number of embryos that have to be created for successful implantation should be promoted vigorously. Clinics that seem to be producing too many embryos should be sanctioned by the agency. This is an entirely legitimate point, because many researchers have provided evidence to the Standing Committee on Health that IVF clinics are producing far more embryos than are necessary for implantation. This raises some very serious ethical concerns.

Ideally, every embryo created by IVF could be implanted successfully in the womb. This should be the goal of IVF research and undoubtedly some day the technology will improve to the point where this is the case. When this occurs there will be no leftover spare embryos to speak of. At that point, does the minister envisage biotech firms and research labs suddenly deciding that they do not need or want embryonic stem cells any more? No, instead they will still want embryos to be created, but this time solely for research purposes. Already scientists are saying that the bill is too restrictive and that if we are really to have success with the research we will need therapeutic cloning as well.

Therefore, the minister's position that the only embryos being used are leftover embryos that would otherwise be destroyed is in fact a red herring. On the one hand, improving the technology eventually will reduce or eliminate the supply of extra IVF embryos. On the other hand, the government is creating a demand in the research community and the biotech industry for embryonic stem cells. If the supply of IVF embryos is choked off, they will be back in a few years demanding that the government allow new embryos to be created or cloned solely for research.

Second, I would argue on moral grounds that allowing non-implanted embryos to die need not imply a lack of dignity. It is far more dignified to let human beings who cannot survive without artificial support die naturally than it is to destroy them while stripping them down for spare parts. Even in the case of dying people donating organs, medical ethics requires that we wait until they are brain dead and therefore no longer capable of consciousness before organs are removed. Even then, the rest of the body is disposed of with great dignity and care. An embryo is not a dead body but a living human being. It can be nothing else: it is a living being of human parentage. It is a living human being. It is more in keeping with its dignity that if an embryo is outside of the womb and cannot survive by natural means it be allowed to die rather than simply be used as an object for research. What I am suggesting is that what the minister so eloquently described as throwing in the garbage need not be the means of disposal of these human embryos. A natural death is a natural death at any stage of human life.

Third, there is another alternative to allowing an embryo to die or using it for research, to which I alluded earlier, that is, the growing support for embryonic adoption. The government's overall purpose in this bill is to provide hope and to help infertile couples. If that is truly the government's objective, then surely rather than promoting the use of spare IVF embryos for research the government should encourage couples who successfully conceive through IVF to donate them to other infertile couples in the same situation.

Last summer when the U.S. senate was gripped by the same question we are now facing, one of the senators who favoured embryonic stem cell research argued that destroying an embryo was not ending a life. He held up a piece of paper and drew a tiny dot on it with a pencil saying that was how big an embryo was, but there was a couple providing testimony that day who had, crawling around the committee room, a live baby who had been born through the process of embryonic adoption. Many hundreds of children have been born thanks to the gift of an embryo from a fertile couple to a completely infertile couple.

In closing, I would ask that the government please not open this door to using a utilitarian, relativistic ethic to justify the creation of life in order to allow its manipulation and destruction when other dignified and life giving options, such as embryonic adoption, are available to us.

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it pleases me that I am able to speak to the Bill C-56 amendment where the words are inserted:

--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.

This past weekend this very issue was brought to light through the Pembroke and area diocese of the Canadian Catholic Women's League. It brought forth the following resolution which bans human embryonic stem cell research.

Whereas The Canadian Government will soon formulate legislation on reproductive technologies including human stem cell research, and

Whereas the compelling moral, ethical and scientific issues surrounding embryonic stem cell research needs clear guidelines to avoid the dehumanizing and the utilitarian premise that the end justifies the means, and

Whereas human embryos, tiny human beings are being killed to obtain stem cells, and

Whereas killing of human life at any stage of development is intrinsically evil, and

Whereas no amount of public benefit can ever justify the deliberate killing of a human being, especially since the scientific literature demonstrates that stem cells from sources other than from human embryos are being used successfully for therapeutic benefit in human; therefore, be it

Resolved that the Ontario Provincial Council of the Catholic Women's League of Canada, in the 55 Annual Convention assembled, urge the Federal Minister of Health to formulate legislation which would ban human embryonic stem cell research under the Criminal Code of Canada, and be it therefore

Resolved that this resolution be forwarded to the National Council of the Catholic Women's League of Canada for consideration at the Annual Convention in 2002.

Submitted by Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, CWL Council.

Members of the regional council diocese are: president, Margaret Maloney; vice president, Andria Dumouchel; secretary, Inie Schlievert; treasurer, Silvia Smith; past president, Irene Perrault; and resolutions chair, Donna Shaddock. They will be bringing this forth and it will eventually reach the federal level. However, if the bill goes forth now, Canadians in this one area alone will not have had a chance to speak.

I would like to expound upon the issue brought forth by Wesley Smith and the conclusions drawn by the Catholic Women's League, that when research advances occur with embryonic stem cells, the media usually gives the story big treatment. Whereas when researchers announce even a greater success with adult stem cells, the media reportage is generally less intense and a stifled yawn.

As a consequence, many people in this country continue to believe that embryonic stem cells offer the greatest promise of developing the new medical treatments involving the human body cells. This is know as regenerative medicine. While in reality, adults and alternative sources of stem cells have demonstrated much brighter prospects.

This misperception has real societal consequences, distorting the political debate over human cloning and embryonic stem cell research and perhaps even affecting levels of public and private research funding that embryonic and adult stem cell research therapies receive.

For example, this media pattern was again very evident in the reporting of two very important research breakthroughs announced within the last two weeks. Unless people made a point of looking these stories, they might have been missed.

Patients with Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis have received significant medical benefit using the experimental adult stem cell regenerative medical protocols. These are benefits that the supporters of the embryonic stem cell treatments have yet to produce even in the animal experiments they have been doing. Yet adult stem cells are now beginning to truly alleviate the suffering in human beings.

We have celebrities like Michael J. Fox and Michael Kingsley really promoting embryonic stem cell research in the Washington Post and on Crossfire . Yet these major advances are being almost totally disregarded by the American press and less so by the Canadian press.

In case some members may have missed the story I will repeat it again. A man in his mid-50s had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at age 49. The disease grew progressively leading to tremors and rigidity, especially in the patient's right arm. Traditional drug therapy did not help. Stem cells were harvested from the patient's brain using a routine brain biopsy procedure. They were cultured and expanded to several million cells. About 20% of those cells matured into dopamine secreting neurons. People suffering from Parkinson's disease are short of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In March 1999 these cells were injected into the patient's brain.

Three months after this procedure the man's motor skills improved by 37%, and there was an increase of dopamine production of 55.6%. One year after the procedure the patient's overall unified Parkinson's disease rating scale had improved by 83%. This was at a time when he was taking no other treatment for Parkinson's disease. That is an astonishing and remarkable success story. One would have thought that story would have set off blazing headlines across the country and around the world. Had the same treatment been achieved with embryonic stem cells we would have seen those headlines.

Unfortunately, reportage about the Parkinson's success story was strangely mooted. It is true that the Washington Post ran an inside the paper story and there were some wire service reports, but overall nobody has really heard about this.

Multiple sclerosis patients have also benefited from adult stem cell regenerative medicine. MS is an autoimmune disorder in which the patient's body attacks the protective sheaf surrounding the patient's neurons.

A study conducted at the Washington Medical Center in Seattle involved 26 rapidly deteriorating MS patients. First, physicians stimulated the stem cells from the patients' bone marrow to enter the blood stream. They then harvested the stem cells and gave the patients strong chemotherapy to destroy their immune systems.

Finally, the researchers reintroduced the stem cells into patients hoping they would rebuild healthy immune systems and alleviate the MS symptoms, and it worked. Of the 26 patients, 20 stabilized and six improved. Three patients experienced severe infections and one died.

This was a very positive advance offering great hope but rather than making headlines the test was lost. This test received less attention than the successful studies using animals on embryonic research. The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times ran articles but they were only minimal reports.

Meanwhile, in Canada younger MS patients whose disease was not as far advanced as those in the Washington study have shown even greater benefit from the same procedure. Six months after the first patient was treated, she was found to have no evidence of the disease on MRI scans. Three other patients have also received successful adult stem cell graphs with no current evidence of active disease.

The Parkinson's and MS studies have offered phenomenal evidence of the tremendous potential effects of adult stem cell research and the regenerative medicines offered.

It is worth underscoring and re-emphasizing the fact that adult stem cell research is providing cures. It is not necessary to go into the zone of creating life only to destroy it.

[Rahim Jaffer, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to contribute to the debate. This debate could be easily sidetracked by special interest considerations and sectarian concerns over religion and morality.

As parliamentarians, we have a duty and obligation to address the bill from the perspective of balance. We all have strongly held views on abortion and other fundamental issues of faith and morality. In that regard I must admit that I am impressed by the level of decorum and respect that has been given all members who have contributed in the House to the debate.

Members from all sides of the House have spoken eloquently and from the heart about their belief systems and personal accounts on this issue.

It is not uncommon for debates on controversial issues to digress into the realm of heckling and disrespectful exchanges. I congratulate my colleagues in the House for rising above partisanship and truly respecting Canada's pluralistic reality. I hope that the high level of decorum remains throughout the life of Bill C-56. I believe that this exercise can serve to bring Canadians together by finding common ground.

I state for the record that Bill C-56 addresses the status of an independent embryo outside a woman's body and as such the bill has nothing to do with abortion or issues of choice.

Like it is all members, there are a number of factors that will influence my decision. As a libertarian I believe in the fundamental right of the individual over the jurisdiction of their bodies and property. As a Muslim I believe that life is sacred. The saving of a life is a duty and the taking of a life is a grave sin.

Islamic bioethics also permit organ donations and in vitro fertilization. In terms of origins of life, most Muslim scholars agree that ensoulment occurs 120 days after conception. Most important, I am a parliamentarian committed to consulting with my constituents and voting their will. I state for the record that I have yet to decide how I will vote on the bill.

I have several questions pertaining to a number of issues arising from the debate. To answer these concerns I will be consulting with my constituents and studying the issue in greater detail. I hope to have a number of my questions answered throughout the legislative process of Bill C-56, and most likely during the summer.

At first glance, the issue of assisted human reproduction conjures up Orwellian images of sterile laboratories where future generations are determined through genetic manipulation. The legislation bans cloning, human-animal hybrids, gender selection and all other taboos popularized by science fiction. In reality AHR provides people with reproductive challenges the opportunity for dreams of having children, a service of immeasurable societal value to those affected.

Recently two of my staff members became parents. I see how fulfilled their lives have become as a result of having children and how much they cherish parenthood. I believe that we should do all we can as parliamentarians to ensure that as many Canadians as possible can realize their dreams of becoming parents.

The inevitable question is how far we go to reach that goal. I believe that the report of the standing committee on the subject was balanced and represented the opinion of the majority of Canadians.

Bill C-56 must balance ethical scientific advancement and the rights and liberties of Canadians. Most of all, it must be accountable and transparent.

The agency proposed in the legislation is only accountable to parliament through the minister and we all know how accountable ministers have been lately. I believe that the agency must be accountable directly to parliament to ensure that the concerns of Canadians on this sensitive issue are addressed in the House.

My colleague from Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca is dedicated to the cause of organ donation and has done a considerable amount of work in raising public awareness for this cause. Organ donation is widely accepted and deemed to be an honourable act. From every death new life can be given to several people through the donation of vital organs. We consider it a tragedy when healthy human tissue that can help others is buried instead of being utilized through a transplant.

Current in vitro reproduction practices involve the destruction of left over embryos. As the embryos are disposed of so too is the possibility of saving lives and curing diseases. I do not understand the rationale used by those opposed to embryonic stem cells who condone destroying embryos but not using them for medical research.

Like most issues, stakeholders on both sides of this debate have a vested interest. Those on the side of medical research would have us believe that embryonic stem cells will cure every ailment known to men and women. Those opposed to embryonic stem cell research counter these claims with what basically amounts to mass rejection of embryonic tissue. Somewhere in the middle lies the facts.

I believe that research should continue on embryonic stem cells. I believe that the progress of this research should be monitored by the House and reviewed every three years. By doing so, we can ensure that the legislative framework is keeping up with the technological advancement and also ensure adequate funding.

I am not a parent nor have I tried to start a family. However, I want to have as many choices and therapeutic options available to me when I get to that stage in life. I applaud the legislation in that a parent has the choice in determining the outcome of unused embryos. We must ensure that parents are given every opportunity.

I am a staunch advocate of privacy rights. Many have criticized the legislation's lack of disclosure of donor identification. I do not believe that the identity of a donor should be required. I believe that if such a requirement were to be established, a direct reduction in the number of donors would result.

Although the agency would hold information on donor identity, children conceived by AHR would have no right to know the identity of their parents without their written consent to reveal it.

That being said, I do believe that information other than the identity of the donor should be made available, including family medical histories and predispositions to disease and ailments.

I have questions pertaining to the prohibition of commercial surrogacy contained in the bill. Pregnancy and childbirth have long lasting, debilitating effects on a woman's body. I fail to see the harm in providing fair compensation over and above the actual expenses of a surrogate mother. Rather than a prohibition, I believe that clear regulations and guidelines should be developed to address the issue of compensation. Such regulations should be automatically referred to the health committee to ensure public scrutiny and transparency. The minister must be obligated to consider standing committee recommendations and not ignore them as is the current practice.

I, like most Canadians, am enticed by the ability of people to manipulate life. At the same time, I am apprehensive of the consequences. Canada is a world leader in innovation. The ingenuity of our citizens is limitless. It is our role as parliamentarians to not only ask the question can we do it but should we.

The bill must not be fast tracked. It must be carefully studied, voted upon freely and open to amendment. The debate can be a healthy exercise in public policy development but only if it is truly open and transparent.

As I said in the outset of my speech, I have not yet decided how I will vote on the bill. I will consult with my constituents and personally study the issue in greater detail before I come to that determination.

As well, it is healthy to see that in this place, on this bill, parliamentarians are in fact coming together to express their opinions, their own moral beliefs and their views on this issue as we are all becoming more aware of its consequences. We are not being heckled, criticized for those views or being unfairly discriminated against . This will have grave consequences on future technology, on health and on future generations.

It is clear that we need to come together as parliamentarians. We need to be able to express our views openly and honestly. We need to make decisions based on sound science and on what we fundamentally believe. I am glad to see that sort of spirit can exist in the House when the commitment is made on behalf of all members to do so. It does not happen as often as we would like but it is happening on this bill, and I applaud that.

[Lynne Yelich, Canadian Alliance, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, every once in a while in the course of human history it becomes incumbent upon us as legislators to make difficult decisions involving life, death, ethics and morality. Such is the position we find ourselves in today. As a representative of a constituency of individuals I feel a responsibility to ensure Bill C-56 strikes a proper balance between ethics and science.

It seems the more one seeks to know about stem cell research the more complex the issue becomes. However I take comfort in knowing I am not the only person grappling with this ethical dilemma. It was with great interest that I read the speech given by President Bush last fall when his nation was creating legislation on stem cell research. In his speech Mr. Bush called the issue one of the most profound of our time. I will read some excerpts from his speech:

The issue of research involving stem cells derived from human embryos is increasingly the subject of a national debate and dinner table discussions. The issue is confronted every day in laboratories as scientists ponder the ethical ramifications of their work. It is agonized over by parents and many couples as they try to have children, or to save children already born.

The issue is debated within the church, with people of different faiths, even many of the same faith coming to different conclusions.

As I thought through this issue, I kept returning to the fundamental questions: First, are these frozen embryos human life, and therefore, something precious to be protected? And second, if they're going to be destroyed anyway, shouldn't they be used for a greater good, for research that has the potential to save and improve other lives?

At its core, this issue forces us to confront fundamental questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science. It lies at a difficult moral intersection, juxtaposing the need to protect life in all its phases with the prospect of saving and improving life in all its stages.

These are the questions we in the Canadian parliament are asking ourselves. It is important that we create coherent laws in the area as soon as possible. Canada must not stray too far behind the rest of the world on the issue. Although it is a contentious issue we as members of parliament must work through it and come to a conclusion as soon as possible. If we do not, we risk getting ourselves into a situation where we will be reactive instead of proactive in creating well thought out legislation.

That said, I will take the opportunity to outline some of my concerns with the legislation as it currently stands. I want to state unequivocally that I am a firm supporter of science, research and technological development. I have concerns that the legislation would allow research on human embryos if their use was necessary. It is significant that necessity is not clearly defined in the existing legislation. I will therefore spend the remainder of my speech on the notion of scientific necessity.

Scientists and advocacy groups have recently brought forth evidence that there are credible alternatives to embryonic stem cells for the treatment of some of humanity's most debilitating diseases. Carrie Gordon Earll, a bioethics analyst, has documented several promising medical successes using alternatives to embryonic stem cells. Such alternatives can be found in adult stem cells that come from areas in the developed human body such as bone marrow and umbilical cord blood. These do not require the loss of human life or potential human life. In her work Mrs. Earll cites the following examples:

Researchers at Harvard Medical School used animal adult stem cells to grow new islet cells to combat diabetes. Researcher[s] [said they] had reversed the disease without the need for transplants. Plans for human trials are underway.

Thirty-six-year old Susan Stross is one of more than 20 MS patients whose conditions have remained steady or improved after receiving an adult stem cell transplant. The same results are reported with several hundred patients worldwide.

In addition to the obvious moral advantages of using adult stem cells, research also seems to be proving that they are safer than fetal cells. Dr. Helen Hodges, a British researcher, recently found that adult stem cells travel to areas that need repair whereas fetal stem cells remain where they are injected. She says that because patients can donate their own adult stem cells for treatment their immune systems will not reject them.

In 1999 the journal Science quoted a Professor Prentice who wrote:

In the last two years, we've gone from thinking that we had very few stem cells in our bodies and recognizing that many (perhaps most) organs maintain a reservoir of these cells.

Professor Prentice went on to say that adult stem cells have shown themselves to be scientifically more successful than embryonic stem cells because of the variety of different tissues they can become and because they are more readily available.

In contrast, embryonic stem cells have not yet alleviated or cured any diseases. Indeed scientists are telling us now that embryonic stem cells can sometimes be a bit too flexible, often differentiating into all kinds of tissue, some of which are desirable and some of which are not. In some cases, when injected under the skin of certain mice, they grew into tumours consisting of numerous tissue types, from guts to skin to teeth.

Women in my constituency from the organization REAL Women of Canada raised this issue in their fall 2001 newsletter. It states:

It strikes us as curious that intense pressure is now being placed on the potential of experimental use of embryo stem cells when there are already proven alternate sources of stem cells from bone marrow, umbilical cord, placenta, human fat tissue, skin and even the brain cells of deceased adults, to name just a few, which makes embryo stem cell research unjustified. This is especially so since these alternate sources eliminate the difficult problem of rejection of foreign material by the body caused by embryonic stem cell implantations. In contrast to the successful use of adult stem cells, human embryonic stem cells have never been used successfully in clinical trials.

It is very important to note that the mainstream scientific press is also taking notice of the potential of adult stem cells. A recent article from the New Scientist titled “Ultimate stem cell discovered” states the following:

A stem cell has been found in adults that can turn into every single tissue in the body. It might be the most important cell ever discovered.

Until now, only stem cells from early embryos were thought to have such properties. If the finding is confirmed, it will mean cells from your own body could one day be turned into all sorts of perfectly matched replacement tissues and even organs.

If so, there would be no need to resort to therapeutic cloning--cloning people to get matching stem cells from the resulting embryos. Nor would we have to genetically engineer embryonic stem cells to create a “one cell fits all” line that does not trigger immune rejection. The discovery of such versatile adult stem cells will also fan the debate about whether embryonic stem cell research is justified.

It is notable that some of this groundbreaking research is being conducted right in our own backyard at Montreal's McGill University.

Canada should commit itself to continuing to be a leader in this groundbreaking research and technology. It is to these activities that we should be channeling our money and efforts.

Finally, I am ever mindful of the opinions of the constituents of Blackstrap who have taken the time to write me about their opinions on this topic. I would like to share some of what they have to say.

Andrew and Louise Novecosky of Viscount wrote to me stating the following:

Regarding stem cell research, it is our hope that this not be allowed. It will lead to the harvest of stem cells. I am afraid this is likely already happening, but allowing the research will increase the harvest of young humans.

Mrs. Donna Hundeby of Elbow, Saskatchewan wrote:

I am writing to voice my opposition to any form of medical research that results in the taking of human life. Because I believe that an embryo is a human life, and human life is sacred, I urge you to ban the destruction of human embryos for stem cell research.

Kevin Dyck of Saskatoon wrote me to say:

I am writing to you today with a great sense of urgency. With the new legislation on assisted human reproduction passing through the Commons soon, I see a great need for the leaders of our country to speak out against the dangerous and often unethical practices proposed by researchers and clinics across the country.

In summary, I would like to underscore the most important point of my message. We must act quickly yet cautiously when forming legislation on such a profound moral issue.

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

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.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased I have an opportunity to again reply to a speech by the member for Nanaimo--Cowichan because we are having a very important dialogue here. What is before the House is a bill dealing with a high moral issue. It is proper for parliament to debate a high moral issue when morality comes into interface with science or other aspects of society.

I note that the member for Nanaimo--Cowichan called for a free vote on this piece of legislation and I take him at heart on that because I will give him an argument that I hope he will consider when he comes to vote himself.

There are two givens in this argument. First, one should accept, for this bill, that life begins at conception. Second, one needs to accept that to arbitrarily take life away is murder. We are not talking about collecting embryonic stem cells deliberately by creating individuals and then killing them.

The collection of embryonic stem cells for the purposes of research into Parkinson's, or whatever else, is only in the context of where the embryonic stem cells would be discarded otherwise, either from a fertility clinic or, and the bill does not mention this, presumably from spontaneous miscarriage, or wherever there is fetal material that as a result of a proper hospital procedure results in embryonic material being available.

The moral argument from my point of view is that the ultimate good is to preserve human life. My difficulty is with the proposals coming from the opposition and members of my own side. They suggest that we should delay implementation of allowing embryonic stem cell research as proposed in this legislation until we see whether adult stem cell research can have the same effect. My problem with that, as I mentioned earlier, is that we may be condemning people to death or to disability who we might otherwise save should embryonic stem cell research be fruitful as a means of curing things like Parkinson's, ALS and others.

I would like to put it again in a human context. In my village there is a couple in our church who we know very well. The wife is suffering severely from Parkinson's disease. The husband comes to me and says, “John, please support Bill C-56 because if there is any chance that embryonic stem cells can be developed as a cure for Parkinson's I would like it in time to save my wife who is in a great deal of difficulty right now”.

So, the basic moral dilemma from my point of view: even if embryonic stem cell research only has a 5% chance of being more successful than adult stem cell research, I do not feel I have the moral right to delay that research if it means it could possibly save some lives of people out there who are suffering from these terrible diseases.

The member for Nanaimo--Cowichan, after our interchange before, came over to me and said, “John, I listened to you very carefully”, and he is a very good member if I may say so. We really want to get at the truth here. He said that the problem from his point of view is that the embryo does not have a choice. He alluded in his speech just now to the fact that of course we encourage transplants. We can donate our kidney, our liver or whatever else. We can sign a form and when we are in an accident and killed that body part can be used to save another life. We agree that is a good thing. However, the problem is, as the member opposite has observed, an embryo does not have that choice. If we assume that a person is created at conception and that person inevitably dies--because we are only talking about a situation where that person as an embryo dies--that embryo does not have the choice of creating new life.

We agree that creating new life is a good thing. As a matter of fact, it is the highest moral good that we can think of. Now, this is where the really subtle moral distinction comes in. I do not want to get into religion and that kind of thing, but I think there is a very strong feeling that those who are alive, those who are persons before birth, are the ultimate persons of innocence. In other words, if one is a person between conception and birth, all of us would agree that as a person one is morally pure in every sense.

If we take that principle and apply it to the logic that to give life in death is one of the highest goods that one can give then surely an embryo, as a person who is the ultimate in innocence, would want to choose the highest good, and that highest good is, instead of being discarded, instead of being destroyed, to be part of giving new life and new opportunity to the living.

That to me is the ultimate ethical dilemma. It is not whether life begins at conception or not. The ultimate ethical dilemma we must face in this parliament is the fact that we have to make a choice for those who cannot choose, and we have to make the right moral choice for those who cannot choose. An embryo cannot choose, but we know in its innocence that what it would do in death is want to give life.

[Reed Elley, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, once again it is a pleasure to participate in this important debate today now that we have an amendment before the House stating that the 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.

The amendment gives me an opportunity to further expand on some of the comments I made earlier today in terms of my concern that the bill, as it is presently before the House, does not represent the broad bases of science that are available to us in Canada and around the world particularly relating to stem cell research. Those of us who have concerns about the bill would like to bring to the attention of hon. members that the legislation should be sent back to committee for a more balanced approach in terms of the best science we can get from embryonic and adult stem cell research.

All of us want to see cures for some of these debilitating diseases, diseases that can be terminal such as ALS and others. I would not want to be responsible for not allowing the science to go forward within some kind of regulatory framework that would allow for a cure, if indeed there was a cure, to be found through adult stem cell research. We do have an ethical dilemma surrounding the use of embryonic stem cells. We do not have the same kind of dilemma with adult stem cell research.

I must say I was struck by the comments of my hon. colleague from Hamilton, a former McMaster graduate who I went to school with. I was taken by his comments about the use of adult and embryonic stem cells and particularly, the fact that we would not want to see any stone left unturned in this whole debate to allow the science to go forward. Indeed, he made the comment that if a life had to end to give new life to someone else, he would be in favour of that.

I am in favour of seeing tissue and organ donation come forward. The only thing I want to say to him about that is that the fetus and embryo do not have a choice. They do not have the opportunity to make a choice as to whether or not they will be a donor, in effect giving life to someone else through their death. We do have an ethical concern surrounding that issue and we need to spend more time on that. I am sure hon. colleagues will take that into consideration when they are thinking about this issue.

We have talked about the issue of ALS, Parkinson's and others. An article in the Reuters News Agency on April 8, 2002, stated:

A transplant of his own brain cells have treated a man's Parkinson's disease, clearing up the trembling and rigid muscles that mark the disease, researchers reported on Monday.

The researchers believe they isolated and nurtured adult stem cells from the patient's brain, cells that they re-injected to restore normal function.

“We definitely need to do more studies,” said Dr. Michael Levesque of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who led the study. “This is the first case that shows a promising technique may work. It is an experimental procedure and has to be investigated further before it becomes accepted procedure.”

More than two years after the experimental treatment, the man has no symptoms of Parkinson's, an incurable and fatal brain disease that starts with tremors and ends up incapacitating its victims.

That is fantastic. If indeed we are seeing those kinds of advances in medical research today and if in this case, as in some others we could cite, it has come about because of medical research with adult stem cells, then it is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to ensure we do all we can to bring all of the research available in this field into the legislative equation. We must not go overboard on one aspect of stem cell research which seems to be the case in the present legislation.

There is also the whole business of donor consent. Those children who are born through artificial insemination do not at the present time have access to the medical records or the background of the donors. The legislation is absolutely faulty in that regard.

I recently spoke on the telephone with a constituent back in Nanaimo. This young lady is 20 years of age. She is wonderfully healthy and a productive member of society who is the result of artificial insemination. Her concern is that she does not have access to the medical records and histories which could be helpful to her as she goes into adulthood and wants to raise her own family.

The government, through this legislation, is unwilling to open the door to this particular kind of thing. Her suggestion was, and I pass it on to the rest of the members of the House and particularly to the committee, that we should only be considering donors who are willing to be identified to those who, at the age of majority, need to have this kind of information about their birthing parents in terms of artificial insemination.

There are a number of considerations that come into play. When we compare it to adoption there is indeed legal recourse for finding out this kind of information. People who at this point in their lives want to find out where the egg or the sperm came from that created them through artificial insemination need to have the same access to that kind of information that people who were adopted have. Indeed there should be a level playing field in that area.

There is a real need to clarify some important points in this legislation. We are hoping that when it goes back to committee it will indeed be prepared to accept amendments that bring this legislation into an even stronger position to protect those who are looking for protection in the bill and who are looking for cures that at this point are not available.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-56 has to do with reproductive technologies and related research. I would think that most members would agree that the vast majority of the bill has some important provisions which should be supported. However, there are a few items which should be considered for amendment.

One of the areas has to do with stem cells. Stem cells in lay terms are cells which can be adjusted to become virtually any healthy cell in the human body. This means that those cells could be used to repair damaged cells.

Stem cells can be harvested from embryos. They can also be harvested from aborted fetuses, umbilical cords, umbilical cord blood, placentas, amniotic fluid, in fact from virtually every organ in the human body. They are readily available but the question does come up as to whether or not it is ethical to harvest embryonic stem cells from the human embryo.

There is a saying in ethics that when the ethically unacceptable and the scientifically possible are in conflict, the ethical view must prevail. I also cite Dr. Françoise Baylis, who is a bioethicist at McGill University. In her testimony before the Standing Committee on Health, I believe it was on May 31, 2001 she said “An embryo is a human being. That is an uncontested biological fact. It is a member of the human species”.

I do not believe that in terms of the ethical view there is a disagreement with regard to whether or not an embryo is a human being. However, there are ethical arguments about whether or not that human being is in fact a person. It is a deep ethical argument into which I do not have the time to go. There is some basis for having concern about embryonic stem cell research.

The province of Quebec, on hearing the direction in which the Canadian Institutes of Health Research was going, immediately called for and imposed a ban on all embryonic stem cell research in the province. That was in January.

In February there was another important development. The secretary of human and health services in the United States introduced an amendment to a regulation which defines child. For health purposes, child in the United States is defined as a person under 19 years of age, including the period from conception to birth. It is a very significant change in the United States in terms of its policy with regard to the unborn.

The big debate has to do with an ethical argument surrounding when life begins. Human embryos can provide stem cells but uniquely from those stem cells there is an ethical problem in that to harvest the stem cells the embryo must be destroyed. That is an important point. Also, because the stem cells taken from an embryo would be of a particular DNA foreign to the ultimate patient, that means there will be immune rejection problems and the requirement for lifelong anti-rejection drug treatment which is a difficult situation.

In addition, embryonic stem cells which are injected under the skin have a tendency to create spontaneous tumours. They are very difficult to control. In a monograph I wrote, “The Ethics and Science of Stem Cells”, I related an example where embryonic stem cells were injected into the brain of a Parkinson's patient. After the person died about year later an autopsy showed that there was hair and bone growing in the person's brain. It gives an idea of the kinds of things that should concern people about what can happen when we start to play with genetic engineering.

On the other hand, with adult stem cells, there is no ethical problem. Because they would come from the patient, there would be no immune rejection problem nor the requirement for drugs. The stem cells would be readily available. Instead of being injected into a person's damaged area, they are simply injected into the blood and they have the ability to migrate to the damaged area.

It makes a great deal of sense to expand the research with regard to embryonic stem cells. This was the point of the motion made by the hon. member, to amplify the importance of adult stem cell research as the health committee indicated.

The whole issue has to do with research on surplus embryos from fertility clinics. If there was no surplus, there would be no question here. Let me give the House an idea of what happens.

Dr. Baylis, to whom I referred earlier, indicated there were about 500 frozen embryos in all fertility clinics across Canada. Currently about 250 of those are being utilized for reproductive purposes which leaves 250. In her presentation she also indicated that half of the frozen embryos will not survive thawing. They will die simply because of the process. That leaves 125. She went on to say that of the 125 embryos left, only nine of them will have the capacity to produce any kind of stem cell and only about five of those will actually produce stem cells which are of a quality necessary for research purposes. This means that only five out of 250 embryos are useful, but 250 embryos have to be destroyed just to get five that are going to be useful for research. That is 2%, which is an unacceptable threshold for scientific research. We have to do something about it.

What can we do about it? If there were no surplus embryos from fertility clinics, the question would be moot. We would be dealing with a motion that states that embryos can be created specifically for research and then put that question to the House.

The bill suggests that we use surplus embryos which should not exist. That is trying to get through the back door what research cannot get through the front door, that is, to have embryos for research. We should deal with that question directly. I wish the House were able to deal with that motion.

We can do something about this. There has been extensive research with regard to the process of storing women's eggs. Fertility clinics drug women very heavily to make them hyperovulate. This makes them produce a whole bunch of eggs. Ten to 20 eggs would be harvested. All of those eggs would then be fertilized. Some would be used for in vitro fertilization. The balance would be frozen for future in vitro processes. If the first process worked and the couple did not want a second child and they did not want to donate the egg to another person who wanted it, the embryos would become surplus.

What happens if we store women's eggs? It means that only a few will be harvested. Those needed for the in vitro fertilization process will be fertilized and stored. Once the first process is done and more eggs are required for the next process, they simply are thawed out, fertilized and then implanted. The bottom line is there would be no surplus. It is very important that more be invested in the process of storing women's eggs.

In a previous speech I indicated my concern about the whole question of commercialization. On May 24 I received from Dr. Timothy Caulfield, who appeared before the health committee, a response to my concern about commercialization. He said:

In particular, I too am concerned about the impact of the commercialization process in this context. Much of my work has sought to highlight the potentially adverse implications of commercializing genetic research, e.g., the creation of unique conflicts of interest, the skewing of university based research, contributing to the narrowing of the social definition of “normalcy” and a broadening of the notions of disease and disability.

There are very many issues involved with this legislation, including things like patentability and the idea of having an agency to whom we would second the responsibility for defining an ethical framework for research. The bill needs a lot of work. I want Canadians to know that there is no group, no organization, no individual who is opposed to stem cell research. The question is will we get them ethically?

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to go back a year and explain the process that went on with the legislation. It is very important that we look at exactly what we have in Bill C-56 and understand why it is in there. It all started a year ago on May 4 when the bill went directly to committee. It is the first piece of legislation that has ever gone directly to committee. It went right to committee, and I commend the minister at the time for doing that. It is a very contentious issue which is important to all members of the House and all Canadians.

Putting it before committee was a very wise thing to do, before entrenchment of partisan lines and before people said things in which they would entrap themselves before fully understanding the issue. For nine months the committee examined this issue. It had the best witnesses from across Canada and around the world tear the legislation apart and look at it from all sides; the scientific side, the ethical side and the family values side. At the end it was suggested that maybe it was named inappropriately and that it should be named building families.

There are really two parts. We have the part about the in vitro fertilization, the idea of what it takes when infertile couples cannot have children and what has to happen for them to conceive. We looked at what would assist them to build families, to build healthy new Canadians who would develop into prosperous individuals to help and grow society in Canada.

The other side is perhaps as some people would argue not even applicable to the bill. It is all on the scientific side which drives the idea that research should be done to ease the suffering of individuals, which has nothing to do with reproduction other than getting some of the material that could perhaps be used for stem cells in this area. That was important to understand.

We listened to everyone. For scientists, the success of in vitro fertilization is a brand new baby boy or girl. However for society it is much deeper than that. We had witnesses who appeared before the committee who said that who their parents were, where they came from, if there was an anonymous donor that they did not know anything about, left a void in their life which they could not handle later in life. It was very important that we understood the structure of the human body, which is very complex, and the psychological effects on many individuals. Success from the different perspectives was very different so we had to look at all sides of the issue.

On the embryonic stem cell side, if we are going to destroy an embryo, destroy life at its beginning to achieve stem cells by 14 days, kill it, take the stem cells and do research is an ethical minefield in the eyes of many people. We are taking human life at its very early and most vulnerable stage and destroying it. It is not an issue of whether life begins there or not. Biologically it does and whether we like that or not there is nothing we can do about that. The issue is how much value do we place on life at that stage. That is the ethical dilemma in which the House will be placed. It is something that we wrestled with as a committee for a year.

At the end of that, we recognized that there were other alternatives. We had scientists come to the committee who said that we should not go down that path. From the scientific research being done and the easing of human suffering, it was much more successful on the adult stem cell side of it.

In December the committee issued its report on its findings entitled, “Assisted Human Reproduction: Building Families”. This was an all party committee. The committee had a majority of Liberal members, and the other members of parliament were three Canadian Alliance, two Bloc, one NDP and one Progressive Conservative. After we listened to all the witnesses, we came up with these recommendations.

The recommendation states:

Research using embryos be a controlled activity requiring a licence. Even if all other regulatory criteria are met, no licence may be issued unless the applicant clearly demonstrates that no other category of biological material could be used for the purposes of the proposed research.

Prior to that, the preamble, we came to that conclusion because we heard that embryonic stem cell research presents some possibilities. Other sources, such as umbilical cord blood or adult stem cells are more available, are more easily obtained, are less ethically contentious. Some witnesses argued that research on stem cells using sources other than embryos might be sufficient to obtain the stem cell potential.

The committee was struck with the testimony that in the past year there have been tremendous gains in adult stem cell research in humans. We also heard that after many years of embryonic stem cell research in animal models, the results are not providing the expected advances. Therefore, we want to encourage research funding in the area of adult stem cells.

After nine months of listening to the best and the brightest in our land and in the world, the committee which had no vested interest said that there were two ways we could go. We could destroy life at its beginning and do research on the embryo which has very limited scientific possibilities at this time, or we could go on this other line which is the adult or non-embryonic stem cell research, which is umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid and on and on. The committee decided to go there. The bill does not reflect that and therein lies the problem and the reason for an amendment. We need a piece of legislation that recognizes the value of the adult or non-embryonic stem cell research.

What has happened since December? As I reported a couple of days ago in the House, in the last 60 days there have been a number of different advancements that have happened involving Parkinson's patients. These results were not just proposed and looked hopeful; the patients were actually cured. It is the same thing for multiple sclerosis and autoimmune resistance and on and on. We have seen tremendous gains in the last 60 days compared to any other time in history. What has happened in this line of research in the last year has been absolutely phenomenal. The advancement is growing and growing.

What happens in the next 60 days or in the next year becomes something we have to recognize. We have to be very cautious of going down the ethically charged line of destroying life at its beginning. All of this is important.

What is interesting is that because of this research we see actual cures coming from adult stem cell research. This was in an article on the fourth or fifth page of the Globe and Mail . If the research had been done on embryos and it had been embryonic stem cells that had cured the Parkinson's and MS patients, it would have been a shot heard around the world.

The drive of the scientists and society to get to the embryos is absolutely astounding. We do not have enough information on this whole area. It is very important that we take our time. We have to deliberate. Society has to wrestle with the same things we have wrestled with in committee so that we do not make mistakes. We must be wise in how we go down this ethically charged line.

The whole idea of patent law is not part of the bill because patent law comes under the industry minister. It is unfortunate. Something on patenting the human body should be placed in this legislation. Patenting the human body should not take place. The human body should be something that we cherish. How we find it may be patented, but certainly we should not allow ourselves to patent the human body.

The most important part of this legislation is not what we do with the embryo; it is what we do with the agency that licenses the research as we go forward in the 21st century. It must be accountable and garner the trust of Canadians if we are to truly have a piece of legislation and work in areas that are so ethically charged. It has to be looked at. It has to be changed. We have to make that as open and transparent as possible. I encourage all members to be wise as we deliberate in that area.

[Deborah Grey, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity as well to rise on this important occasion, one that we have been anticipating for years. In fact this dates back many years now. When the Prime Minister came in and assumed office in 1993, there were some fundamental issues then. Here we are almost nine years later dealing with this.

It seems very strange that we are doing this in almost a hurry up fashion before the House rises for the summer. In fact there is even talk of prorogation. We certainly have to question how important this is to the government, in light of recent events. I am sure the government has some concerns about this but one would hate to think that this might be some sort of tactic to toss it in to get flaming issues off the back burner. Nonetheless, we do need to look at this but not in such a hurried fashion. We should really study this.

Ten or fifteen years ago we would not have even had this debate because the technology was not available to determine some of these very sensitive but important ethical and technological questions. We certainly need to deal with it because the advances in medicine have been absolutely phenomenal.

I would like to take the few minutes I have to talk about the important and amazing breakthroughs taking place with non-embryonic stem cell research or adult stem cell research if that is a synonym. Then I would like to talk about what the whole argument is, where the road will lead us and what is the definition of human life. I would like to use that as my thesis and discuss for a few moments how important it is to say that the Canadian Alliance supports stem cell research. Again the breakthroughs in medicine and research have been just absolutely phenomenal in these last few years, and we are able to celebrate that.

Having said that, it is not all done because there are breakthroughs daily, weekly, monthly, in terms of stem cell research and exciting things are happening all the time. It is not a closed book.

If we bring in legislation to say that we will go down the embryonic stem cell research route without fully realizing and celebrating the importance and amazing breakthroughs taking place with non-embryonic stem cell research, then it seems to me we would be cutting ourselves short, cutting the Canadian public short and cutting short the people whose lives are depending on this.

There have been tremendous breakthroughs with Parkinson's disease and MS. We had the ALS people here on the Hill not long ago. These are real people who have real names, real faces, real families and whose lives can benefit so much by this.

It would be premature for us to say that the government has all the answers and that we will go down this path when we have not fully explored the path of adult stem cell research. Because of these exciting breakthroughs, it would be essential for us to say that there would be a three year review, as the government has said. That is terrific but I hate to be cynical but this. Those of us who have been around more than three years have watched some of these reviews. A few of us have seen a few three year cycles in this place. The Canadian Alliance is calling for a three year moratorium on this so we can see, in the long term, some of the scientific advances being made in this area.

Adult stem cell research, or non-embryonic stem cell research, has three benefits. There are probably lots more but we could talk about three of them. First, the cells are readily accessible and there are plenty of us around.

Second, they are not subject to tissue rejection. These are cells that have gone on and in some cases some much longer than others. There is tremendous potential and realization. If the cells are not subject to tissue rejection, what a wonderful thing. We could do the stem cell research and testing. Because these are not embryonic stem cells, people would be able to move ahead because there would be no tissue rejection, which is important and can be devastating to many transplant patients.

Third, it poses minimal ethical concerns. I am sure that every one of us would agree that there are huge ethical concerns here. As I mentioned earlier, this was not even a factor 10 or 15 years ago. We did not have the potential for these kinds of things so it was not a real ethical dilemma. However it now is.

We get into the very question of what is important and what is essential for us to realize in terms of embryos are embryos and when do we stop saying that an embryo has been developed by parents. Let us not just call them donors, because whoever they are, they have names, faces, families and loved ones as well. When does it leave that path and swap over to the path of getting at it and farming these things for pure scientific research or use as donors.

We talk about that and the transition from embryonic stem cell research to what is the definition of human life, because I think that is with what all of us probably struggle. I know the committee, which did tremendous work, discussed that I am sure at length and had to come up with what human life really was and when did it start. Those questions have been asked for a very long time. I will not get into that debate.

I just want to show a couple of examples of how thankful I am and how strongly I believe, because of DNA and because of all kinds of other factors, that life begins at conception. If we look at the DNA of any embryo, that is again technology which has only been perfected or advanced in the last several years. DNA does not start at birth. It does not start at 27 weeks gestation. It does not start at 13.5 days. It starts at the moment of conception. That, with scientific research to back it up, is when life really starts. Then we get down the road to whether we start farming these things or do we celebrate that as human life.

Let me tell the House about my brother, Sean, who is adopted. He came to our home when I was about six years old and he was about two or two and a half years old. All of a sudden I had a brother. I am very grateful that somebody, somewhere, who was in a difficult situation, chose to give him up for adoption. Because of that I ended up with a brother. I do not pay any attention to the fact that he is adopted or that he has different DNA than any of the rest of us. It does not matters. What matters is that somebody, somewhere realized that this was a human life.

He is now a living, breathing human being. He is my brother, he has been for a very long time and I am glad for that. That is the real life, the real face, the real people issue of this for which I am grateful. He has been my brother forever and will continue to be. I am grateful that somebody, somewhere realized that although he was just an embryo then, he was still a human being.

Let me talk for a couple of minutes about something I read in the newspaper yesterday. When we talk about when human life really starts, we think it has to have so much weight or so much gestation or whatever. There was a story about a little girl. The newspaper named her Pearl because it could not give her real name. This took place in France. She was born in February. She weighed 10 ounces. This is an absolute record of a living, breathing person who was born at 10 ounces.

I think about a pound of butter. I am not too good with math, but I think about my palm pilot and how I can bounce it around in my hand. It feels a little bit less than a pound of butter so maybe it is 10 ounces, I do not know. The palm pilot people would know, but it is not very big. If we hold 10 ounces in our hands, it is not very big. Yet there she is. She came home from the hospital this weekend. She weighs four pounds, four ounces now. She is a real live human being. That to me is exciting.

That is what we need to debate and celebrate; that human life begins right at the moment of conception, because that is when our DNA starts. That is where little baby Pearl started. She has gone home from the hospital now and I am sure she will give great joy and satisfaction to her family.

I will just wrap up by saying, I move:

That the motion be amended by replacing all the words after the word “that” with:

“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”.

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

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.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity in the debate to reply to some of the comments made by my colleague opposite. I respect absolutely the position that has been taken by the opposition and some Liberal members on the issues raised by Bill C-56, particularly as they pertain to stem cell research.

The member opposite in a very reasoned argument suggested that perhaps society is moving too quickly on this whole matter of experimenting with embryonic stem cells and the potential that they show and that surely first we should exploit, as a government, as a society, as scientists, the potentials of adult stem cells that may be taken from elsewhere in the body and may indeed with research be proved to be as effective as embryonic stem cells in addressing some of the illnesses that we have such hope these new procedures will cure eventually.

My problem with the argument is simply this. It is an ethical one, indeed. I think the whole debate is an ethical issue. If embryonic stem cells, taken as part of the procedures in which they would otherwise be discarded, because no one is in favour of creating embryonic stem cells deliberately for the purposes of research, but given that embryonic stem cells are now being routinely discarded, if we do not encourage the scientists to carry on research with these embryonic cells, and if we as my colleague opposite suggests and set that issue aside and concentrate on adult stem cells, what if we are delaying the procedures and the opportunities of people who have debilitating illnesses from becoming well?

For instance, I have a relative who has Parkinson's disease. It is very difficult to watch somebody who is close suffering from a disease for which we know there is no present cure. When I look at him, I am very anxious that a cure be provided for him before the Parkinson's disease reaches such an advanced state that it really debilitates him.

A person in my community suffers from Lou Gehrig's disease. That person has shown incredible courage in the way he has managed that disease over 10 years. He is really exceptional in the sense that he has lived far longer than anyone expected. He is completely paralyzed. It may be a matter of weeks or months, but it is a very short time in which that disease will finally kill him.

My difficulty is that if there is reasonably good scientific thought to the effect that embryonic stem cells may offer a better road to curing people of these terrible diseases, and we do not know for certain but the possibility is there, I feel very strongly that we have an ethical obligation to take advantage of that opportunity as it sits right now.

A problem with the idea of delaying, as was suggested in the minority report of the opposition to the health committee report, and I do not dispute the sincerity with which it made that report, is that there will be people who will die. There will be people whose diseases will advance enormously if we may find out in retrospect that embryonic cells are better and more effective in bringing about the cures that we hope from the stem cell research. That is my dilemma. I am not sure we can wait.

I would like to make one other point. There has been some reluctance to address the moral issue, the faith issue, that is lurking behind the whole debate on embryonic stem cells. There are a great many Canadians who as a matter of faith believe that life begins at conception and that part of the resistance to using embryonic cells for research is this whole idea that we are dealing with cells that have to do with the fundamentals of an individual human being.

I can only say how I react to that. I can accept that life may begin at conception. When a procedure occurs in which death follows that life, although these cells may be only a week old, they have to be discarded. That is death and I would submit that if in death those cells which we might regard as human beings can be used to give life, is that not what we all should want? I do not know how to express this very adequately, but I feel very strongly that the greatest gift that a living human being can give is the gift of life to another human being. If that gift of life is given at the moment of death then I think morally it is correct.

My difficulty in the bill is that I acknowledge the commitment and the passion that is felt by the people debating on all sides, and I have been reading the Hansard , but in the end with me it is an ethical and moral issue. In deciding, when the legislation does come before me for a vote, I will have to support the idea that when life gives over to death and that death gives opportunity to life, and I know where my vote will be.

The legislation, in supporting the limited use of embryonic cells always with the understanding these are discarded cells, ethically, at least for this person, the only choice that we have is to support what is in the legislation.

[Reed Elley, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this important debate. Bill C-56 is a piece of legislation that has been long in coming. Canadians have been calling for legislation since 1993 when the royal commission on new reproductive technologies reported.

This issue has a long history. In July 1995 minister Marleau introduced a voluntary moratorium on some reproductive technologies. In June 1996 the government introduced a bill prohibiting 13 uses of assisted reproductive and genetic technologies but allowed the bill to die on the order paper at the time of the 1997 election. Draft legislation was thereafter submitted to the health committee on May 3, 2001 for consideration. The committee presented its report entitled “Building Families” in December 2001.

In March 2002 the Canadian Institutes for Health Research pre-empted any legislation by parliament by publishing rules to approve funding for experiments on human embryos and aborted fetuses. Funding was put off for one year following opposition protest of that particular move.

I wish to make it clear that the Canadian Alliance strongly believes in the improvement of human health. We support research wherever it is compatible with the dignity and value of human life. We will work to protect the value of human life and the best interests of children born of assisted reproductive technologies as well as ensuring that prospective parents have access to the best assisted reproductive technologies that science can ethically offer.

On such an important issue members of all parties should have the right to a free vote on the bill. It is important that we hear from Canadians on this issue and then, when in possession of all the facts, be able to vote free from party discipline on this important subject.

There are parts of the bill that I am pleased to see. I support the bill in regard to reproductive technology and the legislative framework it would create for this important subject. I do not wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater because there are parts of the bill which I cannot support.

I hope the committee will truly flex its political muscles and allows amendments to be passed so that we might at the end of the day be able to support the legislation.

What concerns me about the legislation? I believe we run the serious risk that donor insemination creates divided families. Recently Maclean's magazine published a six-page article entitled, “Who's my birth father?” In it the journalist states that with the exception of a few instances, “approximately 14,000 Canadians born by donor insemination in the past two decades are locked in a system that protects the donor anonymity.” The article stated that, “until recently, physicians even encouraged parents not to tell their children how they were conceived.” The remainder of the article contained numerous stories of children born by donor insemination who were demanding to know who their biological fathers were. In Canada over one million families are single parent homes and approximately 900,000 of these parents are mothers.

Too many children in Canada have little access to their natural fathers and I fear that the bill will only cause these numbers to increase and not serve in the best interest of children born of assisted human reproduction. Children born through donor insemination must have access to information about their biological fathers.

Another area of concern is the issue of stem cell research. There have been considerable advances in this area of medical technology. It proves to be a promising field that could lead to revolutionary discoveries. However, in this piece of legislation Canadians are only getting half the story. Legislation based on only half the story may lead to many sufferers of terminal diseases never seeing a cure.

This is the case when we rely too heavily on embryonic stem cells as the cure all for these debilitating diseases. Simply put, there are other sources of stem cells other than embryos. For the information of the House today, I have reviewed some of the available research on this issue. I have learned that scientists and doctors across the country are discovering stem cells taken from sources such as placentas, umbilical cords, bone marrow and even human fat are equally as capable as those collected from embryos.

For instance, a team of researchers from the University of Alberta have recently isolated and extracted healthy islet cells from an adult pancreas. These are cells that produce insulin. They have successfully transplanted the cells into the pancreas of 25 people suffering from juvenile diabetes.

There are other examples. For instance, a researcher from McGill University also discovered that stem cells collected from adult skin was capable of growing into brain cells and other tissue.

Then again, researchers found evidence that stem cells circulating in the bloodstream could grow new tissue in the liver, gut and skin. Adult stem cells are therefore more versatile than previously thought.

Finally, University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute researchers showed that adult bone marrow stem cells can become blood vessels. The researcher said “The findings suggest that these adult stem cells may be an ideal source of cells for clinical therapy”.

The Duke University Medical Centre researchers turned stem cells from knee fat into cartilage, bone and fat cells. The researcher 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”.

These are only a few examples of successful advances that have been made in the area of adult stem cell research. Why then would the Liberal government put all its eggs in one basket, so to speak, in the bill, fail to acknowledge that even though scientists have been working for over 20 years with embryonic stem cells without any significant breakthrough in treating disease and seemingly pay no regard to the scientific breakthroughs that are happening within Canada and around the world in adult stem cell research?

Derek Rogusky, director of research at Focus on the Family, has stated that:

While embryonic stem cell research holds out a faint hope for Canadians suffering with disease, adult stem cell research is already changing lives for the better. Building on these successes, not the challenges of embryonic stem cells, is where we should be investing our tax dollars.

Stem cell research is a relevant issue to the bill and Canadians are eager to have the government take action. I suggest that the Liberal government take seriously the recommendation made by the Canadian Alliance to call for a three year prohibition on research on human embryos in order to realize the full potential of adult stem cells. This research thus far has only proven successful and therefore suggests that its future is bright.

The standing committee has said:

--in the past year, there have been tremendous gains in adult stem research in humans. We also heard that, after many years of embryo stem cell research with animal models, the results have not provided the expected advances. Therefore, we want to encourage research funding in the area of adult 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.

The House must acknowledge the use of adult stem cells and the significant advances that have already been made in this area. I therefore urge the government to implement the three year prohibition of experimentation on human embryos. While this is important legislation that has been long coming, let us not rush it through only to create new problems. People who suffer from debilitating diseases deserve the best science, certainly the best cure and indeed the best legislation. Let us do the job right if we are going to do it at all.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Canadian Alliance, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I knew the rule but in the heat of my speech it escaped me. I apologize to the Chair and members of the House for overlooking that point.

There are other aspects of Bill C-56 I will comment on briefly. These comments do not deal with surrogate parenting. We are not pursuing a lot of areas that other countries are pursuing. The U.S. is debating the whole issue of therapeutic cloning. European countries are into that sort of thing and so on.

I will raise another hypothetical question. We ban stuff in Canada. A lot of us do not feel the research will go anywhere. However let us say it does. Let us say we had effective treatments for something like Lou Gehrig's disease. Can anyone in the House seriously tell me that someone who tried to seek treatment would be a criminal? Would we jail these people or something along those lines? We need to think about these things.

There is one thing history teaches us. Even if we do not agree with something, once it is out of the bottle we cannot get it back in. Science has brought lots of things into the world we do not like but we cannot put them back in the bottle. I have never seen anyone do it. We need to think about this. Banning and criminalizing things is not necessarily the answer. To have some control over the process, a lot of times we would be better off treating problems with common sense and regulation rather than leaving the whole thing open ended or criminalizing the procedure.

The surrogate parenting thing still bothers me. If a perfectly healthy person was born out of that situation what would his or her status be? Would we criminalize the whole activity? For the life of me I cannot see the logic of it.

[John O'Reilly, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I always like to follow my hon. friend across the way because he speaks from the heart. He does not use notes. He has not read the Bible aloud to us or tried to put something into the bill that is not there. It is always a delight to hear his down home type of spin on everything and his personalization of the various people who affect his life. I always appreciate that and I like to follow him because I do not have notes either.

I am reminded of the Irish people during the war. They were told that they were neutral. They wanted to know who they were neutral against. Bill C-56 reminds me of that type of a scenario. It has all the elements of research and development. Some of the items of abortion have been brought in as well as some items on how to treat disease and the hope that genetic research will provide for an eradication of disease. It has elements of everything.

As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence I do not get an opportunity very often to express my views from both my own religion, which is Roman Catholic, and that of my family. We have two adopted children. My wife has taught in the separate school system. We believe that life begins at conception so I do not have any problem with that. It is not something I have to debate with anyone. Those are my beliefs and people should take them for what they are. I do not think anyone will ask me to vote against my conscience. If they do, then those are the breaks of the game. My conscience is my conscience and I will have to live with it.

A lot of people would like to say that if a member is a Liberal, he or she is this, or if a member is a Liberal he or she is something else. We get pushed into some kind of a slot. Sometimes if we vote against the government we are perceived as voting with the opposition. The Prime Minister has said to me on many occasions that I can vote with my conscience. That is what I am here for. However, when we are voting on something like this, Bill C-56, we must take a look at what group of people sent us here. Do they agree or disagree?

On gun control it was easy for me. I did a survey. I am a gun owner. I have hunted and had the odd deer die in front of me from various causes. I had trouble with the gun control bill because I thought that I would have to vote against it. However, when I did the survey in my riding 51% of the people were in favour of gun control and 49% were against it. I received letters with bullet holes from people who were so passionate that they wanted to let me know how they felt about it. Therefore if I voted yes or I voted no who was I serving? That is what I am dealing with here.

My constituency is evenly split. I have received many e-mails and my website has had lots of hits on it. People have sent me letters, e-mails and snail mail. All kinds of different things have come through. For every letter that I get that is in favour of the bill I get one that is against it. We have people who are sometimes motivated out of fear thinking that somehow if we vote in favour of this particular piece of legislation we are against motherhood.

There are other people who are desperate for the research because we have excellent researchers in Canada. Sometimes we tend to think that our researchers are not that prominent in the world. However, if we look at the Salk vaccine and the many things that Canadians have accomplished over the years we can see that we have excellent researchers. We must not bridle them. We must ensure that our researchers are allowed to carry on.

I have been a board of director of a hospital. I have sat on health committees. I have chaired the committee on HIV-AIDS which studied poverty and discrimination. Whether it is Lou Gehrig's disease, cancer, or whatever it is that can benefit from the research that would be involved in Canada by top-notch researchers, I would think we would all be in favour of ensuring that our research continue to be among the best in the world.

Yesterday was a full day of debate on the bill. I read the speeches given by the former leader of the opposition who quoted the Bible and members of NDP who are interested in an opposite view. Some have the same view as the former leader of the opposition. Some of our own members are divided on this issue. There is no clear path here.

Moratorium in French means to kill it. We may run into some wording problems with the Bloc because its idea of moratorium is different than the English version of moratorium. In English moratorium means to delay but in French it is a full-fledged killing. We cannot allow that word to creep in here.

A moratorium is not the answer. Somewhere along the line we will have to decide if the bill is votable according to our conscience or according to the will of our constituents. None of us are going to find a strong view from the scientific world if we are based in rural Canada. Let us face it, rural Canadians that I live with go to the big teaching hospitals in the cities. That is where most of the research is done, whether it is the London, Toronto or Hamilton hospitals that are doing great work in research.

Those hospitals are not looking at the ethics of it but certainly what the medical results could be. Sometimes that scares me because we then tend to take human life at less value than it is made for us. We must take human life at its highest amount of dollar value, but particularly emotional value. To me human life is precious from conception to natural death. If anti-abortionists or abortionists want to argue with my two adopted children, they can give a pretty good argument in favour of life from conception to natural death. That is not a problem with me in my Christian views.

I want to ensure that somewhere within the confines of the bill we are able to deal with the ethical and moral problems that we all face but with the value of the research, and the value of the strength and talent of the medical community throughout Canada. I also want to ensure that we do not put handcuffs on researchers. We must ensure research and development and embryonic research goes ahead and that it is brought to its fullest to assist life as it now exists.

[John M. Cummins, Canadian Alliance, Delta—South Richmond, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned with Bill C-56 because of the effect the bill will have on our society and, most important, on future generations. I am concerned about the bizarre duplicities in the bill which leave important moral questions in the hands of a few or even single appointed individuals unknown to most Canadians.

I am concerned that the government has brought the bill forward in such a way as to avoid questions about life which it believes may be troubling politically. I am concerned that the government would use the promise of banning obviously abhorrent practices such as human cloning as a means of avoiding debate on a few of the more politically troubling issues surrounding stem cell research.

In his March 4 column of the National Post , Andrew Coyne exposed the tragic failure of the government to address the critical issues raised by the possibilities of science today. He began by describing the dilemma of Maureen McTeer:

On the CBC, Maureen McTeer--lawyer, feminist and freelance medical ethicist--was ticking off the reasons she opposed the harvesting of stem cells from human embryos for medical research, as would be permitted under proposed federal guidelines. She was passionate, even immoderate at times.

It was an affront to human dignity, she said. From the moment the egg was fertilized, it became part of “the human continuum.” To allow the killing of embryos before the proposed 14-day limit and not after was a specious distinction, an attempt to obscure the enormity of what we were doing by denying the humanity of the lives we were destroying. Nazi scientists, she said, shrugged that the victims of their experiments were “only Jews.”

Now we were saying “it's only a fetus.” At which point, one of her befuddled fellow panellists felt compelled to ask: “Aren't you pro-choice?”

The ethical confusion which surrounds this debate is not Ms. McTeer's alone. The Government of Canada is itself, in Mr. Coyne's words:

--twisted into the same contradictory pose: attempting to define and assert the state's interest in the rights of the fetus, while officially denying that it has any--at least, as far as that would imply any legal restriction on abortion.

Ms. McTeer attempted to square the circle this way. When it comes to a conflict between the rights of the child in utero and the rights of the expectant mother, “we have decided” that the mother's rights “trump” those of the fetus. The rights of medical researchers, on the other hand, do not carry the same weight.

That is:

A pregnant woman has an unrestricted right in law to kill the fetus she carries, right up until the moment of birth: because she does not want to interrupt her career, because she doesn't care for the father, it doesn't matter. She holds “trumps.” A scientist, however, may not do the same to another fetus in the course of extracting embryonic stem cells, even in the first 14 days, in pursuit of medical advances that--who knows?--might save millions of lives.

The logic or lack of logic inherent in the government's position on matters address in Bill C-56 make my head swim. On the one hand we would allow a woman to abort a fetus but on the other, would punish her by up to 10 years in prison for donating an unfertilized egg for use in therapeutic cloning, a process where, for example, her egg would be injected with someone else's DNA to produce an embryo from which embryonic stem cells would be extracted in the hopes of coaxing them to grow into an organ needed by the donor of the DNA.

To put it in clear, unmistakable terms, under Bill C-56 it is okay to destroy a fetus on whim but it is not okay, in fact it is punishable by 10 years in prison, if one destroys with the intent of improving someone else's quality of life.

The question is: how did the government lead us to this baffling juncture? The answer is patently obvious if one considers the principles upon which Bill C-56 is presumably based. Although they may be commendable as written, they are more remarkable for what they do not say.

Most notably absent is any clear definition of what constitutes human life or when human life begins. Unless and until these fundamental principles are clearly addressed and defined, confusion will prevail. It is virtually impossible to write a coherent and consistent bill, a bill which will withstand the challenges already being prepared by those who would clone humans and conduct other outrageous experiments.

The fundamental principles governing assisted human reproduction are matters of unparalleled significance to our society. They are in fact cornerstones of our society. They define us as people. They are matters of importance to all members of our society, those with religious faith and those with none. As my friend from Calgary Southeast noted in this place, even if we do not believe in the intrinsic sanctity of human life, surely we can all respect the dignity of human life.

There is another matter that I would like to briefly address. Let me note that although my comments will be brief, that in no way detracts from the significance of the issue.

Recently I received a communication encouraging me to support embryonic stem cell research because of the hope it offered a person's mother who is suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. I know something of Lou Gehrig's disease because I lost my mother to it. I also know that there is more hype than hope in embryonic stem cell research.

Embryonic stem cell research has a number of problems. Dr. Peter Andrews of the University of Sheffield in England said “Simply keeping human embryonic stem cells alive can be a challenge”. Doug Melton, a Harvard University researcher, said “In my view (human embryonic stem cells) would degrade with time”.

Human embryonic stem cells have never been used successfully in clinical trials, have a lacklustre success in combating animal models of disease and carry significant risk, including human immune rejection and tumor formation. Speaking about embryonic stem cells, Glenn McGee, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist, told M.I.T.'s Technology Review that “The potential that they would explode into a cancerous mass after stem cell transplant might turn out to be a Pandora's box of stem cell research”.

In stem cell research dealing with Parkinson's disease, there have been nothing but problems. The results have been horrific. In 15% of the patients the transplanted fetal cells went out of control and produced irreversible and devastating changes in the patients' brains, resulting in muscle spasms, sucking movements and writhing, which could not be controlled by any medicine.

The case for adult stem cell research is different. The retrieval and clinical use of these cells is morally acceptable and there is no unreasonable hazard to the patient. Adult stem cells have been located in numerous cells and tissue types and can be transformed into virtually all cell and tissue types.

Multipotent adult progenitor cells are stem cells found in bone marrow in adults that can differentiate into pretty much everything that an embryonic stem cell can differentiate into. They seem to grow indefinitely in cultures without losing their characteristics and do not seem to form cancerous masses or cause tissue rejection. These cells may turn out to be the most important cells ever discovered and they can be produced in virtually limitless supply.

It is worth noting in conclusion how important this issue is to us as humans. Vaclav Havel, the president of the Czech Republic, noted:

Given its fatal incorrigibility, humanity probably will have to go through many more Rwandas and Chernobyls before it understands how unbelievably shortsighted a human being can be who has forgotten that he is not God.

Eric S. Cohen, managing editor of Public Interest , writes:

The ancients knew better, and it is to their old wisdom that modern man must return. In both the classical and biblical vision, death awakens man to the preciousness of life; mortality awakens him to the possibility of transcendence; and constant recognition of his own imperfection reminds him of the need for restraint and repentance.

In his misplaced quest for autonomy--freedom from want, freedom from morality, freedom from death--modern man has forgotten how to see; he has turned his back on his essential nature. He treats the human experience of incompleteness--the fact of suffering, alienation, and death--as a problem to be solved, a sickness to be cured, a stirring to be forgotten. And so he forgets what his wise and wondering ancestors remembered--that man is not fully of this world; that the beginning of wisdom is not only realizing the limits of one's knowledge but the ultimate meaning of one's limits.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure to rise today to speak on Bill C-56. This legislation approaches some very difficult and complex topics. When we are speaking on the legislation, it is important to identify what it is about and what it is not about.

We are talking about medical and health research, assisted reproductive technologies, stem cell research and the incredible potential that it can have to eradicate disease, create more advanced treatments and improve the human condition.

In addressing issues such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS or any of these diseases and conditions that we may be able to approach more effectively with technology and research from stem cell research, clearly it is in society's interest and the interests of mankind to develop treatments. As such I do not think there is anyone in the House who would not agree with the end result of achieving these advancements in research from stem cells.

On the issue of human cloning, as a member of a caucus of 14 we see the tremendous benefit of cloning more caucus members. However I think we will pursue more conventional means and elect more of them in the next election. We recently tried artificial ways to expand our caucus and it did not really work out that well, except in one case with which we are very pleased.

On the very serious issue of human cloning, my own view is that we are getting a little too close to playing God when we take that development to that extent. As such I agree with prohibitions against human cloning.

I support stem cell research for the benefit of medical advancement and the potential benefit to humankind of eradicating some of the diseases I mentioned.

I do not see that the abortion issue ought to be used to complicate the debate. That is a separate issue. In Canada the woman's right to choose has been legally protected for some time. That is a separate debate and I hope that members of the House will try not to link the issues of stem cell research with the issue of abortion. That is a very different debate and ought to be treated differently. In fact it damages the quality of the debate we have on this legislation to confuse the two issues.

I am pleased that in our caucus we will be having a free vote on this issue. It is a morally charged issue and one that I take very seriously. I also take seriously representations by my constituents on this issue. There are ranges of views on the issue.

When people and families need assisted reproductive technologies to facilitate childbirth and for who it is important to have access to those technologies, I take their views seriously. People who have family members who have had Alzheimer's, or MS or Parkinson's and whose lives have been impacted negatively by those diseases have strong and important opinions to express and I take them seriously.

As such, over the next period of time I will be determining whether I will be supporting this legislation or not. My belief is that this legislation does in many ways achieve a middle ground with which I am fairly comfortable. This is not perfect legislation. There are areas of the legislation I disagree with. However, as with any piece of legislation, we have to weigh and balance the pros and the cons of it.

As I say, in most ways the government has, with this legislation, struck a fairly reasonable middle ground position. As such, I am inclined at this point to consider favourably the notion of supporting the legislation.

[John Duncan, Canadian Alliance, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise to speak to Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

This is an important piece of legislation that would leave a legacy for a long time to come. What we do with it is important because we are in a sense entering into a legal vacuum. Bill C-56 would set the tone and put things in motion that would have important consequences down the road.

It is not only important that the legislation is well thought out. It is important that it is created in a way that allows it to move with the times and with people's growing sensitivity to the subject matter as public knowledge in the area grows in leaps and bounds.

One of the difficulties at the moment is that newspapers and all forms of electronic media are naturally attracted to embryonic research developments and not so attracted to adult stem cell developments. This is because we all think of adult stem cell research as traditional science. Traditional science tends to get relegated to the back burner while things like cloning are considered newsworthy and popular. However that will change because the science will have many practical implications and applications.

People have made reference to the fact that there have been recent developments. It is true that a lot more scientists are working on adult stem cells than on embryos, so the amount of effort going in is reflected in the results coming out. However it is also true that most of the positive results and developments have been through adult stem cells rather than embryonic research.

Assisted human reproduction is not something a lot of people have had to think about in a personal context. However it has touched my family in a significant way. It is an interesting juxtaposition. My younger brother is not only a leading edge geneticist at Washington University in the U.S. He and his wife are the proud parents of four beaming children who are all the products of assisted human reproduction. He is combining a lot of things. We are cognizant of all the scientific developments as a consequence of how they have affected our greater family.

My brother has pointed out some important cautions the House needs to seriously think about. First, as people who have had embryos in motion he and his wife are extremely relieved they have no embryos still in the system. There is an interesting dimension to all this. There is a never-ending argument about when life begins. For my scientist brother, a father, life begins at first cell division. He is probably one of the few people in the world who have seen their offspring at first cell division. It brings the whole question into intimate contact. The thought that there might be mothers' embryos out there for scientists to be experiment with is of huge concern to my brother and his wife. It is important that we recognize parental ownership of the materials.

We must get the legislation as right as we can. It touches on matters of life and death and on parents seeking to conceive children and build families. At the same time we must continue to promote the quest for scientific advancements to cure diseases or repair accident damages.

One interesting development shows how quickly the field is changing. My brother's family is quite young, but early on as a geneticist he recognized the value of adult stem cells which come from the umbilical cord. The cells must be taken at birth. There was a politically correct movement to denigrate people who took the cells to store and freeze for the future benefit of their children, the very children from whose umbilical cords the cells were taken. My brother saw through all that and made such arrangements for his own children. It is no longer politically correct to say it is a bad thing. Scientists have discovered it is a good thing that can guarantee medical opportunities for the children.

This reinforces my point that it is important to engage the public to stay in tune with public attitudes and ethics. That is why all the provisions in Bill C-56 that would set up the agency are weak and need to be changed. The agency needs to be arm's length from the minister and report to parliament. It needs a lot of other changes that have been recommended by the official opposition.

[Val Meredith, Canadian Alliance, South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-56 which is an important piece of legislation that Canadians should be aware of. Bill C-56 is a bill regarding assisted human reproduction.

There was a time when the conception of a child was that of nature, where a man and a woman created a child. Since then science has become involved. When there is difficulty in conceiving a child science has stepped in to allow other methods of reproduction to take place.

As a society we must deal with where that science has taken us. It has given childless couples the opportunity of having children but it has also put us in a position of having to deal with situations where there might be embryos created that do not eventually form a child.

The bill deals with those kinds of issues which are touchy in our society and that many people have strong opinions about. The bill tries to deal with what is prohibited, what is controlled, and establishes an assisted reproduction agency. There are many issues around those topics: whether or not this agency should report to parliament, who should be sitting on it, and whether or not it should keep information on record and report yearly to parliament on information.

Most of the debate in the House and most of the concern in society deals with the issue of embryonic stem cell research. Stem cell research can be called nature's blank slates capable of developing into any of the nearly 220 cell types that make up the human body. It is this ability to replicate indefinitely and morph into any type of tissue that leads many to believe that stem cells would eventually be able to cure diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, heart disease and to even repair spinal cord damage. It is because of this potential that many are looking to stem cells as an answer to create positive change.

There are two basic ways of getting stem cells. There are non-embryonic sources of stem cells from adult bone marrow and umbilical cords after the delivery of children. The use of adult stem cells in research has shown some promise. However other research published online March 14 of this year in the journal Nature shows that adult stem cells do not morph into new tissues but rather fuse or merge their genetic material with other cells. This would indicate that we cannot stop the research on adult stem cell use. We should however ensure that it is maximized to all of its potential.

The other way of getting stem cells is through embryonic stem cell creation. Should we stop that from happening? Should we shut the door on this kind of research, should we put a moratorium on it? Many of the previous speakers have spoken about the problems with embryonic research. It can cause spontaneous tumours. It is subject to immune rejection that requires lifelong anti-rejection drugs.

Currently there is no panacea and some people are holding them out to be the end all and be all of disease control and prevention. Right now there is no panacea provided by the creation of stem cells, but there is a need for more research.

The questions that are on the table are: should this be allowed now, and should there be a moratorium put on it?

The bill would allow for more research. The scientific advancements that have taken place from polio inoculations to all kinds of other advances have allowed mankind to cure diseases. They have all been done through research of some form or another. The big question on the floor now is: do we allow embryonic stem cells to be used as part of medical research?

Most of the embryonic cells that are used for research come from unused embryos that are created in fertility clinics. When a couple goes to a fertility clinic, they provide the ovum and the sperm and these are created into embryos. It is not a process where one can take one of each and not have surplus. The process itself demands that there be multi-embryos created because the success rate is not that good on a first attempt. Often many embryos are implanted because some are rejected.

There is a surplus created of these embryos. What happens to these embryos? The debate as to whether they are a life form or not is one that has to take place. Assuming they are a life form, what happens to them? Does this life form get disposed of in a garbage can or down the toilet, or can it be used for positive purposes? That is the debate.

People would argue on both sides of this debate. People feel that the embryos should be used for a positive purpose and others feel that they are the beginning of life and therefore should be respected as such and should not be used. What is clear is that when these stem cells from an embryo are used, the embryo is then destroyed.

This debate about when human life begins and how we should be using these embryos is one that has been going on for some time. It is not a new debate. This is an issue that has been out there in discussion for a number of years. This is not the government's first attempt. I believe the government tried five or six years ago to bring in such legislation pertaining to stem cell research.

We know that human cloning is occurring, or attempts to clone humans are occurring. There has to be control. People out there want restrictions to prevent the cloning of human beings. We know that it is out there. I myself have asked my constituents a question on this issue or a similar issue two and a half years ago and 65% supported the use of embryonic cells for research.

I have recently put it out in my latest householder. My householders receive responses anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 residents in my constituency. Many of them place their comments on them. I am asking two questions of my constituents: first, do they believe that scientists should be able to use the unwanted embryos stored at fertility clinics to conduct embryonic stem cell research, and second, do they believe a human embryo should have the same rights as individuals who have already been born?

It is important that Canadians participate in this discussion. It is important that my constituents have an opportunity to share with me their values and concerns, and how they want to see this handled. Issues of this enormity on the moral and ethical values of our society need to be broadly debated and discussed. They are being discussed out there in the community. We need to be respectful of what Canadians have to say.

This is too important for 301 members to take a decision. I would hope that every member of parliament is out there talking about the issue, encouraging people to participate, and then take seriously how the people in their riding and in their communities feel about this issue. Members would be surprised how able the citizens are to sort out all of the dynamics of this legislation and make responsible and reasonable recommendations to us as their representatives.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

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.

[David Anderson, Canadian Alliance, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand this morning and speak to this important piece of legislation, Bill C-56.

Unfortunately, time after time in the House legislation comes in with little foundation, public support or acceptance. We have seen this with Bill C-68 which turned into such a fiasco for the government. We have seen it with Bill C-5, the species at risk act which the government apparently thinks is a good bill because everyone is angry about it. We have seen it with Bill C-15B which is being pushed by animal rights special interest groups who feel the government owes them something from the last election. We have seen it with Bill C-55, the security legislation which is a power grab that would extend the government's power and particularly the power of ministers. Why do we see so much legislation coming to the House in this way? The main reason is that the government is adrift.

Yesterday we heard the government's talking points on corruption. It continually tries to convince us that only government members know what it is like to respect this institution. Today we are dealing with a bill that has had absolutely no respect from the government and its leaders. The bill was sent to committee. The committee did a massive amount of interesting and good work. The minister took the committee's work, threw it all out and brought a different presentation to the House. This is yet another bill that has been introduced almost in a vacuum.

One reason for this is the government's desire to avoid the discussion we need. There are issues beyond this legislation that have not been adequately discussed. If we passed Bill C-56 much of the responsibility that should be parliament's would be passed on to one more bureaucracy that would be created by the bureaucracy. This would remove any opportunity for parliament to control or discuss what goes on in the field.

I will take a few minutes this morning to speak to a crucial issue and ask a couple of questions. First, what is human life and how do we treat it? How do we deal with human life? There are people who say we have talked about this enough and do not need to talk about it any more. There are others who think it is foolish to speak about it. However we need to have a discussion in Canada about what human life is and how to treat it and deal with it.

There are a number of places we can go for the discussion. Ethicists deal with these issues on a daily basis. It is their life's work. There are scientists who are deal with the issues. We need to talk with them. We need to go to historians to look back in history and see what has happened with issues of life and death. It is legitimate to talk with the different faith communities of our country because their focus is on issues of life and death. We should not cut them off from the discussion.

We need to involve political leaders. We were sent here for a reason, and that is to have this discussion. We need to go to regular people and get their opinions as my hon. colleague from Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke did so well. In the last few minutes she read a number of the comments she got from her survey. We also need to go to business participants because there is a business component to the legislation that needs to be discussed.

Bill C-56 comments on what human life is and how we should treat it. I will go through a couple of the bill's definitions. Under Bill C-56 an embryo:

--means a human organism during the first 56 days of its development--

Interestingly, a fetus under the bill:

--means a human organism during the period of its development beginning on the fifty-seventh day following fertilization or creation...and ending at birth.

The definitions in the bill indicate that the government is willing to consider the embryo and the fetus as human organisms. I will continue the definition along its logical path: Perhaps a baby means a human organism during the period of development from birth to two or three years; a child means a human organism during the period of development from three years to 18 years; and an adult means a human organism during the period of development from 18 years to natural death. All we are talking about are different stages of development of the same human organism.

Does the human organism consist only of biological material that we can deal with as we choose, or is there something unique about it? Scientists and sociologists can take us apart and show us piece by piece that we are similar to animals. We have physical systems that function similarly. Because of that, research is done on animals that we can apply and use when dealing with human situations and illnesses.

Many throughout history have argued and understood that the total of what constitutes a human organism is far more than the sum of its individual parts. Most successful cultures and civilizations have believed men and women to be unique. Many religious systems have been predicated on the assumption. Many scientific discoveries have come from the hypothesis.

We need to have a discussion about the issue because we are not only setting the stage for a bill. We are talking about legislating attitudes toward human beings in our society. The conclusion we reach in the House about the issue will have great consequences for Canadian society and culture.

Throughout the last century we saw what happened when governments decided individual human beings were not unique and were only basic economic units. In university I was bombarded for three years with Mr. Marx's political theory which states that all events can be analyzed from an economic perspective and that human beings fit into the same analysis.

We have seen Marx's theory lived out under socialist governments throughout the last century and in this century. There has been more brutality under such systems than under any other. Let us look at Mr. Stalin. To gain control of a segment of his economic society he completely destroyed the middle class agricultural community by starving it to death. The individuals in that society were worth nothing to him because he needed to achieve an economic goal.

We have seen this in China which continues to persecute people and deny human rights. The individual means nothing under China's system as it tries to keep its economic structure moving along. We have see it in Sudan where war is being waged against individuals for the sake of profit. When weak positions are taken regarding human uniqueness, individuality and creativity there is a loss of compassion for other people.

We are not immune to this. The Liberal government has refused to deal with a number of issues involving the value of human life. About six weeks ago several MPs had the privilege of meeting with a number of police officers, customs officials and others who deal with the issue of child pornography. These people are fed up with the government's attitude and its refusal to deal with the issue. Anyone who has seen such material and understands what is going on in the lives of those children knows something needs to be done immediately. Yet the government insists on doing nothing. It has failed to move. Child pornography is repugnant and abhorrent. The Liberal government's failure to deal with the issue touches the heart of how it views its citizens.

There are a couple of other questions we need to deal with and talk about. We need to look at the idea of when human life begins. Our present law says human life begins at birth. This is nonsense. It is ridiculous from a number of perspectives, particularly a scientific perspective. The beginning of human life is at conception when the union of genetic material occurs and completion of the DNA package takes place.

Science has thrown a red herring into the whole discussion by arbitrarily choosing a number, day 14, as the point where the embryo becomes something more than it was on day 13. They want to be able to continue experimentation during the first 13 days so they suggest something happens on the 14th day that makes the embryo a different being. That is not the case.

Scientists have failed to address the issue of when life begins. They run the risk of disqualifying themselves by not dealing honestly with the issue. As we heard earlier this morning, for many of them the issue has become an opportunity to make a quick buck. It has become an economic decision rather than a scientific or ethical one.

My time is winding down. We will be addressing a number of other issues when the bill comes back to parliament. I will talk later about what human life is worth. We talked a bit about whether it is unique and when it begins. However what is it worth? Parliament needs to look at what we consider to be the value of human beings in our culture.

There are two interesting and ironic business realities in the legislation. Under Bill C-56 surrogate mothers would be paid absolutely nothing. They would not be allowed to make money from their commitment to surrogacy. On the other hand, companies in Canada would be allowed to make millions of dollars from research.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-56, an act representing assisted human reproduction, provides a legislative balance that protects the health and safety of Canadians and their children and offers new hope for those who wish to conceive a child but have been unable to do so.

These are not easy issues on which to build a legislative framework. There is currently no comprehensive federal or provincial legislative framework governing assisted human reproduction procedures and related research.

The legislation we have before us today is the product of thorough consultation and review on this very sensitive topic. It is based on Canadian values and reflects a consensus on some very complex and very challenging issues.

We are aware Canadians have strong and differing views on the issues centring on assisted human reproduction and this legislation must be reflective of the diversity and requisite sensitivity needed in dealing with this. The legislation also needs to establish clearly defined boundaries between what is acceptable and what is not.

We will not accept the creation of life for reasons other than building a family. Cloning human beings is equally as intolerable as modifying an embryo to suit our personal preferences. We will not put a price tag on sperm, eggs, embryos or the process of pregnancy. These are not goods or services suitable for commercialization.

The proposed act, Bill C-56, addresses the needs of infertile couples who wish to make use of assisted human reproduction process in a safe, regulated environment. Children are indeed a blessing. As a mother of four I can stand before the House and say that it is my proudest moment of anything I will accomplish in life being the mother of four children.

However I am sure we all know couples who have encountered difficulties in building a family. We have seen their frustration as well as their disappointment and it is heart-rending. The truth is approximately one in eight Canadian couples faces the challenge of infertility. A core principle of the proposed legislation is free and informed consent. Any procedure to assist human reproduction as well as AHR related research would require prior written consent of the donors based on the most current information on AHR as to how they would make that informed decision.

Important aspects of Bill C-56 are the provisions to ensure reproductive technologies are safe and healthy options. The proposed legislation will create regulations on the licensing of clinics, the proper handling of eggs, sperm and embryos as well as the number of children that could be born from a single sperm or egg donor.

This is not intended to limit a person's options but rather to ensure the well-being of all involved. Bill C-56 proposes to give children of assisted human reproduction full access to all medical information about their donor parents. As adults they could have access to the information about the identity of their donor parents, provided the donors have also consented to the release of this information.

Bill C-56 proposes to bring Canada up to date with measures taken in other major industrialized countries. We have drawn on the best practices as well as the experience from countries around the world.

Canada's approach is based on Canadian values and speaks to the growing problem of infertility and our increasing reliance on assisted human reproduction.

Bill C-56 would establish the first ever regulatory regime for Canadian fertility clinics. The legislation would prohibit the creation of in vitro embryos for any purpose other than creating a human being or improving assisted human reproduction procedures.

Until now these facilities have operated without regulation. Under the legislation there will be rules on informed consent as well as information in general. Couples who turn to in vitro fertilization or other AHR procedures need reliable information about the technology, the treatment as well as the chances for success.

Another one of the regulatory objectives of Bill C-56 is to ensure that promising research involving in vitro human embryos which are no longer needed for the purposes of reproduction is conducted in a manner consistent with Canadian values.

Research using in vitro embryos may answer many questions about the causes of infertility. It may also advance the development of treatments for spinal cord injuries, diseases like juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer's or cancer.

As we know, embryonic stem cell research is not without controversy. Stem cells are immature precursors of cells that eventually will mature into specialized tissue such as heart, muscle, brain or spinal cord. It does however raise profound concerns about how to balance scientific progress with public safety and how to balance deeply held moral and ethical views that are inherent throughout this entire debate.

The legislation would ensure that promising research related to assisted human reproduction takes place within a regulated environment, an environment where health and safety come first and where Canadian values continue to be respected. The only acceptable source of embryos would be from fully informed couples. It would be up to the couple to choose whether their unused embryo would be discarded or donated to research or to other infertile Canadians.

To monitor and enforce the regulations set forth in this act, the proposed legislation creates the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada. This agency operates as a separate organizational entity from Health Canada and reports to parliament through the Minister of Health.

The legislation we see before us today is a product of extensive transparent review processes. It is the result of more than a decade of consultation, considering the difficult issues that face Canadians. The former Minister of Health took the unprecedented step of first submitting draft legislation to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health in order to engage in input from all Canadians. These consultations will continue with Bill C-56 as it makes its way through the legislative process.

Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, is meaningful, balanced legislation that is both respectful to Canadian values and to progress enabling research.

This is a beginning, not an ending. I remember very well being a member of the health committee when we looked at xeno transplantation. We had outstanding leading medical ethicists come and talk to us on these very troubling and moral laden questions. I have every confidence that this is a basis upon which we as a government and Canadians can build regarding this very important topic and move forward.

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate Bill C-56 on assisted human reproduction. I welcome this opportunity to speak because of the thousands of Canadians who would also like their voices heard on this topic but have found their concerns silenced by a government that does not like public debate. This subject goes to the heart of who we really are as a society.

I am pleased to confirm that as a consequence of the desire to let the people of my riding have a say in this debate, I sent out a questionnaire to every household asking for views on this issue. I am pleased to report to the House that the people of my riding appreciated being asked their opinion on this important subject. In fact, some individuals took the time to, at their expense, copy the survey, not only to ensure that the people in our riding had a chance to voice their opinions but to circulate it throughout Ontario.

At a function I attended last week, a woman from the neighbouring riding of Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington approached me to say how much she appreciated being asked for her opinion on such an important subject. She also added that this type of consultation never happens in her riding. Her MP sits on the government side.

I also take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank all those individuals who took the time to complete and mail back the survey, especially those who also provided comments on this important subject. At this time, I acknowledge the tireless work of certain individuals in my riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke regarding the stem cell research debate. I salute Stan Callaghan, Shirley and Kellard Witt, Margaret Thuemen, Barbara and Robert Austin, Corrie Haas, Lee Agnesi, Sharon McNaughton and Mike Vande Weil, to name just a few of the people who have worked so hard on this important issue.

The vast majority of those individuals who took the time to answer the riding survey, while answering yes to adult stem cell research, said no to stem cell research involving embryos. A woman from Palmer Rapids had this to say:

Please don't support embryonic stem cell research. Some things are too precious...to mess with.

This comment came from Pembroke:

Any research that helps human life without putting human life at risk or causing the death of a life is beneficial and should be pursued.

What was clear in the responses I received was the struggle that many people had with the whole topic of assisted human reproduction. A person from Deep River, Ontario, sent this letter with her survey response, which to me represents the anguish this issue causes for many individuals as they contemplate its ramifications. She stated:

Dear Mrs. Member for Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke,

I feel I must explain my position on the stem cell research issue.

I realize that by supporting embryonic stem cell research, we are interfering with God's plan (perhaps) for life of a new child.

However we do allow other procedures to carry on in our society and this is resulting in the same final outcome--i.e. killing a possible new life.

This is almost comparable to sins of commission and omission.

However in this case they are both to some degree sins of commission.

Whereas no one could argue that the September 11 destruction of the two trade towers wasn't a sin of commission, while the daily death toll of 26,000 people due to starvation, mal-nourishment and lack of medical aid is definitely an act of omission.

Therefore I think we must also consider the extent of the consequences of our acts of commission and omission and act accordingly.

The consequences are horrible pain and suffering of people with Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease and other diseases as well as people starving or dying of malnutrition and no medical aid.

Who knows what God would want us to do?

Therefore we do what we can in our bungling, inept, human way in order to try to reduce the pain and suffering in the world.

I am not in favour of killing in any way, shape or form but are we not killing people with diseases, too?

In my mind this letter represents the struggle that many Canadians have with the issue or at least those Canadians who are allowed an opportunity to express an opinion on the subject.

What was also very apparent in the thousands of responses I received regarding stem cell research was the healthy distrust of the federal government and the large corporations that support the federal government.

This was a typical response: “Yes, for improved medical research assistance. But not for profit, for anyone, government included”. Another response was “The dangers of private commercial exploitation of embryos demands nothing less than a ban on embryonic stem cell research”.

The debate also highlights the federal government's priorities in that it is prepared to put taxpayer dollars into fads, while at the same time it has gutted billions of dollars out of the health care system. Ontario alone is shortchanged by $2 billion every year. Yet the government can hide over $7 billion in so-called private foundations, as identified by the auditor general, away from the public scrutiny of parliament, while waiting lines for MRIs get longer. It is all a question of priorities.

The distinction of government funding priorities is not lost on the taxpayers, as a woman from Renfrew, Ontario comments:

I am not against a “better quality of life” for people in the future--but--what about people in the present?

Funds required for this research should be used, at this point in time, to assist our present health care system so the people now can have a “better quality of life”.

As our population ages, on its own, this lack of health care, especially for the aged, becomes more pronounced.

If life is extended, by scientific means, even though it may be of a better quality, this current problem, if not addressed, will become even more acute.

It is clear that taxpayers are questioning where the funding will come from to fund this research. The health care system is being underfunded by the federal government already. People feel they are overtaxed now and are certainly not interested in new taxes or increased existing taxes, particularly with all the unanswered questions that the legislation proposed by the government raises.

The majority of responses I received were similar to what I received from this couple from Cobden: “Please, do not allow our government to kill any more of our unborn babies, the future of our country”.

This comment from was from Pembroke: “We believe embryonic stem cell research kills small humans, therefore it is wrong”.

Canadians are also very concerned about cloning. Not one individual who took the time to answer the survey supported cloning. In fact, many took the time to register their opposition to cloning.

I believe that the people of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke elected me to take a stand on their behalf. As the legislation now reads, while recognizing that rules are needed where none now exist, I cannot support the legislation as it now reads. I support the stand of the Canadian Alliance to declare a moratorium on embryonic stem cell research.

Let us explore the use of adult stem cells first to find treatments for diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's before we move down the slippery slope of creating human life only to destroy it.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to continue the speech that I began a couple of days ago on Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

This is legislation of great import to couples who want to have children and particularly to women who, as it is obvious, are always on the frontline when it comes to human reproduction.

The objects of Bill C-56 are threefold: to protect Canadians who are using assisted human reproduction to help them build their families; second, to prohibit certain practices such as human cloning; and third, to open the door to research provided within what the government deems a regulated environment.

As my colleague from Winnipeg North Centre said in the House earlier this week when the bill was first up, New Democrats have been calling on the government for years to provide legislation giving women access to safe and non-commercial reproductive health services. Canada is the last major industrialized country in the world without legislation in this area.

In 1993 a royal commission reported on assisted human reproductive technology and urged the federal government to act quickly.

It is an exploding area of science, as we all know, and much has happened since that 1993 Dr. Baird royal commission report. We know about Dolly the sheep. We now hear talk about designer babies. Nine years ago the commission said that it was only a matter of time and that it was urgent that government laws and regulations catch up to this burgeoning science.

Despite this caution, here we are some nine years after that royal commission reported and five years after Bill C-47 died on the order paper.

As is becoming habitual with this government, we have waited until just a few weeks before the House is scheduled to stand down for the summer to introduce such a momentous piece of legislation.

True to form, the government has mostly ignored many of the excellent recommendations made by the health committee regarding the topic of human reproduction. Yet it has ignored other good recommendations made by the New Democratic Party in a minority report attached to the health committee's report.

Allow me to provide one example of the good advice ignored by the government. Bill C-56 would establish the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada to administer and enforce the acts and regulations. Among other things, the agency can authorize embryonic research but this is a contentious area. In our caucus we have serious concerns with the government's off loading of many policy issues, such as stem cell research, to this agency. We were and remain opposed to the responsibility on fundamental areas of policy being sent to such an agency when members of parliament are elected, we maintain, to make these decisions.

Bill C-56 prohibits human cloning for either reproductive or therapeutic purposes. It prohibits creating embryos for research or other non-reproductive purposes. It prohibits maintaining active embryos outside a woman's body past 14 days' development. It prohibits gender selection procedures. It also prohibits the altering of genetic material to affect subsequent generations and it prohibits the mixing of human genetic material with non-human life forms for reproductive purposes.

The list of what must be prohibited is lengthy and it must be in an area where science, if unregulated, could easily overrun ethical considerations.

Let me talk about some of the areas in the legislation that trouble us. In any legislation regarding questions of human reproduction, our primary concern must be of the health and well-being of women because it is, after all, women who are responsible for reproduction in our society and it is women who too often have been in the past the guinea pigs for experiments in ways to deal with reproductive problems.

We are also talking about couples who want to have children and they have to deal with these new technologies. Our caucus insists that we must never lose sight of the fact that women's health and well-being must be first and foremost, and fundamental to the legislation. The federal government has a responsibility to ensure that reproductive technologies are proven safe before they are made available.The government must ensure that the risks and benefits of any treatment for women are disclosed fully and that the moneys needed to achieve these objectives are made available

What we are really talking about is that the precautionary principle must be explicitly set out in the legislation. In its final report the health committee urged such an approach but it was, unfortunately, rejected.

Also rejected was any direction or move in the area of patent protection. The health committee called on the government to prohibit human patenting but the government has chosen to ignore this important advice, putting its emphasis instead on corporate property rights.

For example, companies are already lined up to benefit from the stem cell research that holds such promise for Canadians suffering from various diseases. New Democrats believe that the federal government should be playing a leading role to keep trade agreements from overriding the health interests of Canadians.

In summary, it is noteworthy that we have finally introduced a bill respecting assisted human reproduction. It is well past time. However it is deficient legislation for the reasons that my colleague, our health critic, the member for Winnipeg North Centre, mentioned previously and which I have stated this morning; most notably, the lack of protection around women's health and our concerns about commercialization.

We are also concerned about key elements that parliament will not be asked to debate because the government has chosen to leave those to regulation or to foist them on to the new regulatory agency for a decision.

In conclusion, it will be difficult for me and other members of our caucus to support the bill unless significant changes are made to it.

Protection of the Unborn Child

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to be here to participate in this debate. It is an interesting question about defining the human being and is one that has seized this place with regard to Bill C-56 on reproductive technologies. It allows us to raise some very important points about the abortion question. We should never be afraid to raise those issues or to understand what the fundamental issues are.

With regard to research, the tri-council policy statement, which was made in 1998 and reflected an international standard with regard to research on human beings, concluded that there should not be any research on an embryo once it hit 14 days. The reason is that at that point the embryo has proceeded far enough that it is past the primitive streak. It has a spinal cord. It has a fixed DNA. It cannot split into a twin. In fact it has all of the characteristics that it will have throughout the rest of its life if it were allowed to be in a nurturing environment and to develop further into another form of a human being. A human being does in fact look like an embryo at the beginning and it looks like an adult usually in an aged state in a later part. Human beings look different throughout their years. Therefore we should never be afraid to discuss the fundamentals.

With regard to Bill C-56, one of the issues is whether we would permit embryonic stem cell research. There are those who believe that human beings begin at conception, and I am one of them. Dr. Françoise Baylis, a medical doctor and ethicist with Dalhousie University and a member of the governing council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, has appeared before Standing Committee on Health. She has said that in all our discussions and in all our legislation we should always remember that the embryo is a human being and it is a member of the human species. Therefore we do have research and medical testimony to this place that in fact an embryo is a human being.

The fact that there was a tri-council policy statement in 1998 that recognized a human being at least by day 14 has had no effect on the abortion debate. Anyone who feels that this issue is a matter of abortion should not be threatened by this discussion simply because of other views or opinions with regard to when a human being exists.

I thank the member for bringing the issue forward and not being afraid to discuss sensitive but important issues of the day.

Business of the House

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we shall continue this afternoon with the debate on the opposition motion. Tomorrow, we will return to Bill C-56, respecting reproductive technologies, followed by Bill C-55, the public safety bill, and Bill C-15B, the criminal code amendments. On Monday, we will continue consideration of these bills.

Tuesday will be an allotted day. In the evening on Tuesday, as the House already knows, we will sit in committee of the whole pursuant to Standing Order 81(4)(a) to consider the estimates of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.

On Wednesday, if necessary, we will return to any of the bills I have previously mentioned that may not already been completed, subject to arrangements we may make to deal with the Senate amendments to Bill C-23, the competition legislation, Bill S-34, dealing with royal assent, and perhaps Bill C-5 concerning species at risk. We are also hopeful that Bill C-54, the sports bill, and Bill C-53, the pest control bill, will be reported from committee in the very near future, so that we may take up report stage and third reading of those particular items.

Finally, we are also looking forward to reports from committees of the House on two other bills that have been in committee for what would appear to be an inordinate length of time, namely, Bill C-48 dealing with copyright, which has been before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for more than three months now, and Bill C-19, the amendments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which is fast approaching its first anniversary before the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. I am sure the House is anxiously awaiting the reports of those committees so that legislation can be proceeded with through its final stages.

Assisted Human Reproduction Act

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the government must ensure that the risks in the bill and the benefits of any treatment for women are fully disclosed and that the moneys needed to achieve these objectives are made available. This for us is the litmus test of the legislation.

The most effective way to ensure that women's health comes first is to ensure that the precautionary principle is entrenched in any bill dealing with assisted reproductive technology.

We recommended that the precautionary principle be explicitly set out in the legislation and in its final report the health committee agreed with that recommendation. However the precautionary principle is nowhere to be found among the governing provisions of the bill. The precautionary principle, which puts safety first, can impede the rush for profits that all too often accompany new scientific developments.

Therefore the choice not to include this principle reflects the government's affection we believe for an industry that has benefited tremendously from being able to establish itself in assisted reproductive technology unencumbered by regulation during these many years without an act.

The government's fondness for and impartiality to big business has also opened the door far too widely for an unacceptable level of commercialization in the area of assisted reproductive technologies. We see this in the issue of patenting life forms.

There was a consensus on the health committee that we should stop commercialization in this area, that the government should prohibit the patenting of human genetic material, but there was not a word about this from the health minister. I am delighted to see her in the House for this important legislation. When she introduced Bill C-56 there was no mention of any move on patent protection. The health committee called on the government to prohibit this but the government chose to ignore this important advice putting its emphasis instead on corporate property rights.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to speak to Bill C-56 because it is important and yet sensitive legislation.

The new legislation on assisted human reproduction would bring enormous benefits to Canadian society. The most important thing to remember is that currently we have a void: we have no legislation, no guidelines and no rules.

I remember arriving here as a new MP in 1993 and receiving the voluminous report done by the royal commission on new reproductive technologies. Nearly a decade has gone by and it is time, not to avoid the issue but to tackle it head on and be sensitive to the voices around the discussion.

I believe the legislation would give infertile couples safe access to build their families, and they are entitled to families. We know that approximately one in eight couples suffer from infertility and have no guided safe method. The legislation is important because it could improve this situation.

Bill C-56 holds out great hope for people suffering from devastating illnesses and injuries because it would permit the conduct of promising medical research under very strictly regulated conditions. The strict regulation is very important.

Those conditions speak to the ethics of research. They will ensure that scientific exploration is pursued in a way that furthers the best interests of society but not at a cost we as Canadians consider too dear.

This is the hallmark of an advanced culture; to offer people legitimate hope for better lives for themselves and their families without compromising the ethical rules by which our society has chosen to live.

Bill C-56 is the result of extensive consultations with Canadians. While it is clear that there are disagreements about many aspects of the AHR and the complex issues it raises, there are surprisingly vast areas in the country where we have consensus. Much of that consensus is captured in the statutory declaration which signals the intent of the legislation, which we find at the beginning of the act itself.

Because the issues involved in, and raised by, assisted human reproduction pose so many ethical problems, the declaration sets out some guiding principles.

In particular, it states that AHR and related research must be governed by principles and practices that respect human individuality, dignity, diversity and integrity. These are important principles because we recognize that this is not ordinary legislation like the tax legislation or trade legislation. Instead, it is an attempt by our society to deal with issues that go to the very heart of who we are and what we believe in as human beings.

With the bill we are hammering a stake in the ground and saying that this is where Canadians will draw the line. On one side are those things that we will not tolerate and on the other side are the things we will accept under clearly defined circumstances.

Let us start with what we will not tolerate. We will not tolerate the creation of life for reasons other than building a family. Equally repugnant is the notion of cloning a human being only to create a carbon copy of another individual or modifying an embryo so that it meets our personal image of perfection.

Similarly, our society sees no redeeming value in putting a price tag on life. We do not believe that the sperm, the eggs, the embryos or the process of pregnancy should be up for purchase. That is why these and other activities would be outlawed under Bill C-56.

The legislation contains a number of clear cut prohibitions in areas where Canadians say we have no right to tread.

On the other hand, society does have a legitimate interest in other areas. For instance, we have a profound stake in ensuring that couples who need to turn to AHR technologies to build a family have access to safe and ethical services. This is important because it affords them a chance to escape the disappointment of unwanted childlessness.

It is also important to all Canadians. With reports showing that maybe one in eight couples face infertility, this could grow into a very serious problem. That those services need to be safe and delivered in an appropriate and ethical manner is equally critical.

Some 6,000 cycles of in vitro fertilization treatments are offered each year and that is just one AHR activity among many. Canadians have an interest in ensuring that women are not subjected to practices that would endanger their health or even their lives.

For all those reasons, Bill C-56 would regulate the safe and ethical conduct of AHR technologies.

Another area where society has a profound interest is in AHR related research that holds the promise of bettering the human condition. However we believe this work cannot proceed in the absence of rules that establish the kinds of projects that we would find appropriate and how they should be conducted.

For instance, a substantial amount of vital work is being done in the area of infertility. Just as we support the access of infertile couples to safe AHR procedures, we must also support research that could uncover the causes of this unfortunate condition and improve existing treatments.

Similarly, there is great potential in scientific investigation involving stem cells. Stem cells from embryos have great potential. We probably do not know the full potential because there is not sufficient knowledge at this early stage to be conclusive. However we believe there is great potential because stem cells have not yet developed into the specialized heart, brain, muscle or other type of cell that they will eventually become.

Researchers are trying to harness this unique property to encourage stem cells to grow into the cells needed to repair specific types of tissue damaged by disease. Human, fetal or embryonic tissue is considered the best source of these precious cells.

In London, where I live, researchers with the stem cell transplantation and regenerative therapeutics project are studying whether stem cells can serve as sources for cellular or organ replacement in tissue damaged by trauma or genetic influences and for disease intervention. Basic research is now approaching clinical possibility and practicality. More knowledge is needed regarding fundamental signalling pathways and gene expression patterns responsible for stem cell control and transplantation.

I wonder how many of the MPs in this Chamber who have spoken to the bill have taken the time to talk to these very specialized scientists.

Last fall, when I knew the bill was coming forward, I spent about four hours in one of the research and teaching hospitals in my riding meeting with some of the very specialized, credible, serious scientists in this area. We met with some of the hospital administrators and all the involved people, not just from one hospital but from all the teaching hospitals in my city. We did a three hour briefing. I learned a lot. I learned that not just anybody could get a line of stem cells and keep it living. It costs an enormous amount of money just to keep a stem cell line under very specialized conditions. If I remember correctly it costs about $10,000 a week just to do this, so it is not something that will take place anywhere under open conditions.

I am proud of the researchers and of the ethics they bring to their work. They believe in their work and they are sensitive to the concerns of Canadians. This work will focus on possible treatments for people suffering from muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, tissue damage resulting from chemotherapy and spinal cord injury. Hopefully we will be hearing from some of these people over the discussion.

We all recognize that this type of research must be conducted with the highest standards of ethical care. Therefore, Bill C-56 sets out a comprehensive set of regulations to govern the proper conduct of research involving embryos. Only embryos, for instance, created for fertility treatments but not needed for that purpose can be used for this type of work. Scientists could not create embryos merely for the sake of science. They would have to be donated with informed consent. Related regulations would deal with the appropriate use, handling, storage and disposal of embryos and other reproductive tissues.

The assisted reproductive agency of Canada, a regulatory body to oversee the implementation of the legislation and the regulations, would be an important body. Consensus goes back to as far as 1993 to have this independent body. It is a consistent recommendation and I am glad to see it in the body of the legislation.

I would like to go into this in more depth but I see my time is up. I appreciate the time I have had today in the House to make my points.

[Gurmant Grewal, Canadian Alliance, Surrey Central, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the constituents of Surrey Central I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction. This is a very important topic within all our constituencies as it affects directly the daily lives of the people we serve.

The opposition has been calling for legislation since 1993 when the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies reported. The minister of health at the time 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 because of the 1997 election.

Draft legislation was submitted to the Standing Committee on Health on May 3, 2001 for consideration. The committee presented its report “Building Families” in December of that year.

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. Funding was put off for one year following opposition protest.

Here we are in 2002 debating a bill that would bring into effect the very strong recommendations of a commission that reported in 1993. Why did the Liberal government put these recommendations off for such an extended period of time?

In those nine long years science, research and technology have been rapidly progressing. As well, commercial investment in these procedures has moved on but the government has remained stagnant. The weak, incompetent and arrogant Liberal government should be embarrassed that it has not dealt with this important issue much more quickly and expeditiously.

I have gone through the bill and would like to share some of my observations.

The bill would allow for experiments on human embryos under four conditions. All embryos must be byproducts of the AHR, assisted human reproduction process, and not created solely for research. Written permission must be given by the donor, although donor is singular. Research on a human embryo is only if the use is necessary, but the word necessary is undefined. All human embryos must be destroyed after 14 days, if not frozen of course.

The purpose of research on human embryos is not specified in the bill. The purpose must be restricted to creating medical therapies that would assist in healing the human body.

The future of humanity is at stake in this debate. The Canadian Alliance members and I firmly believe that all human beings possess the fundamental human rights to life, to freedom and to own and to enjoy property. Human embryos are early human lives which deserve respect and protection. The Canadian Alliance will strive to protect the dignity and value of human life.

The bill is about access by prospective parents to the best assisted reproductive technologies that science can ethically offer. The Canadian Alliance will work to preserve it. I strongly support and encourage health sciences research and development.

I strongly support research on adult stem cells. Stem cells derived from embryos and implanted in a recipient are foreign tissues and thus are subject to immune rejection, possibly requiring the use of costly anti-rejection drug therapies. Adult stem cells are easily accessible and are not subject to tissue rejection and pose minimal ethical concerns.

Adult stem cells are now being used to treat Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis and spinal injuries while research using human embryos has not yet led to healing therapies. We should focus our energies and scarce resources on research that is making a difference now.

We are calling for a three year moratorium on experiments on human embryos until the potential for adult stem cells can be fully developed and explored. This debate is not the same as the pro-life, pro-choice abortion debate because embryos can exist outside a woman's body. This bill addresses the use of embryos in a Petri dish outside the woman's body. Her choice of how to use her body does not directly apply in this case.

The opposition wants to close dangerous loopholes in the bill. One of them creates human-animal hybrids where a human egg and an animal sperm, or vice versa, are combined. We support a ban on commercial surrogacy.

There are so many issues which I would like to touch on. Since time is limited I will touch on only some, beginning with subclause 25(3) of the bill. None of the minister's policy directions fall under the Statutory Instruments Act. They escape the scrutiny of regulations as well as being published in the Canada Gazette . All can be done in secret. This subclause should be struck from the bill.

Subclause 66(2) states that regulations laid before parliament may be sent to a standing committee. The words “may be” should be changed to “must”, not that they may be but that they must be sent to the standing committee. Which standing committee? It should name the Standing Committee on Health and make health committee scrutiny a requirement of the law. The standing committee report recommended this but the government ignored that recommendation.

Subclause 66(3) states that a regulation should not be made until the standing committee has reported on it. This would eliminate the 60 calendar day cap placed on scrutiny of regulations. I am mentioning the scrutiny of regulations because I sit on that committee as co-chair representing the House. I know that the government sometimes presents vague, incomplete legislation in the House which is followed by a big stack of regulations which are not debated in the House. The government is not governing but ruling through the back door by throwing in a bunch of regulations which sometimes do not receive the scrutiny of experts and parliamentarians.

Accountability is very important. The performance of the agency according to subclause 30(d) will be evaluated by the agency itself. It should not be. It should be evaluated by the auditor general.

Subclause 40(2) states that embryos can be harvested if the agency satisfies itself that it is necessary for the purpose of the proposed research. The discretionary power of the agency to decide what is necessary must be reduced by defining in the clause what constitutes that necessity. A modification of the phrase from the majority standing committee report “unless the applicant clearly demonstrates that no other category of biological material could be used for healing therapies” would be appropriate.

In conclusion I want to clarify that I support provisions against human or therapeutic cloning, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, buying or selling embryos, and paid surrogacy.

The bill is about improving human health. The Canadian Alliance strongly supports the research to this end when it is compatible with the dignity and value of human life. The Canadian Alliance will strive to protect the dignity and value of human life.

The bill is about the best interests of children born of assisted reproductive technologies. The Canadian Alliance will work to protect them.

Finally, the bill is about access by prospective parents to the best assisted reproductive technology that science can ethically offer. The Canadian Alliance will work to preserve it. We cannot support the bill until it is amended.

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I approach the debate on Bill C-56 with great concern on several levels. First, the bill concerns me deeply as a parliamentarian in that once again the government is seeking to take crucial matters, truly matters of life and death, out of the purview of the House by handing them over to secretive cabinet regulation and an unelected, unaccountable, government-appointed committee of reputed experts. This has serious implications for our democracy. The bill should be opposed on these grounds alone.

However, I have deeper concerns about the bill, not simply as a member of parliament but as a human being. The bill goes to the heart of what it means to be a human in a technological age and I am afraid that in several areas it makes grave, perhaps irreparable, mistakes.

First let me address the continued subversion of the role of parliament implicit in the bill. It leaves some of the most sensitive questions regarding surrogacy and the use of embryonic stem cells in the hands of the new assisted human reproduction agency of Canada. The agency would not report to parliament but only to the minister. The minister's power of delegation to the agency would be considerable. Clause 32 allows the minister to delegate any agency decision to individual members of the agency. One person, therefore, could be called upon to make a grave moral choice on behalf of all Canadians. Clause 25 allows the minister to give the agency policy directives at any time, which it must implement and which would be kept secret. This committee is being charged with dealing with some of the most important ethical challenges imaginable.

I do not believe that matters of great moral import like this should simply be left to self-interested experts to decide. Yes, experts may have great technical expertise, but their intense involvement with issues in many cases makes them blind to the common moral sense of society. For instance, a great many scientists and researchers are demanding already that the bill should be broadened to allow for therapeutic cloning, but clearly the vast majority of Canadians oppose this practice. The bill reflects their sentiment and the advice of the Standing Committee on Health by prohibiting therapeutic cloning. However, I am concerned that the minister has said in remarks that this ban may be “temporary” and that she is essentially waiting for public opinion to “catch up” with the research community.

I do not believe that Canadians' moral sense about this issue is simply due to ignorance. It is based on well founded and legitimate fears that therapeutic cloning may well lead a company or a research lab to abuse this technology in an unethical way and proceed with reproductive cloning. There are already reports of an Italian scientist who is attempting reproductive cloning. A new age cult with a large following in Quebec claims to be pursuing the same thing. This research would also further undermine respect for human life by turning human beings into something that simply could be copied and reproduced. Any sense of the sanctity or inherent dignity of human life is likely to be lost if a single embryo can be copied thousands of times.

Ordinary common sense Canadians can see the dark moral forest that we would enter if we take the path of therapeutic cloning, but too often experts whose professional interests and livelihoods depend on pursuing the latest technology cannot see the forest for the individual trees of their own research field. Can we really afford to hive off questions as sensitive as this to self-interested experts or should they be guided by the will of Canadians as expressed in parliament?

Let me come to a specific example, perhaps the most dangerous step taken in this bill: the authorization of embryonic stem cell research.

Many people say they have been wrestling with their consciences over this issue during the debate. It is my observation that when one is wrestling with one's conscience, one's conscience usually loses. Conscience is a moral guide that instinctively tells us right from wrong. If our conscience tells us that destroying nascent human life is unethical and we start to wrestle with that moral intuition, then what that really means is that we are surrounding the clear witness of conscience with a smokescreen of rationalizations and relativizations. If our consciences are telling us that this manipulation and destruction of life is wrong, then I submit that as legislators we ought not to be wrestling with conscience but listening to it and acting in accordance with it.

A human embryo is a living human being. This is not an assertion of opinion but an uncontrovertible, prima facie, scientific fact. Human life is a continuum and that continuum begins at the moment when the ovum is fertilized by the spermatozoa. At that point, a unique, unrepeatable human existence begins. All our capacities and abilities, our hair colour, our height, perhaps even our intellectual aptitudes and our personalities, are to a large extent determined by that unique genetic code that has just been created. If left in its natural state, that single-celled entity will become a baby.

The question we must ask ourselves is, what dignity and what worth does that unrepeatable human life have? I suggest that it has an intrinsic dignity and worth that we cannot deny.

Many religions teach that from the moment of conception the physical embryo coexists with the spiritual soul. Personally, I believe that to be true. Even if we were not to believe in the intrinsic sanctity of human life surely we could all respect the dignity of human life. All human life shares a common ancestry and potential. That is an insight available to people with or without religious faith.

If we were to undermine the dignity of the human embryo in the lab, we would surely undermine the dignity of all human life, the severely handicapped, the sick, the elderly, and those who some cultures and political ideologies have taught to be racially inferior. If these living human beings do not have intrinsic dignity and worth, at least in the eyes of some, then what is to prevent them from being used simply as objects for research?

We all know the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele and the hideous experiments he performed on Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz. This is perhaps an extreme but it is an extreme that can be reached when we move down the path of treating human beings as objects and not as persons.

I do not believe that there can be any justification for using living human beings for experimentation, no matter how worthy the purported objective.

I, and my colleagues in the Canadian Alliance, believe there is a great potential in adult stem cell research. Stem cells can be derived from the skin, umbilical cord or elsewhere in the body of grown humans. There are no ethical dilemmas in this research any more than there is an ethical dilemma in cutting our hair or trimming our nails.

Increasingly, scientists believe they can produce adult stem cells with the same flexibility and potentiality that they previously believed only embryonic stem cells could provide with an added therapeutic bonus. If we receive stem cells derived from our own tissue it would have the same DNA and thus no risk of tissue rejection while there is a high risk of rejection for stem cell therapies using stem cells derived from another genetically different human being such as an embryo.

Our party has called for a three year moratorium on embryonic stem cell research to allow adult stem cell research to prove its enormous potential. I stand by this call as a good first step. I believe in principle that even if adult stem cell research did not have the promise of embryonic stem cells, it would still be unethical to manipulate and destroy human embryos for utilitarian purposes.

The Liberal majority on the health committee did not call for an absolute ban or even a moratorium but did propose that a high threshold be met. The majority report said that the use of human embryos should not be allowed in research

--unless the applicant clearly demonstrates that no other category of biological material could be used...

Subclause 40(2) of the bill significantly lowers the bar and says that embryonic stem cell research can proceed

--if the Agency is satisfied that the use is necessary for the purpose of the proposed research.

The applicant no longer has to prove that no other category of biological material could be used but simply that human embryos are necessary for this particular project. As I have said, any use of human embryos, which are unique, living human beings, is ethically wrong prima facie whether or not embryos are truly necessary for particular research or therapeutic purposes.

The strongest pragmatic objective of this approach is that surely we should allow embryos to be used for something, otherwise, in the eloquent words of the minister “they will be thrown in the garbage”. Let me give three arguments against this.

First, if there are a significant number of embryos left over in in vitro fertilization clinics, then the real question is not what to do with the extra embryos but why so many unnecessary embryos are being created in the first place. At a minimum, IVF clinics under this legislation should be restricted to producing the least possible number of embryos necessary to result in successful conception. Research to allow IVF clinics to reduce the number of embryos that have to be created for successful implantation should be vigorously promoted and clinics that seem to be producing too many embryos should be sanctioned by the agency.

Second, the minister's position is that the only embryos being used are leftover embryos that would otherwise be destroyed. It is a red herring. On the one hand, improving technology will eventually reduce and we hope eliminate the supply of so-called extra IVF embryos. On the other hand, the government is creating a demand in the research community and the biotech industry for embryonic stem cells in the bill. If the supply of IVF embryos were choked off, these industries would be back in a few years demanding that the government allow new embryos to be created or cloned solely for research.

I submit to the attention of the House the growing field of embryonic adoption. At the U.S. senate hearings on this issue last year, a senator said that the embryos were not human beings, they were simply the size of a dot. There were people at that committee hearing with babies, fully created babies whom they had adopted at the embryonic stage and who had grown into children. They were adopted embryos now living as human beings. This is a human way of meeting one of the purported objectives of the bill, to assist infertile couples.

We need to make a fundamental choice. The bill would open the door to the use of human life as simply raw material to making objects and commodities out of life itself. In the book of Deuteronomy Moses presented to the people of Israel the Torah, or law, that God had given him. He said:

--I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

Today 3,000 years later after Sinai we still face the same fundamental moral choice. I hope that we will choose life, that both ourselves and our descendants may live.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure, if those are appropriate words to use, that I rise today to add some comments to the debate on Bill C-56. As a member of the health committee, I sat through for some time a variety of deputations that came before us and talked about the importance of finally getting some legislation.

I would remind the House how many years it has been since we have been trying to deal with getting some sort of legislation in place in the area of human reproduction. It is an enormously sensitive issue. This is a piece of legislation in which I think we are trying to find the balance that respects the needs of many people in Canada, both those seeking to find cures for diseases as well as people dealing with the issues of needing to build their families and so on.

The legislation on assisted reproduction that we have before us would play a very important role in protecting and promoting the health and safety of all Canadians while ensuring that the promising related research is conducted in an ethical and appropriate manner. Currently we do not have legislation and we have little control over what is really going on.

The legislation has three primary objectives: to help Canadians using AHR procedures to build a family without compromising their health and safety; to prohibit practices, such as cloning, that Canadians clearly find very unacceptable; and to ensure that AHR related research which could help find treatments for infertility and serious diseases takes place within a regulated environment.

Bill C-56 is a comprehensive and integrated approach to some difficult challenges facing Canadians and society as a whole. It would also put Canada in line with other major industrialized nations that have also moved to ban or restrict certain practices they find morally intolerable. Is Bill C-56 perfect? Clearly not. It will go back to committee. We will have opportunities to review the bill again, to refine the legislation and to make it even better than what we currently have.

Canada has sought for some time to find the right way to deal with these issues and the related science and technology. The royal commission on new reproductive technologies, for instance, spent four years holding Canada-wide hearings and reflecting on the complex issues involved.

The commission tabled a detailed, two volume report in 1993. Many of its recommendations are now being brought to life in the legislation before the House. For example, the concept of statutory prohibitions on certain unacceptable practices, in conjunction with a regulatory framework to govern acceptable practices, stems from the royal commission's work.

Since that time there have been many other developments, including a voluntary moratorium on human cloning and similarly unacceptable activities, but consultations with Canadians have made it very clear that this was not enough. Not only was there was a desire for prohibiting activities, there was also a desire for a comprehensive approach that could deal with a broad range of other issues.

Last year the former Minister of Health took on that challenge of drafting legislation that would respect the range of strongly held views about AHR and related issues, especially in the area of research using embryos, an area that is extremely sensitive for all of us. He took the unprecedented step of first submitting a draft of the legislation to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health in order to give Canadians, through their elected representatives, a chance to see it, think about it and comment on it. The eight or nine months that many of us sat on that committee and listened to those deputations gave us an real eye opener and an education on the complexities of the issues, and we all struggled to find the right balance to protect Canadians.

The committee heard from dozens of witnesses and came up with a thoughtful and well researched report. As a result of the committee's input, the draft legislation was further refined and improved. I was pleased with the legislation that came back because it respected the feelings of our committee. There are areas that are still under discussion which will be further refined when the bill goes back to the health committee. Hopefully those of us who have been on the committee until now will still be on it and we will have a chance to do some further work on it.

Bill C-56 in its present form does capture the spirit and the intent of many of the recommendations made to the Government of Canada by the health committee on ways to deal with the issues raised by assisted human reproduction. In particular, certain activities and practices would not be allowed in Canada. They include any type of human cloning to produce a genetically identical replica of another person or the creation of a human embryo for purposes other than that of reproduction. It would be prohibited to engage in practices that would increase or ensure the likelihood of having a child of a particular gender unless it is for medical reasons.

It would be prohibited to pay a woman for more than the costs of reasonable expenses to carry a child to term for someone else. It would be prohibited to buy or trade in reproductive materials like eggs, sperm or human embryos. It would be prohibited to change the DNA of an embryo in a way such that the change could be passed on to future generations. It would also be prohibited to mix the genetic material of animals and humans for reproductive purposes.

Most Canadians agree that such practices are clearly unethical and unacceptable. They have no redeeming social merit and should be banned. The feelings of all of us who sat on the committee were conclusive in regard to these issues and we are pleased that the government ensured that these prohibitions are in the legislation.

There are other practices that are not specifically prohibited and would be permitted, but not under any terms. They would require a licence from the agency. They would be subject to strict regulations aimed at ensuring the health and safety of Canadians as well as the ethical conduct of AHR treatments and related research. This recommendation clearly tries to recognize the benefits of science and the changes that are happening in new technology while still trying to protect the public from some of the issues that we feel are threatening.

For example, all facilities engaged in AHR related activities, such as in vitro fertilization clinics, would have to be licensed under Bill C-56. The regulations would govern issues such as limiting the number of children who could be conceived using one donor's sperm. It would also be required that patients give their informed consent for all treatments and decisions, such as what to do with embryos that are surplus to their needs.

Under the regulations, scientists who wish to conduct research involving human embryos would have to obtain a licence as well as permission for their proposed projects from a recognized ethics board. In order to obtain the authorization for this work, they would have to demonstrate clearly to the agency that the use of an embryo is necessary for the purpose of the proposed research. They could only use embryos that were created for, and surplus to, fertility treatments. They also would have to secure the informed consent of the donors.

The scientific exploration that holds great promise of benefiting society would be permitted under strict regulations. For example, research could help to give us a better understanding of the problems of human infertility. Research could also help in investigating cures for serious degenerative ailments such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease as well as cancer and spinal cord injuries.

Two weeks ago, many of us had a visit from people suffering from ALS. Clearly when one talks to these people one learns that they have great hopes that through some of this research a cure will finally be found for some of these terrible diseases that devastate families and take life away from many. This type of research requires stem cells, though, and they may be found in embryonic tissues as well as other sources.

The legislation supersedes guidelines on stem cell research recently announced by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Government of Canada's principal funding source. The new legislation would go further because it would also cover scientists who receive no federal funds.

Bill C-56 is finally getting into the House, hopefully before we adjourn for final reading, to bring in legislation clearly meant to protect Canadians as well as ensure that the research community has specific guidelines to ensure the protection of Canadians and to help us in our research to find the cure for many diseases.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments. He reflects the concerns of most Canadians when they look at the issue.

The stem cell issue is so new that people do not know enough about it. They want to know more. They cannot understand the difference between umbilical cord stem cells, stem cells from fat and muscle, adult stem cells, embryonic stem cells and what they all entail. It is complex and difficult to understand. Part of Bill C-56 deals with this. The other part deals with reproduction. The bill has a reproduction side and a science side.

With respect to the bill's science side, if we look forward into the 21st century one of the most important parts of Bill C-56 is the regulatory regime that would license controlled activities in the area. Could my hon. colleague comment on the regulatory body and how important it is that it garner the trust of Canadians? He has been a member of the House for quite some time and understands the importance of the issue.

[Gary Lunn, Canadian Alliance, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Regina--Lumsden--Lake Centre.

I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-56, the assisted human reproduction act which is before the House. It is an incredibly important and long overdue piece of legislation. The bill is in response to emerging technologies with incredible potential which have grown at an incredibly fast pace. There is no question that we as legislators are far behind the technology of today.

Bill C-56 would do a number of things. The big part of the debate revolves around stem cell research. There is no question that stem cell research is creating new opportunities to find cures for and eliminate such horrible diseases as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS and many forms of cancer. There is a lot of hope for a lot of people on the horizon.

However no one in this place would deny that we must move extremely cautiously. The area is complex, extremely technical and full of significant ethical questions that must be looked at. At the same time, we cannot turn our backs on an incredibly important research tool for finding cures for diseases that bring terrible hardship and destroy thousands of Canadian families every year. The scientific advancements also have the power to assist couples otherwise unable to have children. The importance of the research underscores the failure of the government to act sooner.

The royal commission on new reproductive technologies reported to the House in 1993, almost 10 years ago. Other countries are far ahead of us in terms of legislation. Legislation was passed by Britain in 1990, by the U.S. in 1992, by France in 1994 and by Japan in 2000. The delay in Canada has left uncertainty hanging over families seeking reproductive assistance and other victims of terrible diseases awaiting important cures.

There are a number of negatives in Bill C-56 and a number of positives. I will focus on some of the concerns we have in the Canadian Alliance. The greatest weakness of Bill C-56 is that parliament would be unable to scrutinize the issue as it evolved. Science and technology is moving at an incredible pace. Parliament is way behind.

Bill C-56 proposes to create yet another regulatory agency, the assisted human reproduction agency. It is critically important to ensure that any new regulations come before parliament. Parliament must have the power to scrutinize and watch over the process. We should not give the powers to an unelected, unaccountable and, some would argue, uncontrollable regulatory authority. We must ensure all future regulations are scrutinized by the House, subject to an open debate and published in the Canada

Gazette.

The legislation should not allow the minister to make regulations without the scrutiny of the House, especially on a topic of such importance that has such strong ethical considerations. Bill C-56 would do this. We should not shy away from the debate because it is incredibly important.

We should allow children conceived by in vitro fertilization to know the identity of their parents under the same conditions that currently exist for adoption. This would be a relatively simple addition to the bill. I believe it would be supported by all parties.

I will not dwell only on the negatives of Bill C-56. There are some strong positives in the bill which are long overdue. Everyone I speak to has serious concerns about human cloning. Bill C-56 would ban human cloning. That is absolutely essential. It would also ban cross breeding between various mammals and animal species. That is very important.

We must remind ourselves that having the scientific ability to do something does not necessarily make it the right thing to do. That is where some of the concerns are coming up. Yes, for couples unable to have children and in need of vitro fertilization it is a welcome scientific advancement. We want to ensure that having children is a joy and that couples who are struggling can have families. However there are other areas we must look at that are positive as well.

One is the whole area of stem cell research. There is quite an ethical debate going on here about embryonic stem cells versus adult stem cells or stem cells from the umbilical cord. My understanding is that as far as embryonic stem cells are concerned, under Bill C-56 only unused stem cells created by in vitro fertilization would be allowed to be used. They would be used only for research and with the permission of the donors. Wherever possible adult stem cells would be used instead of embryonic stem cells.

On the face of it that sounds fairly reasonable. However I must admit I have not made up my mind. I am struggling with all the dynamics of the debate. I am listening to the members. I want more information from the scientists. Are we going down a road we should not be? I do not know. This is a new field of study. It holds the key to hope for cures to some terrible diseases. We need to proceed incredibly cautiously. What is the next step beyond this and beyond that?

We all agree that human cloning is not appropriate. I have made that point. It is important that we are having a healthy discussion and debate on the issue. It is not about pro-life or pro-choice, but there is no question that there are concerns. Good points have been raised in the debate on all sides. We need to have a strong look at all the arguments. I for one hope to talk with my constituents over the summer and get their input.

At the same time we do not want to delay passage of the bill because it would do many other important things. As I said, I have not completely made up my mind. I want to speak with some of the scientists. I want more information. If there is one concern it is about the regulatory agency and the power it would have to create new regulations without the scrutiny of parliament. It is a serious concern. Who knows where this would go?

Again, I am pleased to stand and represent my constituents by speaking to the matter. I look forward to consultations with them over the months ahead. I hope we can come up with amendments to the bill to address some of the issues because there is no question that legislation is long overdue in this area.

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate on Bill C-56. My colleague from Richmond--Arthabaska has spoken at length on the subject. It is certainly an important subject to debate in the House. It is a subject that is personal to most members of parliament.

Unfortunately, from the little bit of debate there has been so far, it appears that it is becoming a pro-choice, pro-life issue. Quite frankly, I do not think that is the issue at all.

Members of parliament need to take a long hard look at this. Some ethical, moral and religious questions need to be asked. Certainly there are a number of other questions as well. I think members of parliament would have to look long and hard to find it in their hearts to refuse to discuss some of the issues that are brought up by Bill C-56.

The purpose of the bill is to give Canada its first comprehensive and integrated legislation dealing with assisted reproduction. This legislation is long overdue. Back in 1993 the government started discussing legislation to deal with some type of integrated approach to assisted reproduction. Here it is 2002, almost 10 years later and a bill still has not passed through parliament.

It is unconscionable that with its majority the government would ignore its responsibility not only to Canadian women, but to Canadian men, to Canadians everywhere. This is the type of issue which the government has the responsibility and authority to deal with. The government has been irresponsible for 10 years in refusing to deal with this issue.

Now that the bill is finally here, I expect it to be dealt with in a serious manner, but not necessarily in an expeditious manner. The government wants to deal with the bill expeditiously. We have waited 10 years for this piece of legislation and the government wants it through the House before the House rises in June. Somehow or another, now that the legislation has finally got to this point the government says it is absolutely essential that we give it a perfunctory debate and pass it along. That is totally unacceptable.

This is a very important issue to all Canadians. It is an important issue to the House. It is one that needs and warrants clear and thoughtful debate. It is an absolute requirement before we pass this piece of legislation on to the other place that all members of the House know what they are voting on and why they are voting on it.

The bill will proclaim the need to preserve and protect human individuality, diversity and integrity of the human genome. I think most parliamentarians would support that. Understanding that free and informed consent is a fundamental condition of human reproduction and assisted human reproduction, there should be nothing in the bill that members of parliament cannot deal with in a reasonable and sensible manner.

It has been proposed by other members and by our party's critic, the member for Richmond--Arthabaska, that the bill be divided. That is a timely piece of advice which the government should take a long hard look at.

The bill certainly could be divided to ban cloning. It must be understood that Canada has already signed an international agreement to ban cloning, yet we do not have the same legislation in our own parliament. We are a bit behind some of the international agreements we have already signed.

The proposal to divide the bill is a sound proposal. It would allow us to take the cloning component of the bill and have an individual bill on which most members of parliament could agree. I do not think there are many members of parliament who, in a serious way, could support the cloning of human beings. The stem cell part of the bill has moral, ethical and religious connotations. We cannot easily separate that from the bill but it may be necessary.

Research is very important in the bill and one of the goals of the legislation. It is research that may find treatments for not only infertility but other serious diseases that every Canadian family faces: Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer. It is a known fact that some members who sit in the House are cancer survivors because of stem cell research. We have other members in the House who would take away the opportunity for people to prevent Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and cancer.

This is a serious legislation that warrants a long, hard, serious look. It is not without some difficulties and it is not without a great deal of bias that has been expressed already by individual members of parliament. I would ask individual members of parliament to put that bias away and look at the advantages offered here.

The bill needs some amendments and amendments should be brought forward. When we deal with issues like assisted human reproduction a number of questions need to be asked. For instance, in vitro embryos can only be used if deemed necessary for purposes of stem cell research. The product of assisted human reproduction, discarded embryos at a very early stage, could possibly be used for stem cell research but only if deemed absolutely necessary and not produced for that reason.

This is where we need guidelines. This is where we need to know exactly what the bill is giving us.

Scientists will still need to obtain a licence from the agency before embarking on any research project involving in vitro embryos. All research proposals will have to be peer reviewed and approved by the ethics review board before being submitted to the agency for consideration. It is obvious that research involving in vitro embryos will be conducted with strict regulations and in an ethical manner.

I for one would like to make sure that those regulations come back to parliament. We cannot give some group, even if it is a government regulated group, the authority to make regulations without bringing those regulations back to parliament for approval. We want people to trust the process, to buy into the advantages that are available and to understand that we now have science and technology available which can, and I believe should, assist men and women who are not able to have children to have them.

We do not want to involve ourselves in the religious argument. If we have the technology we have the moral and ethical responsibility to assist women to have children. We have a responsibility to say that the day is on the horizon when stem cell research will grow another kidney, will find a cure for Parkinson's and will deal with a broken spinal cord.

I do not think we in this place have the right to say that research should not be carried out. We have the right to regulate it and the right to say whether it can be carried out on embryos but we do not have the right to prevent it.

I will use an analogy. It is akin to many years ago in the 1500s when Galileo was looking at the stars. His acceptance of the Copernican system was rejected by the church. It did not stop it or prevent it. It was not reasonable. We no longer believe that the sun revolves around the earth. We know the lessons that science has taught us.

We have an opportunity here and I think it would be a grave mistake not to take this opportunity to help not only women and men in the country but to help people who are suffering and will suffer and to help those who are yet to be born who will suffer from disease.

This is not an opportunity to clone human beings. Let us strike that from the list. We have the opportunity to help future generations of human beings.

The bill would allow the governor in council to make regulations concerning consent for the use of human reproductive material or an in vitro embryo for research purposes. It is absolutely essential. We cannot leave this up to individuals to decide for themselves. We have a responsibility to produce legislation with intelligent and informed debate, and I for one believe that can be done.

The creation of in vitro embryos and research on the embryo will be possible under regulation from the governor in council with a licence. That will be a problematic issue. Many of us will wrestle closely and dearly with that issue.

I do not think members have completely made their minds up yet. I certainly do not have my mind completely made up. However we do have the responsibility to deal with the issue, to wrestle it to the ground and to come up with something that I hope will help future generations of Canadians.

The bill would give the government a wide range of powers to regulate embryonic stem cell research. I think all of us would agree that regulations are needed. The fact that the bill would allow parliament to be pushed aside is an issue that I think is of great public concern.

It is absolutely essential that this vote, because of the moral, ethical and religious issues surrounding it, be allowed to stand on a free vote. The government has yet to say whether it will allow a free vote for its own members but this is the type of issue that must be a free vote.

While we debate this, Canada is lagging behind the rest of the world. Legislation already exists in the United States and in other countries around the world. We are on the cutting edge of new science and new technology and we are not up to speed with everyone else on the planet.

We have not dealt with the whole issue of the donors of sperm or ovum and it needs to be dealt with. Whatever our considered thoughts are on this, we have a responsibility to deal with it. In my humble opinion the donor should be known. We have learned that through the adoption process. There should be no debate or question on that. If people want to donate sperm or ovum, their names should be known. There is a greater responsibility, not just to the offspring but to their access to medical records.

There are dozens and dozens of issues here that we have an obligation to deal with. We should not think for a moment that donor anonymity is not problematic. It is problematic just in having enough sperm to carry out science because many people want to know the donor. They want to make informed decisions on their reproductive future.

A committee should review the regulations in Bill C-56 but they should not be reviewed by a committee that is in a hurry to get the legislation passed. It should be a committee that has the time, the opportunity and the scientific background and knowledge to make informed decisions. As it now stands the regulations have not been put forth to committee nor to the House. I believe as parliamentarians we must demand that this take place.

The bill can and I believe should be divided into two parts, the first dealing with infertility and reproduction issues, and the second to deal with research and development of stem cells and where those stem cells come from. We can no longer ignore this issue. It must be dealt with. I believe Canada can be a leader in adult stem cell research and can receive the benefits that may result from that.

In conclusion, the bill would add another layer of controversy to an already complex issue. It would put Canada in line with measures taken by other industrialized countries, including the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. It is a fairly comprehensive approach but I do not believe it is comprehensive enough. We will draw upon the best practices of countries around the world.

However that does not mean our bill should be the same as that of the United States or Great Britain but it should be respective of Canadians and respective of how we want to deal with this complex issue.

As parliamentarians we have an obligation to deal with this issue. Stem cell research gives us the opportunity to do wonderful things. We can begin to close the door on many of the diseases that face Canadians of every age, whether it be Alzheimer's, cancer or multiple sclerosis to name just a few.

We have the opportunity of not having to look for a lung or a kidney. This is not star wars. We have the opportunity in the not too distant future of producing those organs from donor stem cells of the very adult or child who needs them. We cannot close the door on helping to reduce pain and suffering.

The bill should be divided into two parts. Let us do that to make it easier and more understandable. Let us be able to more judiciously deal with these complex issues.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

I would like to inform the member that he still has four minutes left in questions and comments when debate resumes on Bill C-56.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on this issue.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Health, I identify with the comments of the hon. member from Winnipeg who just spoke. Members of the committee wrestled with many of the issues surrounding human reproductive technology and came up with the proposals for the draft legislation which has come back in the form of Bill C-56.

Bill C-56 states it may be cited as the assisted human reproduction act. I would like to state for the record that I believe we need much more research on the causes of infertility, particularly in the western world on delayed child bearing. We need more scrutiny on the various practices that defer pregnancy including the birth control pill; the use of abortion and the effect it has on fertility; the accumulation of pesticides in the environment and the effect it may have on human reproduction; and recently, concerns about estrogens accumulating in the water supply which are affecting human fertility.

A lot more research is needed on what is actually causing this epidemic of infertility. Rather than trying to find other ways to produce babies, we should be looking at how we can accommodate successful human fertility in a natural way.

Looking at the bill, the opposition has been calling for legislation since 1993 when the royal commission on new reproductive technologies reported. The government introduced Bill C-47 eventually in June 1996 and it died on the order paper.

This subject has been debated for a long time. In this the 37th parliament the Standing Committee on Health received draft legislation on May 3, 2001, a little more than a year ago. We spent months deliberating and hearing from witnesses from all aspects of Canadian society who are concerned about the complex and varied issues associated with the bill. Finally the committee submitted its report in December to the minister. It is one year later and the bill has finally come to the House for consideration. It has been a long time coming.

There are many controversial aspects and complex issues related to the bill. Probably the most significant one is the issue of stem cell research. To enter into that subject, it was stressed at committee that we need to think of ourselves as cellular beings. An adult human being is some 80 trillion to 100 trillion cells; we are cellular beings.

We are talking about embryonic stem cells versus adult stem cells. We hear in discussions that embryonic stem cells are better because they can produce the entire array of tissue found in an adult human being, which is true. The early cells in an embryo are on their way to producing an 80 trillion to 100 trillion cell adult which will take some 20 years to accomplish. The embryonic cells can produce a whole human being; that is their destiny in the ordinary sense.

Recent research has found what early researchers used to suggest, that adult cells are no longer able to do that. However in the last year and a half we have seen tremendous breakthroughs in adult stem cell research.

It should not have been such a surprise to us. The blueprint for each one of us, including all of the 200 cell types that we have in our body, is found in each and every cell of the human body, except for the red blood cells which do not have a nucleus. Each of us has in each of our 80 trillion to 100 trillion cells a complete set of chromosomes with a complete blueprint to reproduce a whole human being.

Therefore the dialogue saying that the embryonic cells are better for this reason simply does not hold up with the current research. We are finding tremendous breakthroughs some of which have been cited already today.

We heard from researchers in committee, and even in the months since we concluded our report there has been further research reporting results with Parkinson's disease using adult stem cells. Also with multiple sclerosis, adult stem cells from the donor's body were introduced back into the same body with tremendous results.

From what we heard in the standing committee and in the past year, there have been tremendous gains in adult stem cell research in humans. We heard that after many years of embryo stem cell research with animal models the results have not provided the expected advances. Therefore, it was the conclusion of the standing committee to encourage research funding in the area of adult stem cells.

There are many problems with trying to introduce embryonic cells into another human being not the least of which is each one of our cells has a blueprint, our own genetic marker. An intact immune system checks licence plates. The immune system will reject foreign cells. If embryonic cells are used to produce a new cell source for a human being to try to solve a health problem those cells will be subject to rejection by the immune system of the receiving body unless the patient takes anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his or her life. That is a very significant problem in trying to use embryonic stem cells in another human being. It is a problem that is avoided entirely by the use of autologous cells, or cells from one's own body.

To quote a couple of other advances, recently University of Minnesota Stem Cell Institute researchers showed that adult bone marrow stem cells can become blood vessels. Duke University Medical Center researchers turned adult stem cells from knee fat into cartilage, bone and fat cells. When the research of Dr. Freda Miller from our own McGill University was announced just a few months ago, the newspaper article said that the researchers had found gold with skin cells able to turn into neurons or muscle cells.

We should have known there were stem cells found in bone marrow because bone marrow regenerates itself. The average human being is replacing 25% of his or her blood every month. Skin cells replace themselves regularly. Therefore stem cells are found. Also we are finding that skin cells not only produce skin but they can be coaxed into forming other tissues, as Dr. Miller found, such as neurons or muscle cells.

If adult cells have the promise to produce tissue, why are researchers reluctant to go there? I posed that question to Dr. Alan Bernstein, the head of the CIHR, when he was at committee and I pose the question again to my colleagues in the House. If we can produce cells from our own bodies that would replace tissue, avoiding the need for anti-rejection drugs for life, if we could take stem cells from our own bodies, grow them in a Petri dish and reintroduce them to our bodies to repair damaged tissue, would that not in fact be superior? That is autologous.

[Pierrette Venne, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to take part in this debate on Bill C-56, An Act respecting assisted human reproduction. It is certainly one of the most important pieces of legislation to have been introduced recently in the area of health, but it is also a very delicate bill that will surely be very controversial.

However, the various aspects of this controversy on the legitimacy of this bill, which was much anticipated by the medical and scientific communities, will not prevent our party from supporting, at least in principle, Bill C-56 which, as clearly stated in clause 2, sets out the fundamental principles of assisted human reproduction, and I quote:

1. The Parliament of Canada recognizes and declares that

(a) the benefits of assisted human reproductive technologies and related research for individuals and for society in general can be most effectively secured by taking appropriate measures for the protection and promotion of human health, safety, dignity and rights in the use of these technologies and in related research;

(b) the health and well-being of children born through the application of these technologies must be given priority in all decisions respecting their use;

(c) while all persons are affected by these technologies, women more than men are directly and significantly affected by their application;

(d) the principle of free and informed consent must be promoted and applied as a fundamental condition of the use of human reproductive technologies;

(e) trade in the reproductive capacities of women and men and the exploitation of children, women and men for commercial ends raise health and ethical concerns that justify their prohibition;

(f) human individuality and diversity, and the integrity of the human genome, must be preserved and protected.

Based on these fundamental principles and taking into account the activities that are prohibited in the bill and those that are regulated, Bill C-56 can be summarized as follows.

It prohibits the creation of human clones for any purpose as well as the transplantation of a human clone into a human being.

It permits certain research to be carried out using stem cells from human embryos, while at the same time banning the creation of embryos for the purpose of carrying out such research.

It prohibits commercial activity involving surrogate mothers, and payment of sperm or egg donors, as well as the buying and selling of human embryos.

Finally, it prohibits the sexing of human embryos solely for the purpose of deciding whether or not to continue a pregnancy.

In order to attain the objectives set for assisted reproduction, and in order to make it possible to control activities around these objectives, Bill C-56 creates a new body. The assisted human reproduction agency of Canada will be responsible for regulating fertility clinics and researchers in this area.

In particular, this federal agency will authorize researchers to use stem cells from human embryos, but only when required for such research. Like any body with responsibility for monitoring a specific area, the agency in question will have all the necessary powers to implement the policies and objectives defined by Bill C-56 and its regulation and to inspect the facilities in question, and to monitor application of the law and regulations and initiate proceedings relating to offences under the act.

The Bloc Quebecois feels that the government has reached a reasonable compromise between the American position with its restrictions on human embryo research and the British position, which goes too far and allows researchers to create embryos solely for research purposes. This latter practice, of creating embryos for study and research purposes, will be prohibited in Canada under the legislation being proposed in Bill C-56, if it is passed in its present form. Researchers will also be required to apply for authorization from the new assisted reproduction agency in order to gain access to surplus embryos from fertility clinics that are no longer needed by them.

With this we are getting to the most difficult moral issue raised by this bill on human embryos: the use for research of those that are no longer needed.

For some, research on embryos is reprehensible from an ethical point of view, because an embryo is a human being. For others, an embryo is not yet a true human being, a view that was shared by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Bloc Quebecois feels that the bill will allow for the establishment of ethical standards for research on stem cells and embryos, and of valid requirements for research authorizations, the monitoring of research laboratories and fertility clinics, so that the fundamental issue of the respect for life can be reasonably monitored and dealt with.

We feel that it is better to have a valid legislative framework, with true control by the new assisted human reproduction agency of Canada, which will be created under this legislation, than to remain in a regulatory void that can lead to all kinds of abuse, as may be the case right now.

Moreover, the definitions of “human clone”, “embryo”, “ in vitro embryo”, “foetus”, etc., found at the beginning of Bill C-56, in clause 3, are explicit and restrictive enough to allow for the anticipated monitoring of assisted human reproduction.

It should also be pointed out that Bill C-56 is an important measure for all those who need assistance in the area of human reproduction, something which affects the fate and destiny of mankind.

However, assisted human reproduction will not be the only benefit resulting from this legislation. Indeed, according to a number of experts in genetics, research on embryos and on stem cells from excess embryos—again, it must be emphasized that only excess embryos can be used, and only if a researcher can clearly demonstrate that he cannot conduct his research with other biological material, before he can get an authorization from the agency—could allow us to fight terrible diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and probably others.

These are definitely laudable objectives and we must regulate research in this area, so that these objectives can be achieved and so that science can continue to make progress in our country, under a tight implementation and monitoring framework, and under principles that are recognized by experts in research, by Canada's health research institutes, and by Canada's health research funding agencies.

However, while Bill C-56 has some merits, it also has flaws and I want to mention some of them.

Even though Health Canada is supposed to consult the provinces regarding the regulations governing research and activities related to assisted reproduction, we must ensure that this promise is respected. It is critical that Canadian policy be developed in concert with the provinces and that there be unequivocal recognition that it is an area of shared jurisdiction.

The proposed legislation grants the regulatory and monitoring agency a very broad mandate which gives it significant powers. Yet, nothing guarantees the independence of the agency's board from the Minister of Health. The agency, which reports to the Minister of Health, will advise the minister, and will be headed by a board of directors made up of no more than 13 members who reflect a range of relevant backgrounds and disciplines.

Since it is up to the regulatory agency, and not the provinces, to enforce the regulations, it is important to ensure that the board is representative of Quebec.

Two observers—one representing the federal government and the other representing the provincial governments—will discuss issues of common interest with the board.

Once again, we must ensure that this observer understands and defends the interests of Quebecers. No regulatory body can be completely effective without a fair representation of the provinces on its board.

One clause of the bill stipulates that all of the regulations be introduced in the House for approval and that the committee consider the bill and propose amendments. Among the recommendations made by the Standing Committee on Health, there was a proposal that the bill include provisions comparable to clause 42.1 of the Tobacco Act, provisions that require that proposed regulations be referred automatically to the standing committee. The relative clause in Bill C-56 does not go this far. Given that for this bill, the regulations are equally, if not more important than the bill itself, we must ensure this recommendation made by the committee is respected.

Contrary to the Bloc Quebecois' requests and the committee's recommendations, the bill does not amend the Patent Act in order to exclude human genetic material.

In particular, we must define the scope of clause 25 of Bill C-56, which reads as follows:

1. (1) The Minister may issue policy directions to the Agency concerning the exercise of any of its powers, and the Agency shall give effect to directions so issued.

(2) Policy directions issued by the Minister may not affect a matter that is before the Agency at the time they are issued and that relates to a particular person.

(3) Policy directions issued by the Minister are not a statutory instrument for the purposes of the Statutory Instruments Act.

This power given to the federal Minister of Health seems completely excessive and clearly implies that the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada could lose its independence in favour of the minister, and despite all other qualified stakeholders: the content of clause 25 must therefore be clarified in order to bring it into line with the requirement that the agency responsible for monitoring this field be independent.

Finally, Bill C-56 affects all members of parliament with respect to their personal beliefs, religious or not, with respect to human life, the protection of human life, and especially with respect to what constitutes a human being, and for this reason I strongly suggest that the vote on Bill C-56 be entirely free, without party lines. Members will thus be able to vote freely, according to their conscience, without any constraints, for the benefit of all and for the good of democracy.

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I commend the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis who is a distinguished and principled member of this place. I would associate myself with his remarks.

Could the member comment on the hon. Minister of Health's assertion that the provisions of Bill C-56 dealing with embryonic stem cell research, namely the delegation of regulation of the area to the new agency, reflect the recommendations of the health committee report? Does the hon. member agree that the special report of the Standing Committee on Health suggests a much higher standard for the approval of applications for embryonic stem cell research?

Would the hon. member share my party's call for at least a three year moratorium on embryonic stem cell research until we can see the full potential of adult stem cell research to which he has referred?

[Carol Skelton, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to speak today to Bill C-56, the assisted human reproduction act.

Canadians have waited a long time for comprehensive legislation on this important issue. However in our haste to have legislation in place we should not overlook some important changes that need to be made. Inadequate legislation would not benefit Canadians. Bill C-56 would affect researchers, the medical field and Canadians afflicted with diseases such as Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.

Amazing discoveries are being made in Canada and other countries in the field of stem cell research. It is important that the field be well regulated. The official opposition believes in the importance of stem cell research. The therapeutic possibilities that can be derived from it are promising and of great importance to many Canadians.

Adult stem cell research has offered hope for many in recent months. It is important to focus on and pursue the possibilities that can result from it. However adult stem cell research is being put on the back burner while embryonic research is being promoted. There is limited proof that this shift in focus is warranted. Adult stem cell research offers great possibilities without being plagued by the difficulties surrounding embryonic research. These include tissue rejection and the need for anti-rejection drugs, issues of supply, and ethical questions.

Canadian researchers at McGill University in Montreal have made great discoveries lately in the area of adult stem cell research. Their findings are promising and should be pursued. The positive results of the experiments have been surprising even to the research staff. Freda Miller, the scientist in charge of the experiments, is quoted as saying:

We gave it two months. But it worked right from the beginning. Every step of the way it's been an “I can't believe that it's true” experience.

This shows that adult stem cell research holds great promise and should be promoted. However embryonic research poses many ethical questions and should be approached with caution. A three year prohibition of embryonic stem cell research would not only allow for further discussion of the issue. It would allow an opportunity for further adult stem cell research.

The standing committee's report on stem cell research states that due to advances in the research, funding should be focused on adult stem cell research. It says advances in embryonic stem cell research have not been as great. The report states:

--in the past year, there have been tremendous gains in adult stem research in humans. We also heard that, after many years of embryo stem cell research with animal models, the results have not provided the expected advances. Therefore, we want to encourage research funding in the area of adult stem cells.

Available resources should be focused on the most productive area. In this case it is adult stem cell research.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research states that funding for adult stem cell research should be available under specific conditions. The CIHR appears to be limiting funding options for adult stem cell research. The CIHR should not limit an area of research that is already providing promising results.

To provide adult stem cell research the time and funding it needs, a three year prohibition of embryonic research would be beneficial. A precautionary approach to embryonic research would be best. As the former minister has said:

--there must be a higher notion than science alone...that can guide scientific research and endeavour. Simply because we can do something does not mean that we should do it.

Where there is a conflict between ethical questions and scientific advancement, ethics should prevail.

In recent years the government has off-loaded the responsibility of health care and health funding to the provinces. This has been done while slashing funding to the provinces. Provincial participation in research and development in the area of stem cells is important as the provinces have jurisdiction in the area of reproductive technologies.

While the government assures us that there will be provincial involvement in the consultation process, the provinces are not offered a voice on the board of the proposed assisted human reproduction agency of Canada. To not allow the provinces a voting voice on the board is a mistake.

Again recommendations from the standing committee have been ignored. An equivalency agreement between the provinces and the federal government must be established. This is a highly sensitive area of research and every effort should be made to ensure that specific provincial views and concerns are addressed.

Provinces should not be forced to follow areas of research with which the majority of their residents do not agree. Provinces should not be mandated to allow embryonic research when their residents and government have hesitations with regard to that area of research.

To ensure that the wishes of the provinces are adequately addressed and heard, they must be allowed to appoint a voting designate to the board of the new AHRAC. Not only must the provinces have a vote on the new board, but also those with direct interest in the research mandated by the board. It is important that the AHRAC board does not become yet another level of bureaucracy but fully represents the interests of Canadians.

Others that should be included in the consultation and advisory processes include representatives from medical and scientific communities, children born through adult human reproduction, people with disabilities, taxpayers, service providers, provinces and territories and other groups that are directly affected by research and therapies derived from stem cell research.

While this area of research holds incredible promise, it also contains the possibility for abuse. For this reason there must be guidelines in place and assurances of accountability.

As this bill is currently written, the new board is accountable and answerable only to the minister. It has been made abundantly clear in recent months that leaving accountability in the hands of a minister in the government is a mistake. This new board must be answerable to parliament. Allowing the minister alone to make policy decisions in this area is misguided. Any policy directions should be made with the full participation of parliament.

This legislation needs to be changed to allow for all regulation changes to be sent to the health committee. The health committee must be allowed the opportunity for full examination and inquiry into any proposed regulation changes. Again accountability is the key. Decisions being made at the whim of the minister are not adequate, democratic, fair or wise.

Currently there is a level of secrecy allowed the minister in this bill. Changes of policy can be made without consultation or input by parliament or the health committee and are not subject to being recorded in the Canada Gazette . If this legislation is to be truly effective and in the best interests of all Canadians, openness and accountability must be set out in legislation.

The area of stem cell research is highly sensitive. Every effort must be made to ensure absolute accountability. There is little confidence that leaving accountability solely in the hands of the minister is best for Canadians or for the future of research.

This is the beginning of a new day for science in Canada. The promises of research into stem cells offers great hope for many. I would again suggest that we approach this important issue with caution. We must ensure that the legislation that is passed is beneficial to all involved.

It would be tempting for the government to push this bill through. We have waited years for this legislation but it is important that we take the time to make it right. We as the people's representatives have an obligation to all Canadians to ensure that legislation passed in the House meets the needs of Canadians. I do not believe that the bill, as currently written, will adequately accomplish that goal.

[Diane Ablonczy, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in all candour, what has happened is that the government has a track record of and an increasing predilection for contempt for members of parliament and the work they do, including its own members.

As my hon. colleague has said, we have a bill that was given to committee before it was introduced in the House. It was a move we applauded because it let the committee shape Bill C-56 before it got to introduction stage so we could make sure the bill would do its job properly.

Let us remember that all House committees are dominated by the Liberals. The Liberals have more members on committees than all the opposition parties put together. The recommendations that come out of committee are not an odd brainchild of opposition members wanting to make mischief. They are the recommendations of Liberal members.

It is absolutely shocking and appalling that the government gives work to committees, the committees work for months and put untold days and hours into studying subjects, and after they make their recommendations the government can say “That is too bad, we will do it differently”. Some days we wonder why the democratic process is not more respected by the Prime Minister and the government.

[Diane Ablonczy, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yes, there is more I could say about that. Under Bill C-56 children conceived through assisted human reproduction would have no right to know anything about their biological parents unless the biological parents gave their consent. This flies in the face of what we extend to children who are adopted. Children who are adopted have an almost unfettered right, even without the consent of their biological parents, to be given information about their heritage.

We also have a concept in law which is used in all divorce and custody cases: the best interests of the child. Strangely, under Bill C-56 the best interests of the child would fly out the window if an unknown biological donor did not consent to be identified. However such individuals make a conscious choice to be donors. It is not as if it happens by accident.

Conscious choice means taking responsibility for the choices one makes. That means a child conceived from one's action or choice should have the right to know his or her background. We know children want this kind of information because adopted children by and large choose to pursue it. There is a desire on the part of most people to know something about their heritage and roots.

The hon. member who asked the question talked about medical information. Yes, that is one reason. There are other reasons as well. The whole concept of Bill C-56 flies in the face of what we already do for children who are not raised by their biological parents. It flies in the face of the notion of the best interests of the child. Why is that? We do not know.

I strongly recommend that the House correct the oversight and give children conceived through this procedure the same courtesy, rights and information other children are entitled to and enjoy.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I too share the hon. member's shock at some aspects of Bill C-56. The one thing in the hon. member's speech that horrified me was the concept that life forms could be patented and commercialized, and that even human life forms could become a marketable commodity.

The one thing I have learned in listening to other speeches today is that a simple, consequential amendment to the Patent Act would preclude the ability of biotechnology research companies to patent human life forms.

Would the hon. member agree that it would have been a logical step to take, in conjunction with Bill C-56, to make a consequential amendment to the Patent Act to clearly and simply bar forever the idea of patenting life forms?

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when a member rises in debate, tradition has it that we start by saying what a pleasure or honour it is for us to speak on this or that bill. Between you and me, I do not know whether it is a pleasure or an honour, but I think it is a responsibility for parliamentarians to speak to a bill that has been introduced by the government.

That said, Bill C-56 is not much of a government vision and strategy concerning reproductive procedures. It is a bill that has been more than a decade in coming. The minister feels it must be accepted and approved promptly. We want to ensure that it does not drag on, and that here in the House of Commons and in the other place as well, it can be voted on quickly and passed. “It is urgent”, she tells us. If that is the case, what did the government do when there was consensus in the past, on banning human cloning for instance? A bill was introduced in this place, sponsored by the hon. member for Drummond. But there was no rush then.

There was a royal commission report back in 1993. Then the first bill was introduced, but abandoned when the 1997 election was called. It must not have been so pressing then. So why is it so pressing now for the minister?

Yes, this is an important bill, and parliament will consider it and vote on it. When a bill such as Bill C-56 is being dealt with, however, there must be an acknowledgment that matters of ethics and morality are involved. Religious issues are either related or become related. This is why we in the Progressive Conservative Party feel this is a good example of a bill that needs to be subject to a free vote in the House. What is going to happen on the government side? We shall see as the bill moves through the various stages in the House of Commons. We are not, however, going to have a fast acceptance of this bill shoved down our throats just because the minister herself is going around boasting about having solved the problem.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions. Several aspects of the bill are incomplete. A number of colleagues have raised some today. I will, of course, be raising similar ones, or new ones.

The minister should also watch her language. We want to maintain a level of decorum in our debates in this place, because some issues are linked to what we believe in. We should not be told to act quickly and allow this or that because embryos are being thrown away in the garbage. The minister should raise the level of her argumentation.

Having said that, I think Bill C-56 can be divided into two or three parts.

The first part deals with what is prohibited. We are obviously talking about human cloning, and everyone agrees that this issue needs to be addressed. Parliament should have passed legislation on human cloning a long time ago. In fact, as I said earlier, it had the opportunity to do so with the bill introduced by the hon. member for Drummond. But the government said “No. We get to decide which bills must be passed. We are the ones who set the legislative agenda”.

So, the government rejected that bill and said “We will be introducing our own bill. We are in a rush. Canada is practically the only country in the world that has yet to pass legislation on cloning. Time is of the essence”. They had almost ten years to make their move, but now they are in a rush. It may have something to do with the fact that, with Her Majesty coming to Canada in the fall, the House could prorogued. They told us “No, this has to be passed now. It is important”.

They are the ones who decide the legislative agenda, when a session begins and ends. It is not us. In any case, the government is rather used to introducing motions to adjourn. It will use its same old tricks to get its bill through. However, this bill must be considered in committee, because there are all kinds of elements missing.

First, as regards the report that the committee submitted to the minister, the recommendations, as my colleague from the NDP was saying, were made to ensure that the board of the new independent agency was made up of 50% women. That appears simple enough to me.

The government or the minister will tell us, “Yes, we will consider this in the regulations governing the agency”. It is not parliament that will establish the agency's regulations, but the government and the Minister of Health. Parliament and the committee will have no say in it.

Since we all agree on the first part of the bill, banning human cloning and the creation of hybrids, why is this not in a separate bill? Let us vote on that bill.

The second part of the bill deals with assisted reproduction procedures. It refers to donors, men and women. I think that everyone agrees that we need a legislative framework on reproductive procedures. Governments must provide more support for women in particular, but men too, in order to provide them with the best reproductive procedures to build a family, to have children. I think that everyone agrees on this.

There is one element that I am very happy to see included in the bill, and we were the only ones to support it so strongly: the issue of donor identity. My colleagues wanted the identity of the donor to be known by the parents, or the woman who received the sperm or ovum. We said no. The medical record, yes; but the identity of the donor, no, unless there is consent.

The bill provides for a complete medical record but allows for the donor to remain anonymous, which is very important to us. It is important because, since we do not know what will be in the regulations, could parents, women especially, choose the sperm donor? Could it be because they would like to know ahead of time who the donor will be? We do not know. Will a woman be able to choose the kind of donor she wants? This is the first point.

Second, between you and I, we are a small country and, as I understand the bill, neither ovum nor sperm can be imported or exported. If someone who donated sperm gets married and has children later on, will his spouse be willing to accept it? Will his children be willing to accept they have a brother or a sister biologically related to him and to his family? There are psychological consequences that must be taken into consideration. We are happy that donors' identity will remain confidential, but not their medical record.

We agree with what is being prohibited. Again, one must pay attention. Some activities are prohibited and others are controlled. Let us take for instance surrogate mothers. I am convinced everybody agreed that we should not entice women to become surrogate mothers; this is why payment for surrogacy is prohibited. However, at the same time, the bill says that the agency could grant certain sums of money as compensation.

What is going on? Is the practice prohibited or not? They are saying “We know it is happening, we are not prohibiting it. We do not want to encourage such a practice, but at the same time we are willing to have the government pay for some of the expenses”. They are sitting on the fence. When the time comes for members to vote, they will have to ask themselves whether the bill goes far enough in prohibiting surrogacy. Some people would like the practice to be authorized in this country and even to have surrogate mothers receive psychological support and fairly generous financial compensation.

The committee heard that surrogate mothers do what they do primarily out of love and generosity and not for financial gain. An act of love, as we understand it, cannot be formalized in a bill.

I mentioned the famous agency. Everyone is delighted to have an independent agency, far from the political hands of the minister and the government. But there is a little problem with this.

Even if the legislation is reviewed every three years, even if there is a report once a year, the fact remains that how the agency operates is left entirely up to the minister, to the department or to the governor in council, take your pick.

Parliament is left right out of the loop. We are saying that before the regulations are approved and introduced, they should be submitted to a committee of this parliament for analysis and approval. That is what we are requesting. We will naturally be putting forward an amendment to this effect.

We know that a bill represents the will of the lawmakers, but before that comes the structure or the skeleton. What brings the skeleton to life—the soul, if you like—and determines the course it will take, are the regulations. Often, a bill will consist of just a few clauses, and the regulations will go on for pages.

The position one could take concerning Bill C-56 is so personal that we hope that members will have a chance to examine the regulations in their entirety.

I would also like to look at the question of research in connection with embryonic stem cells. It is clear that the legislation does not address other stem cells. Neither adult stem cells nor stem cells from aborted fetuses are mentioned in the legislation. This is left up to the institutes. We know that research is already being done on stem cells.

But the government does not address the issue of adult stem cells and stem cells from fetuses aborted spontaneously or otherwise. We can understand this. Think of the ethical considerations alone. It does not want to hold a debate on abortion, on when life begins. But like it or not, this is an issue which must be raised in connection with embryos.

The committee's recommendation was as follows, “Why would Canada not become a world leader in adult stem cell research. Embryonic stem cells could be used if it is proved beyond all doubt to the agency and to parliament that there are no other options”.

Unfortunately, this is not what appears in the bill. Will it be in the regulations? Only the minister knows.

I have discussed embryonic stem cells research with my colleagues. I have come to the conclusion that if, for a member of parliament, life begins with an embryo, he or she will face difficult ethical, moral and religious issues and questions. The answers are also likely to be difficult to find. So, what do we do with the bill?

Even though we are asking for a free vote, we do agree on a number of aspects. As regards stem cells and embryos, perhaps the government should allow a free vote on the bill. How are we going to count those who are in favour and those who are opposed? Is the bill not at risk of being rejected if the government allows a free vote?

Mr. Speaker, I know that we are not allowed to gamble—it is prohibited under the criminal code—but I would bet anything that if a free vote were held in the House regarding Bill C-56, the bill could well be rejected.

It would be rejected for ethical, moral and other reasons regarding stem cells. This would be unfortunate, because there are provisions in this bill that are essential for the women of this land.

This bill includes essential provisions that meet a need, that fill a regulatory and scientific vacuum. I understand the government. It took close to 10 years to get a bill. We fear that it would be rejected under a free vote. We know how divided government members are on this issue. When the minister introduced her bill, both government and opposition members immediately said that they would oppose the legislation in its current form.

We are saying that we will make the necessary changes in committee. We hope—but we have doubts—that the government will look at all the amendments moved by opposition parties to ensure we end up with a legislative framework that reflects as accurately as possible the consensus that exists in the committee. We also hope to find the same consensus here in the House and, of course, in the other place, once the bill has been passed by this House.

If the minister stubbornly refuses to make legislative changes, it will be interesting to see how members from both sides of the House will vote. A bill as important as Bill C-56 should unite people rather than divide them.

We agree that there is a legal void. We agree that the scientific framework needs to be more clearly defined, but the government must work with elected representatives and must accept amendments.

We understand why the government would refuse certain amendments. Should a series of amendments moved by the opposition be accepted, the bill would no longer be that of the minister or that of the government, it would be that of the House of Commons. Unfortunately, that would go against the kind of partisan politics practised by this government and its way of doing things; it would be too democratic. It is very unfortunate that we should find ourselves in this situation.

Finally, we will take the time to analyze this bill. However, we recognize that there is a sense of urgency with regard to providing a framework and supporting women who deal with fertility clinics.

I have experienced this over the last year with my in-laws. I am mentioning this without their consent. I will not give their names, obviously, but my brother-in-law and his wife went through very difficult times. They invested a lot of money to try to have a child. Unfortunately, they tried twice and failed both times.

There must be some form of psychological follow-up. This issue was raised in the committee report. Of course, this is more of a provincial jurisdiction. In committee, the issue of financial assistance for the parents was raised. It is extremely costly. It is not rare to see couples take out a second mortgage on their home to get an opportunity to have a child. But, again, this is a provincial jurisdiction.

These issues will have to be examined in a manner that is respectful of jurisdictions. I hope that the agency that will have this responsibility will work with the provincial partners that have the mandate of providing the service. I also hope that arrangements can be made to provide financial and psychological assistance to those who need it.

I hope that all members will be able to vote freely on this issue and that all parties on both side of the House will have the opportunity to take part in this most important debate. Between you and me, this debate really deals with life.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a very important issue that our committee dealt with, but is not really reflected in the bill before us today.

We heard from many advocates for persons with disabilities at the health committee who raised concerns that genetic testing for the purpose of eliminating disabilities was a form of eugenic cleansing that would effectively lead to the biomedical elimination of diversity. Of course there are further concerns that these questions are being decided, and this goes back to the earlier question, by private corporations beyond public control.

Bill C-56 only makes passing reference to diversity in its principles. There is no mention at all in the bill of disability. There is no mention at all of a clearly defined prohibition around eugenics cleansing. There is no plan laid out in terms of dealing with the broad issue of genetic testing. Without regulation we have serious problems on our hands.

We have already seen prenatal testing taking place without full knowledge of what is or is not treatable. We have routine screening of newborns without parental consent, no prohibition of home genetics tests, demands by employers for genetic testing and life insurance companies demanding genetic test results as a result of customer screening. Even more interesting is the fact that since 1993, 30 gene therapy experiments have been approved without any policy framework or national genetic strategy. Without regulation there are serious safety concerns for persons engaged as subjects in genetic experimentation.

Let me raise one more issue which has to do with a case that we heard about recently in the news. Just two weeks ago an American company paid $2.2 million to settle charges brought by the United States equal employment opportunity commission for illegally testing its employees DNA for a genetic predisposition to a debilitating physical condition. In Canada we have not taken care to provide such protection. Bill C-56 offers no direction in this regard.

We know this is not an easy issue with which to deal. We know it requires consultation with provincial and territorial governments. However, when we are dealing with long awaited legislation with such an explosion of developments in this field, this matter should be addressed by parliament. It should be referenced in the bill before us today and should be part of a plan of action for the future.

We must ensure that persons with disabilities and their organizations are fully part of the discussions in this area. We must ensure that the diversity of our population, and that means people living with disabilities is respected and reflected in any legislation dealing with genetics and dealing with assisted human reproduction.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre for a very enlightening speech. I should recognize the fact that the hon. member has been an outspoken champion on women's issues for many years.

I made note of two things the member pointed out in her speech, which were shocking to me. First, the women members on the standing committee are still having to fight the age old argument for gender parity. Bill C-56 is without doubt, first and foremost, a women's health issue. Yet in this day and age women like the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre have to stand up and make the argument for gender parity on the board. Could she comment on that?

Second, I would like the member's further remarks on what was most shocking to me and that is Bill C-56 seems to be geared to favour the biotechnology industry. It raises this bizarre spectacle or spectre of patenting and commercialization of life forms, even human life forms. That is absolutely shocking.

The hon. member pointed out that with one simple consequential amendment to the Patent Act we could have precluded the idea that anyone could put a patent on human life forms and market and commercialize them. Could the she expand on what consequential amendments might have been made to the Patent Act, if the government were serious about precluding what we view as an absolute horror?

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a mixture of relief and apprehension that I stand today to join the debate on Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction. As others have mentioned, this is truly a day that many of us have been waiting for since the royal commission on assisted human reproductive technology, in a 1993 report, recommended urgent federal government action to regulate this burgeoning new area. It is a day we have been awaiting since the government let its first effort, Bill C-47, die on the order paper with its 1997 election call, and here we are today, five years after parliament saw that piece of government legislation on this area that is of vital concern to women, to families and to many people in our society who are dependent on the discoveries and developments occurring daily in this area.

We listened very carefully to the health minister's speech as she introduced the bill and it is certainly clear that she has been more than generous in her self-congratulatory words in introducing the bill. New Democrats, who for years have been calling on the government to introduce legislation to give women access to safe, non-commercial reproductive health services, should be forgiven if we are reluctant to join in what is at best a celebration of Liberal indifference or at worst the latest chapter in the government's history of neglect. After all, we are far from having an act in place. Indeed, Canada is the last major industrialized country in the world without legislation in this area.

Reproductive technology is not a static field of science, far from it. While the government has been inactive on this legislative file for all these years, the nature or the bio-nature of reproductive technology has been changing rapidly. Let us go through some of those developments. Dolly the sheep and animal cloning are not new news. An Italian doctor claims to be well on the way to producing a cloned human being. The term “designer babies” is now in common usage as parents begin selecting the biological traits of their children. Internet sites compete in the trade of celebrity reproductive materials while countless others profit from those Canadians who are more than willing to buy access to any healthy eggs or sperm that might assist in their drive to have children. Gender selection has become topical, with all sorts of new rationales being put forward in its defence.

As well, we have witnessed the development of human stem cell research. Eugenics has assumed increased acceptability as scientific capabilities have expanded even though we have had no public debate. So too the patenting of higher life forms, including human genetic material, has become part of our daily lives without public discussion or input. The list goes on.

One can see why we are relieved that finally, as New Democrats have been urging for years, the government has deigned to bring this piece of legislation before parliament. Our initial relief, though, was rather short-lived as we became familiar with the bill's contents or lack of contents. I now want to focus on some of our apprehensions, and they are considerable.

I begin by registering our disappointment that the government has chosen in several instances to override the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Health set out in its “Building Families” report of last December.

It was a rare moment in the life of this parliament, moments which are few and far between. Committee members from all political parties took the government's request to review its draft proposal on assisted reproductive technologies very seriously. We devoted months of committee time to studying submissions and hearing witnesses from the full spectrum of views on this whole area, and a very controversial topic it is.

Instead of shying away from contentious areas we debated them and in many cases reached sustainable positions that we offered in our report. We presented the government with 36 recommendations in the main report as well as additional recommendations in the NDP's minority report.

In what is quickly becoming the norm for the government, it has chosen yet again in Bill C-56 to override several of the committee's recommendations with no consultation or explanation to the committee. We have seen over and over again parliamentary committees that run the danger of becoming mere window dressings for the government's legislative agenda instead of the dynamic honing tools to enhance legislation as it proceeds through parliament. Many of us in the House feel that this results in legislation that is less reflective of the will of Canadians and which will be less effective in the long run as a result.

I also have serious concerns with the government's decision to offload many policy issues, some of them very contentious, like stem cell research, to the regulations or to the soon to be created assisted human reproductive agency.

Canadians elected us to the House to deal with tough issues. They elected us to be accountable for how we deal with them, not to pass them on to an unelected, unaccountable organization or group of officials to determine. That is a concern and we will continue to raise our opposition to the off loading of responsibility in fundamental areas of policy that should be decided by this place, by members of parliament elected to do just that.

I will turn now to the substance of the legislation we have before us. The primary consideration for all of us in dealing with the bill or dealing with any legislation governing reproduction must surely be the health and well-being of women. That is a matter which should be self-evident yet it is a matter that has to be said.

After the bill was introduced I was in a debate with members of the other parties. The health critic for the Alliance Party actually said that the bill was not a woman's issue. The last time I checked, women were responsible for reproduction in our society today. Women are often the guinea pigs for experiments in terms of ways to deal with reproductive problems. It is women who in fact are on the front lines in terms of developments in this area.

Let us be clear, this is a woman's issue and the bill must at least address the fundamental issues of protecting and ensuring the health and well-being of women. Of course we are talking about families and their need to deal with new technologies in the desire to have children, but let us make sure we do not miss the fundamental issue of women's health and well-being which is so central to the bill and so much a part of the history of the bill.

The federal government should ensure that reproductive technologies are proven to be safe before being permitted, that the risks and benefits of any treatment for women are disclosed fully and that the funds needed to achieve these objectives are made available. The bill we are debating should be the means for accomplishing these ends but it is not.

The most effective way of dealing with the legislation is to ensure that the precautionary principle is entrenched in any bill dealing with assisted reproductive technology. That is why in our minority report New Democrats recommended that the precautionary principle be explicitly set out in legislation as a prerequisite for the approval of all standards and procedures. In its final report, the health committee agreed that a precautionary approach was needed.

Instead of finding the precautionary principle among the governing provisions of the bill, it is nowhere to be found. The precautionary principle, which is really putting safety first, can put a damper on the unfettered pursuit of profitable new products and procedures. The choice not to include the precautionary principle reflects the government's affection for the biotech industry, an industry that has benefited tremendously from being able to establish itself in assisted reproductive technology unencumbered by regulation during these many years without an act.

Bill C-56 is also missing a strong mandate to ensure that the most up to date safety information is available to women through counselling. Back in 1990, the New Democrat women's critic, Dawn Black, called for the inclusion of counselling as part of every reproductive technology program. It was her number one recommendation to the Baird commission.

It was said then and is still said today that the quality of the counselling and information must be high and it must be mandated to be readily available. Women also need information on infertility prevention to help them avoid the intrusive and painful procedures that may be part of an infertility treatment.

In response to the draft bill, the NDP minority report recommended that prevention be a central aspect of any reproductive technology policy and a key part of any new regulatory authority.

However Bill C-56 is soft on prevention. The government has failed to provide the type of proactive prevention mandate that is necessary to make real inroads into reducing the factors that lead to infertility.

One way the government could have addressed this important area and ensured that women's concerns remained a high priority, at least with respect to the make-up of the new agency to be called the assisted human reproductive agency, would have been to require gender parity. To give credit to the health committee that was recognized.

It was assumed that because we were dealing with women's health and with reproduction, with a bill that would have a significant impact on women, that the agency would be made up of at least 50% women. Does that appear anywhere in the draft bill or did we hear any of that in the commentary made by the minister? No. A fundamental issue, which would have made a significant difference for outcomes when the bill is finally implemented and up and running, is missing.

That is not something new to us on this side of the House. We have tried many times to get the government to understand the basic notion of gender parity on all boards and commissions. We thought there was a case to be made when the government established the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Since we are dealing with a new research body that would set the stage for innovative research for years to come one would think it would at least have gender parity. We know that women's health concerns and their interests in research and development are critical and important. The government refused to address that fundamental issue at that time.

We felt that when it came to reproductive technology it would be a given that women would be involved. How could the government not do that? Once again not only has the government decided to ignore this fundamental recommendation but it has backed off its own stated principles and policies around achieving gender parity and ensuring a gender based analysis of all government bills and programs.

The government has chosen to let the chips fall where they may instead of clearly supporting women whose health rides on the agency as the enforcer of the act.

By the same token, the bill does not require the agency to establish any formal mechanism for direct input from experts in the field, from the centres of excellence for women's health or even its own women's health bureau within Health Canada, both of which could contribute substantially to the agency's worth in the interests of women through the work they perform.

While I am on the bill's shortcomings in relation to the agency's board, let me add that there is no protection against conflict of interest to prevent the agency being unduly influenced by the biotechnology industry or private clinics. This is an important omission that we believe must be addressed.

Another issue that is very important to many of us in the House is the bill's unacceptable weakness in terms of focusing on the commercialization potential and developments in this whole area of assisted reproductive technologies. Nowhere is it more apparent than when it comes to addressing the fundamental issue of patenting of life forms, a topic of great concern today as the supreme court begins its deliberations on the patenting of the Harvard mouse.

We had thought, given the words from the government around stopping the commercialization in this area, that it would at least act in terms of stating its objective to prohibit the patenting of human genetic material. That was part of the health committee's report. It was a consensus position. The health minister did not say a word about that when she introduced Bill C-56. She made no mention of the government's intentions to move quickly and forcefully with respect to patent protection. It is very important because knowledge of the genetic building blocks of life forms part of our common human legacy and the public good. It cannot be forfeited to the private reserve of giant life science and drug corporations.

We have called on the government to amend the Patent Act to prohibit human patenting. As I said, so has the health committee. However the government chose to ignore the consensus and instead has put its emphasis on corporate property rights before our access to health care. It could have stipulated a consequent amendment to the Patent Act had it so desired but it chose not to do so.

The implications of the patenting of life forms for our health care system are already becoming apparent. Women's access to a genetically developed test for breast cancer has been impeded by the patent process. Now the same company is applying for a patent on a prostate cancer gene.

A line is already forming at the patent office to slap patents on the beginnings of the stem cell research that holds such promise for Canadians suffering from debilitating diseases. Instead of bending over backward to respond to the wishes of the biotechnology industry, New Democrats believe that the federal government should be playing a leading role internationally to advocate keeping trade agreements from overriding the health interests of Canadians.

We believe all Canadians should benefit equally from improvements in this area. All Canadians should benefit equally from improvements to infertility treatment. This is far from the case now where public coverage of infertility conditions is practically non-existent and private insurance often excludes fertility drugs or imposes severe limits on reimbursement.

We have called on the federal government to work in conjunction with the provincial l and territorial governments to bring reproductive technology within the public non-profit sector. We have offered the model of the Manitoba provincial government that recently and successfully reclaimed a for profit clinic to the public health care system and gives a perfect example to the government about how it can act in the best interests of Canadians according to Canadians' deep desire for a non-profit system to ensure that basic health services are not up for grabs in the marketplace.

There are many more issues of concern that I wanted to raise and I will have a chance to pursue those points in further debates and in questions that follow.

For example, we have to look at the whole issue of genetic testing and the absence in the bill of any reference to people with disabilities. With the potential for eugenics cleansing, we are creating enormous problems for our society today. We are putting a cloud over those who live daily with disabilities. Because of developments in this field and the lack of action from the federal government, they now feel their lives are worth less. Our society is not enriched as we all assume it to be.

We have before us a bill that has serious gaps in women's health protection. It fails to effectively take on the commercial side of assisted reproductive technologies. It has ignored basic issues such as genetic testing and has overridden health committee recommendations in several areas.

The government has come to us after all this time asking for approval for a very important bill. However it misses several significant policy proposals and has relegated regulations to an agency yet to be defined.

We are left in the frustrating position of being--

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak on Bill C-56. I am very much aware that the debate on Bill C-56 occupies a very special place among all the debates we shall have in this House. It is a bill unlike any other. This bill invites us to reflect on the human condition, on the definition of life. As well, of course, there is the whole matter of genetics.

We know that this bill is rather like the child of a planned pregnancy. Since at least the early 1980s, we have known how important it is to have legislative provisions to respond to these couples. We learned from the witnesses who came before us in committee that one person in eight experiences infertility problems at some point in his or her life.

Bringing Bill C-56 into the world was perhaps a painful process, but it was a wanted child. I can only hope that its sponsor will be able to meet our expectations.

Not only did we work very hard in committee, but we did so in a non-partisan manner as well. I believe the parliamentary secretary will agree with me that all members of the committee have given the best of themselves to it. We wanted to provide parliament with a significant report, a consensual one, a report that would enable the government to set out a certain number of principles.

Let us start at the beginning. Why must the issue of new reproductive technologies be addressed? We should perhaps explain to those who are listening to us that this bill consists of four separate elements.

First of all, there is a preamble, in which six main principles are defined. I shall be coming back to these. Then there are a number of prohibited activities: cloning, ectogenesis, payment for surrogacy, sex selection, in short a number of prohibited activities, which I shall also go into in greater detail. There is also the matter of the agency, the governmental structure that will issue licences and enforce the regulations. Finally, there is the matter of inspection.

Let us begin at the beginning. This bill is about a situation unprecedented in the history of humankind. For the first time ever, it will be possible to procreate without having sexual relations. With the new reproductive technologies, the conventional scenario whereby a man and a woman must have sexual relations in order to have children has changed.

Not only will there be a divorce and a disconnect between sexuality and procreation, but it will also be possible for a child to be the product of two parents who do not know each other and who have never met. From the point of view of ontology and the human condition, these are important facts in understanding why we want the new reproductive technologies sector to be legislated and what kind of legislation we want.

It is also important to bear in mind—and I will come back to this—that we recommended in committee that it not be possible, or that it not be authorized, to donate sperm or an ovum, that it not be possible to donate gametes without agreeing to reveal one's identity. I am sorry that the government did not go for this recommendation. I will come back to this.

We are facing a very important new reality: one person in eight has infertility problems. The bill sets out guidelines for dealing with the problem of infertility.

The problem of infertility can be solved by adopting—this is not covered in the bill—and also by using donors and sperm banks and, of course, by using donated gametes.

The bill attempts to uphold a certain number of values that are fairly essential and around which there is consensus. What is interesting is that each of the prohibitions contained in the bill corresponds to a value that parliamentarians will find easy to defend.

Allow me to provide some examples. Cloning for reproductive purposes is prohibited. Why has the debate over cloning received so much attention and why has it had such an impact on Canadian society? This is due to the fact that, obviously, we may have the technological means and we know how to clone.

We have the conviction that every human being is unique. Each human being, based on his or her values, weaknesses, strengths, unique traits, has a special place in the human community. We would not accept having two people who are exactly the same in every way and having science used to give two people the exact same genetic makeup. This is not acceptable based on the philosophy, based on the human ideal that every person is unique. Therefore, human cloning is officially prohibited.

Of course, there may be certain situations where we might think that cloning for therapeutic purposes should be permissible. For example, cloning an arm or organ tissue of a healthy person. However, the bill prohibits all forms of cloning and we believe that this is best for now.

There are other activities that are prohibited, those carried out for eugenics in an attempt to create an ideal human. In fact, altering the germinal cells in order to produce made to order babies is prohibited. With modern technology, it is now possible, at a certain stage in development, to create children with blue eyes, or girls with a particular hair colour. It is also possible to choose genetic characteristics so that, at birth, we would know not only whether or not the child is a boy or a girl, but we could also determine the major genetic characteristics of the unborn child.

Some people were in favour of this, thinking that it would also enable us to eliminate certain genes that are more lethal and that could carry degenerative diseases. The government chose not to go this way and said “No, it will not be possible to tinker with germ cells. It will not be possible to have made to order children. It will not be possible to determine the broad genetic traits of unborn children, always in the name of the principle of the equality of individuals”.

For example, it would be possible today to choose the sex of one's child. Some couples may decide to have a girl rather than a boy. Thanks to reproductive selection techniques, it would be possible today to engage in such practices. However, since the principle of the equality of individuals has been enshrined in the charters and in the various documents dealing with human rights, the bill forbids such practices, which I think is very wise.

Of course, maintaining an embryo outside the uterus for more than 14 days is also forbidden. This is an internationally recognized standard. Why more than 14 days? I see the member for Joliette, who always seems to want to know more, and I say to him that an embryo cannot be maintained outside the uterus beyond the 14th day, because that is when gestation begins and the nervous system starts to appear. It is believed that this is really the first stage of human life. So this is another prohibition on which there is a rather wide consensus.

Needless to say, it is also forbidden to create hybrids that would come from both animal and human genetic material. Hybrids of any form are forbidden, and it is not very difficult to understand why.

It is also prohibited—and I will get back to this—to provide and give gametes that will produce an embryo that would be used exclusively for research. It is important to understand this distinction.

The law maker believes that genetic material must primarily be used for procreation purposes. When a person gives sperm or an ovum, it must primarily be used to create an embryo and, ultimately, a child.

However, if a person goes to a fertility clinic and undergoes a cycle of ovarian stimulation, a number of ova may be generated through this technique. It will be possible for that person, with his or her free and enlightened consent given without any coercion, to give an ovum for research purposes. However, the basis and the premise that must be respected under all circumstances is that it is not possible to use and create an embryo exclusively for research purposes. Why? Because gametes, that is the sperm and ovum, must primarily be used to create an embryo that will eventually become a human being.

Since I alluded to research, I think it is important to make a number of distinctions regarding stem cells. The debate on stem cells is an important one, because in its first few days of existence, the embryo has some 200 of those stem cells. What is peculiar about these stem cells is that, at this point, their role has yet to be determined. These cells may become any organ, member and tissue of the human body. Because of this, they have huge potential in terms of regeneration and mobility. These stem cells are viable and they are important in the first few days of the embryo. Some researchers would like to use them to help people who are suffering from serious degenerative diseases and who may need these stem cells.

For stem cells to be used, an embryo must be destroyed. And since embryos have to be destroyed, it raises ethical issues. There has been an ongoing debate in Canada on which the Supreme Court of Canada made a ruling in 1988. The question is: At what point should an embryo be considered a human being? Is an embryo a human being? Is a fetus a human being? If one believes that an embryo is a human being from the moment of conception, then the destruction of embryos raises criminal, ethical and moral issues.

The regime set out in this bill will function by exception, meaning that the minister will issue licences. A researcher will be allowed to use stem cells only if he is issued a licence and if he can prove that no other genetic material will do. The system will function by exception.

Let me also point out that in committee, as those who have followed the work of the committee will know, witnesses representing major organizations have made very emotional pleas. We heard, for instance, from members of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, the Multiple Sclerosis Association, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the Cerebral Palsy Association. The spokespersons for these organizations told us “Without research on stem cells, medical breakthroughs that would help improve the qualify of life of the people we represent will be virtually impossible”.

So, this raises questions. While some may respect life and the right to live from the moment of conception, others are committed to improving the quality of life.

If research on stem cells may improve the lot of a child with cerebral palsy or an adult with muscular dystrophy, if it may lead to greater autonomy for people, should it be totally banned? This is the kind of debate the bill is all about.

For now, the government has chosen a system that functions by exception. Research on stem cells will be possible only by ministerial permit and once it has been proven that available genetic material, human tissues and the conditions under which research can be done do not permit the desired research to be conducted.

We were presented an argument worth keeping in mind. Representatives from the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation appeared before the committee. They told us that in the 1950s--this was not several thousand years ago, but a mere half a century ago--the government was very reluctant to authorize research on recombinant DNA. It involved moral values and genetics. There were a lot of restrictions, barriers, debates and controversy surrounding this kind of research.

We were told that if it were not for research on recombinant DNA, sophisticated techniques in the area of insulin could never have been developed, for instance. We all know how much insulin has improved the living conditions of people with diabetes.

There are pros and cons. When the time comes to vote at third reading, each one of us will have to weigh the moral arguments we believe in. For my part, I will readily say that, even though it is not for me, a simple backbencher, to decide, I will have no qualms asking the leader of my party, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, to allow a free vote. Obviously, in a bill of this kind there are moral and ethical issues involved.

It is not clear cut. Members who believe that life starts at conception have extremely pertinent, rigorous, well founded arguments to defend their point of view.

The Conference of Bishops and other witnesses came before us and asked us to respect the right to life from the time of conception. On the other hand, those who believe that we must also concern ourselves with making progress in the area of medical research have equally valid arguments.

I have an identical twin brother who has cerebral palsy. When my mother gave birth to us, in the early 1960s, the medical reality was quite different from what it is now. We were premature babies, born during the seventh month of pregnancy. My twin brother came first. My mother experienced a lack of oxygen so my brother now has cerebral palsy. This disease means that dead cells cannot be replaced. Dead neurons and cells are gone forever.

What if, in a few years, research on stem cells made it possible to revitalize tissues and change the fate of those people with cerebral palsy, would we want to preclude that altogether? Should we not keep in mind that, in science, what is prohibited today may not be in the future? I believe we should keep that in mind when we vote at third reading stage.

Back to the prohibited activities. Naturally, it is also prohibited to transplant a sperm, ovum, embryo or fetus of a non-human life form into a human being. The use of any human reproductive material for commercial purposes is also prohibited. We would certainly not want to live in a society where it would be possible to buy or sell gametes or ova as if they were mere commodities on the market. Nobody would want to live in such a society.

The committee members were also faced with an issue of a very high ethical nature, that of surrogate mothers. For the time being, the Civil Code of Québec, for example, only prohibits paying for the services of surrogate mothers.

It is illegal to pay a woman to act as a surrogate. Furthermore, the law clearly recognizes the perfect appropriateness of the role of parent, which is recognized with all its privileges and obligations, to the fact of giving birth to a child.

A child can be entrusted to somebody else's care or can be raised by someone else. Another person can take care of that child, provide for his education and take all the actions that go with parental authority. However, neither the civil code nor the common law recognize that the mother is not the person having given birth to the child. These principles are maintained in the bill.

Thus, the main restrictions provided for in the bill are based on principles which are universally acknowledged and about which there is a consensus. I congratulate the government for being on the right track. The committee has also done a very good job.

I would now like to talk about the preamble. In the bill, the preamble has an interpretative role; it does not have a coercitive value like the other clauses of the bill. However, I believe it helps to understand what the bill is about.

The draft bill contained a statement. The committee wanted the bill to contain very clear principles to guide the courts of justice in challenges and in their decisions.

These principles are about health, security and the dignity of any human being. These are inalienable rights which are acknowledged in all the major conventions. It is also about health and the concern for the well-being of children. As a matter of fact, the well-being of children was central in all the work we did in committee. To us, this was a fundamental concern.

The bill also states that women more than men are affected by assisted human reproduction technologies. Of course, this does not mean that the debate has nothing to do with men, but we understand that it affects women more than men.

Furthermore, we wanted free and informed consent for all decisions regarding donation of gametes, giving birth to children and using assisted human reproduction technologies.

In its report, the committee went further than what is included in the bill. It believed that medically assisted reproduction technologies should not be used without counselling being made available. We recommended mandatory counselling.

The government chose to ignore this recommendation for fear of constitutional problems. A legislative solution was difficult to find because counselling is under provincial jurisdiction. I can understand that the government would fear a court challenge under the charter of rights and freedoms, a challenge it stood to lose.

As for the fifth principle, understandably, all forms of trade in gametes are deemed deeply repugnant to human beings, just as all forms of female exploitation are.

The last principle we wanted to include in the preamble was the preservation and protection of human individuality and diversity. This covers the preamble and the main prohibitions.

I will now deal with another extremely important part of the bill, the whole issue of regulations. I was on the Standing Committee on Health when it considered the issue of tobacco labelling. The federal government set out on a campaign to curb tobacco use, which was a wise decision.

There are fewer and fewer smokers in Canada, but some very specific groups are smoking more. For instance, girls smoke more than men.

The hon. member for Chambly, a man who is not lacking in will power, and who does not have many faults, has one small one: he is a smoker. The combined pressure of all his caucus colleagues might reduce his smoking somewhat, but this is a matter of individual freedom, so the member for Chambly will carry on as before. He will quit when he is ready to. I believe, however, that he would be in far better shape if he quit his three pack a day habit. There is, however, no way we are going to pressure him. The hon. member for Chambly is going to carry on as he wishes, but the will power he has always expressed leads me to be extremely optimistic for the future outcome.

The connection I wanted to make with the tobacco labelling issue is that there was mandatory tabling in the House for the regulations on this. For certain bills, regulations are more important that the legislation itself. This is true. Why are the regulations important where assisted human reproduction is concerned? Because this is what will set out the conditions under which gametes are to be stored, how things will be managed in practical terms, the operational reality of fertility clinics. All this will be governed by the regulations, as well the entire matter of handling donated material.

In this connection, I would like to point one thing out to the minister and the departmental staff listening to us, who took the bus with me this morning. We had a quick and very friendly discussion. My reading of clause 65 of the bill was that there was no firm obligation for the government to bring the regulations before the House first, and then refer them to the Standing Committee on Health so that there could be an informed examination, with a report to the House, in order for the regulations to be processed with all desired transparency.

Let us look at sub clause 65.(1):

(1) The Governor in Council may make regulations for carrying into effect the purposes and provisions of this Act and, in particular, may make regulations

(a) defining “donor”, in relation to an in vitro embryo;

The member for Chambly will correct me if I am wrong, but when a bill says “the governor in council may”, it does not have the same coercive value as “the governor in council shall”. I would have liked subsection 65. (1) to contain an unequivocal requirement in the form of the word shall. The Bloc Quebecois will also be putting forward an amendment in committee to this effect.

I am sure that all members of the House will join with me in thanking the member for Drummond. She was very clear-sighted. In 1997, she introduced a private member's bill in an attempt to use the means at her disposal as an MP to cover this legal void. This was quite something.

Let us look at the history. After hearing from 40,000 witnesses, the Baird commission tabled a report, in 1993, if I am not mistaken. The government took nearly ten years to act upon it. The Baird commission began its work in 1989. The report was tabled in 1993. The commission's work cost $28 million.

I will take 30 seconds to remind the House of this saga. The Baird commission included a group of dissidents. I would mention that one of the top experts on this subject is the wife of the Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. Back then, there was a genuine desire to make sure that the privy council would let the Baird commission do its work without political interference. An application was even made to the federal court to ensure that the Baird commission would be granted all the independence due such a commission of inquiry.

The Baird commission cost $28 million. It heard 40,000 witnesses. The report was tabled in 1993 and it took close to a decade—since we are now in 2002—for the government to take action.

The hon. member for Drummond put pressure on the government. She asked questions every day, because there was a danger. That danger was the following: if a public or private laboratory in Canada had engaged in cloning or other practices prohibited under the bill, how could we have upheld the fundamental principles that we have been talking about since 10 o'clock this morning, considering that there was no legislation?

Again, I am sure that all hon. members will want to join me in thanking the member for Drummond, who has been a pioneer in this regard, who took initiatives and who followed this issue very closely.

I have a minor disappointment with the bill. Overall, it is well drafted and our committee worked well and benefited greatly from the expertise provided by witnesses. However, the government erred in one aspect.

Indeed, in our report entitled “Assisted Human Reproduction: Building Families”, we made a recommendation—I believe it is recommendation No. 19, if I am not mistaken—to the effect that it should not be possible to give gametes, that is ova or sperm, without accepting the fact that the offspring may want to establish a link with the donor and get to know his or her biological parent.

The committee heard from many witnesses who were born following the use of technologies such as the one that we are discussing this morning. These people gave us their views on identity, psychogenesis and all the things that allow a person to become a well-adjusted human being, a productive citizen involved in the community in which he or she grew up. These people urged us to ensure that this would not be optional.

Right now, a donor can say that he or she will later give his or her authorization to be traced. However, this is not compulsory. What is compulsory is that a register be maintained so that, as regards medical history—for example if a donor offspring needs to know the donor's blood type—it will be possible to obtain this type of information.

I would have liked to see this be made mandatory and the bill specify that if one consents to be a sperm or an ova donor, one has to accept that the child that will be born from that process will be authorized to openly trace the donor and could one day contact the donor.

I understand that two main concerns prevented the government from yielding to this argument. The government was afraid that if disclosure was made mandatory, the number of donations would fall.

I do not think that this argument is justified. In countries where disclosure was made mandatory, there was indeed a reduction in the number of donations in the first months or the first year, but after a while, thanks to a good publicity campaign, the situation returned to normal.

As for the agency that is being created by the bill, the minister and the agency share the responsibility to promote these technologies and increase public awareness. The government could have shown a little more courage and have implemented the committee's first recommendation.

The first argument was that by making disclosure mandatory, the number of donations would fall dramatically, and the government was concerned about this.

The second argument was that this was not necessarily a good thing for the family. However, if the donors remain anonymous, does this not contribute to stigmatizing infertility?

Is it good for us, as a society, to maintain this culture of secrecy linked with anonymity? Are people who are infertile not subject to prejudice? By surrounding the whole process of gamete donation with secrecy, with a sort of occultism, is the government not helping to maintain the culture of secrecy that surrounds sterility, which is not good? Sterility should be treated as a condition that has nothing to do with people's will. It should not be subject to any taboos. It should not be dealt with by exclusion. A sterile woman should not feel any less a woman, nor should a sterile man feel any less a man. A culture of secrecy does not help us achieve this goal.

Another concern we have is the creation of the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada. We are happy that this agency will be separate from the Department of Health. The committee believed it was important, even though the minister was required to table an annual report and be ultimately responsible for the enforcement of the act, to make the agency distinct from Health Canada. The government followed our recommendation.

However, we are concerned about the fact that the agency will be comprised of 13 individuals. There will be a representative of the federal government, yet in our report we recommended there be no representative of the federal government. If my interpretation of the bill is right, the provinces will also have a representative. As far as we are concerned, this is insufficient.

In her speech, the minister noted that Canadians wanted legislation on medically assisted human reproduction. This is no doubt true, but we have to realize that the whole issue of fertility clinics, and the medical procedures involved in reproductive technologies, on both ends of the process, come under provincial jurisdiction. The federal government has invaded the area of reproductive technologies through the criminal code. Because there are criminal offences involved, the federal government is avoiding any constitutional challenges to its jurisdiction when it comes to medically assisted reproductive technologies.

We will certainly move amendments to ensure that the provinces are more adequately represented. We will also propose amendments to ensure that the provinces are involved in the drafting as well as in the implementation of the regulations. We know that the only way to meet that objective is for the regulations to be tabled in the House of Commons and then referred to a parliamentary committee, as is the case of the Tobacco Act.

Since I am running out of time, I will use these last minutes to summarize. What we have here is a good bill. The Bloc Quebecois will support its speedy adoption. We think that it is important to fill the legal void that exists. We will move three amendments, including one concerning the regulations and one concerning mandatory disclosure of sperm donations. I will add that we may move another amendment. In the preamble, we will ensure that access to technologies related to assisted human reproduction is not subject to any form of discrimination, whether it is based on sexual orientation or on marital status.

We have been told that it is very difficult for single women to have access to these technologies. We think that, under both the Canadian and the Quebec charter, there should be no discrimination in this regard.

That concludes what I wanted to say about this bill on behalf of my party.

[Rob Merrifield, Canadian Alliance, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise and speak to this important legislation. Bill C-56 touches on matters of life and death and on the desires of parents to conceive children and to build families. It offers hope to thousands of Canadians who are looking for cures to diseases which they suffer each day.

The subjects addressed in the bill are ethically complex and highly controversial. I do not claim to have all the answers but the decisions we make today will have a profound effect on thousands of Canadians for generations to come.

The bill has the potential for great good but can also do enormous harm. While we do not have all the answers, we are still called upon to choose, but on what basis do we choose?

I want to state my belief that every Canadian, young and old, has been endowed with an intrinsic value by their creator. Human life is special and I am in favour of protecting and preserving human life at all stages, from conception to natural death.

Scientists largely agree with the technical moment of when life begins. All indications are that life begins at conception. For example, our personal DNA structures will remain unchanged from conception to death. There is no logical stopping point after conception where we can say that life begins.

There is overwhelming agreement on this question. The main disagreement in the bill will not lie between those who believe that embryos are human life and those who do not. Disagreement will come between those who believe that every embryo must be protected and those who believe that the medical benefits and scientific research outweigh its value. Our natural tendency will be to accuse one side of ignoring human suffering and the other side of devaluing human life.

However I am convinced that both groups have good intentions. I will not question people's motives in this debate. I appreciate the desire to protect life and to alleviate human suffering. I simply believe that there is a way to accomplish both. We can protect life and cure disease by investing in the proven and growing promises of adult stem cells.

For that reason, the official opposition is calling for a three year prohibition on embryonic stem cell research to postpone the question while we allow research on adult stem cells to mature to its full potential.

While I regret that the government has chosen to follow the uncharted path of embryonic stem cell research, a path that leads in a direction other than that of human health, I also am hopeful that the government, the research community and the minister will be sensitive to the legitimate concerns of members on both sides of the House.

I would remind the House that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Genome Canada have already instituted a one year moratorium on funding of research on human embryos. A prohibition extended for another two years would dovetail nicely with the three year review already mandated in the bill.

Given the great moral sensitivity of the decision, I believe the government ought to allow the conscience of every individual member of parliament to be freely heard. This means that there should be a free vote on every stage of the bill.

As members know, the bill is a child of the royal commission on new reproductive technologies which reported back in 1993. It has been a long gestation, taking nine years instead of nine months. The draft legislation was submitted to the health committee just over a year ago and the committee presented its recommendations last December.

We are pleased that the government has finally tabled legislation. We want the bill to pass with appropriate amendments as quickly as possible. It must not die on the order paper. I call for a commitment from the minister and the government to pass the legislation prior to any prorogation of the House.

The opposition supports aspects of the bill. We support an agency to regulate the sector. We support the bill's prohibitions: the banning of human and therapeutic cloning; chimeras; animal-human hybrids; sex selection; germ-line alterations; buying and selling of human embryos and commercial surrogacy. We are also pleased that the government has used the strength of the criminal code to ensure that these are respected.

I wish to speak briefly about one of the most important prohibitions, human cloning. I do not need to convince any of my colleagues that human reproductive cloning represents a profound disregard for human dignity and individuality.

In all the months of committee hearings, involving over 100 witnesses, I cannot recall a single witness that spoke in favour of human reproductive cloning. Yet science fiction is quickly becoming science fact. Last summer a number of groups held press conferences declaring their intentions to clone humans. One group has a strong Canadian link. If it is experimenting in Canada today currently no law could stop it.

When speaking last May at the World Health Organization assembly in Geneva, the former minister of health declared Canada's support for the resolution condemning reproductive cloning. He called for an international convention to prevent human cloning.

We wholeheartedly support those expressions. That is why this legislation, properly amended, needs to be quickly passed.

I would also like to talk about the research cloning or so-called therapeutic cloning. While this bill bans the practice, I was troubled with the comments made in the media by the minister two weeks ago when she said that though the government was not considering therapeutic cloning “at this time” she would not rule it out in the future. “This area is changing so quickly. You can't box yourself in”, she said.

Members understand the slippery slope we are on. Sometimes we need to draw boundaries. The minister should have taken to mind the words of her predecessor who said to the committee “just because we can do something does not mean that we must, or even that we should”.

On the day that Bill C-56 was tabled in the House of Commons, a group of Canadian scientists and ethicists published an article in the Globe and Mail calling for therapeutic cloning. They resorted to euphemism in describing it, referring to it as nuclear transfer.

Let us not bet be fooled; reproductive and therapeutic cloning begin with the same process. Therapeutic cloning for research purposes represents the commodification and the objectification of human life.

Recently President Bush denounced all forms of human cloning. “Life is a creation, not a commodity,” he said. A cloned embryo for research purposes could end up being used for reproductive purposes. Research or therapeutic cloning should remain a prohibited activity.

We are also concerned about other prohibitions. We find in the bill that the prohibition on the creation of human embryos does not apply to instruction on assisted reproductive procedures. It seems to me absurd to closely regulate the creation of embryos for research but not for instruction.

The idea that embryos can be created and destroyed at will for teaching purposes and fertility clinics runs directly contrary to their intrinsic value. It even appears that no permission would be required from a donor in this case.

This clause also stands against the intent of the bill itself, which is to make the use of embryos a controlled activity.

We are also concerned about the subtle pressures fertility clinics may experience to create more embryos than are necessary to have some left over for research. A clause should be added that requires licensees to limit the creation of embryos to numbers necessary to complete the reproductive procedures intended by the donors.

Another loophole is hybrids. While the creation of hybrids is prohibited, they will be allowed if not for the purpose of reproduction. Hybrids kept in a petri dish are still partly human and partly animal and this matter concerns us.

If as the government asserts it merely wishes to protect those who must test the viability of human gametes in fertility clinics, then this very limited use ought to be specified.

The health committee also heard compelling testimony recommending great caution in the regulation of surrogacy. We support the banning of commercial surrogacy and we share the committee's concern that the reimbursement for so-called allowable expenses could be abused by inflating expenses. The committee took these concerns seriously, recommending limits on the expenses for which reimbursements would be made.

However we will be calling for tighter language in the reimbursement provisions to ensure that compensation for expenses does not become a de facto commercial transaction.

In relation to controlled activities, I first wish to address a recommendation made by the royal commission on reproductive technologies that did not make it into the bill. It relates to the provisions of fetal tissue for research.

Three years ago we read in the press about an active commercial trade of fetal tissue in the United States, where body parts were regularly bought and sold in a quasi-legal market which Canadians found this to be highly distasteful. We want to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen in Canada. We understand that research into fetal tissue has gone on since the 1930s in Canada and that there is legitimate research that needs to be done. However, in keeping with the dignity and respect due to the human body, we ought to ensure that fetal tissue does not become a commodity that is bought and sold as it is in the United States.

The royal commission found gaps in the provincial laws that touch this issue. The commission stated there was “a lack of uniformity across Canada in provisions governing commerce in human tissue and body parts”. Accordingly the royal commission made the recommendation “That the provisions of human fetal tissue for use in research, or for any purpose not related to the medical care of the women herself, be subject to compulsory licensing” by the federal agency.

We feel that it would be natural and appropriate for the use of fetal tissue to be added to the controlled activities to be regulated by the Assisted Human Reproductive Agency of Canada.

I turn now to the contentious subject of research on human embryos. I understand that the government has the power to push this legislation through and that it will support the principles of experimentation with human embryos.

We have called already for a three year hiatus on embryonic research in accordance with our minority report. It is also our intention to ask parliament to narrow the grounds for research on human embryos in keeping with the dignity and respect due to human life. In this regard the minister ignored a careful recommendation of the health committee.

The majority report of the health committee recommended that research on embryos not be permitted “unless the applicant clearly demonstrates that no other category of biological material could be used”. I would note that clause 40 in the new bill simply states that research on human embryos can take place if the new agency satisfies itself that it is necessary for the purpose of the proposed research.

This especially troubles us when we see that clause 32 allows vast power to be delegated to any single member of the board of the agency. One person could make that decision.

First, the opposition feels that the definition of the word “necessary” should be placed in law, not left to the discretion of the agency. As it is there are no clear criteria for defining the circumstances under which experiments on the human embryo will be allowed. At the very least the wording of the majority report of the health committee should be used, requiring the applicant to demonstrate that no other category of biological material can be used for the purpose of the proposed research.

Second, the opposition asks that the purpose of any research on human embryos be placed in this clause. The purpose of research on embryos must be clearly restricted to deriving medical therapies that will assist in healing the human body. Otherwise research might one day encompass such activities as testing the safety and efficacy of drugs or cosmetics. This does not treat the embryo with the respect and dignity the government claims to recognize.

Third, the bill specifies that the consent of just one donor to a human embryo is required in order to use it for an experiment. The bill leaves it to the regulations to define the word “donor”. The language is important and I would remind the House that there are two donors to every human embryo: a man and a woman. Both donors, or as I would prefer to call them, parents, should be required to give written consent for the use of a human embryo, not just one. Both parents should have the right to give or withhold consent for the use of a human embryo.

Bill C-56, which governs experiments, should not itself become yet another experiment of political correctness. In this respect I would like more information about the impact of the statutory declaration of the bill, stating that women are more affected than men by the application of reproductive technologies.

If the effect of this clause might be to grant special legal rights on the basis of gender concerning such issues as an exclusive right of permission over the disposition of embryos, I will oppose it.

Though embryonic stem cell research has garnered much interest by the press, the scientists, health organizations and politicians, there are a number of concerns with the practice that are often overlooked.

Stem cells derived from embryos implanted in recipients are foreign tissue and thus subject to immune rejection, possibly requiring years of costly anti-rejection drug therapy. In a recently published study, embryonic stem cells injected into rodents grew brain tumours in 20% of the cases. A researcher said “I don't think this will be a treatment in humans for quite some time”. In fact there have as yet been no successful therapeutic applications for embryonic stem cells. There have in fact been problems.

On the other hand, adult stem cell research holds great promise. Research, using adult stem cells, is making important breakthroughs. Adult stem cells are easily accessible. They are not subject to tissue rejection and they pose minimal ethical concerns. Adult stem cells are now being used to treat Parkinson's disease, Multiple Sclerosis and spinal injuries. We should focus our energies and our scarce resources on research that is making a difference now.

The standing committee said:

--in the past year, there have been tremendous gains in adult stem research in humans. We also heard that, after many years of embryo stem cell research with animal models, the results have not provided the expected advances. Therefore, we want to encourage research funding in the area of adult stem cells.

Unaccountably, in its own research guidelines, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research only had this to say about adult stem cell research: “Research using adult stem cells would also be eligible for funding under specific conditions”.

It appears that far from emphasizing research in adult stem cells, the CIHR is limiting research funding for them. This raises important questions, not only about the lack of attention the agency pays to the standing committee but about the wisdom of focusing on embryonic stem cell research. Such a preoccupation might actually hinder the work going on with adult stem cells.

Advances in the field of adult stem cell research are recent and numerous. Events are unfolding around the world at an incredible pace. Here are four examples of what has happened just in the last 60 days.

Last week, May 15, the Journal of Clinical Investigations published the findings of researchers at the University of Minnesota who discovered that adult bone marrow cells can differentiate into liver cells. This suggests that patients with genetic diseases of the liver may benefit from therapies derived from adult stem cells.

Canada is at the forefront of this research. The May 1 issue of the prestigious journal of the American Society of Hematology featured the findings of a Montreal based company which has developed a treatment called “photodynamic cell therapy”, using adult stem cells to help fight the body's natural rejection of bone marrow transplants from incompatible donors. It has been described as a “magic bullet” in the treatment of rejection.

On April 8 this same company announced that the adult neural stem cells taken from a patient's own central nervous system have been successfully used in treating Parkinson's disease patients, reducing the symptoms by more than 80% over a one year period without the use of medication.

On April 2 in Vancouver a team at the University of British Columbia announced that it had been able to supercharge adult blood stem cells with a gene that allowed them to rapidly reproduce. They were able to heal mice with depleted blood systems. Some day adult stem cells could replace bone marrow transplants in humans.

Who knows what will happen in the next 60 days? We need to reinforce these gains with more research funding for adult stem cell research and allow more time for its potential to be realized.

I want to address for a moment the patenting of human life. In January 2002 it came to light that the human genes were regularly patented by Canada's Canadian Intellectual Property Office, contrary to the understanding of the Standing Committee on Health. We place patents on things to protect a financial interest. Patenting parts of the human body makes the human body into a commodity with a commercial value, contrary to the intention of the bill.

Existing patents might not even be enforceable. Patents are placed on things that are new and useful and show inventive ingenuity. Genes are not new. They exist in every human cell. Patenting of genes implies greater costs to the health care system. If people were able to corner the commercial market on medical therapies involving human genes they would be able to charge whatever the market would bear.

The European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, an independent body set up by EU policy makers, said the unmodified stem cell should not be patented. It said patenting may be considered a form of commercialization of the human body.

The Standing Committee on Health was absolutely clear. Its report stated:

Given the importance that the Committee attaches to the respect of human dignity and integrity, we urge that patents be denied in relation to human material...Therefore, the Committee recommends that: The Patent Act be amended to prohibit patenting of humans as well as any human materials.

The Patent Act should be modified in this act to ban patents on the human body.

I will address the issue of limitations on donors of sperm and ova. Under Bill C-56 there would be no limit to the number of donations a person could make. A donor could make multiple donations and have dozens or even hundreds of children directly related to him or her. This could cause relational chaos in society. It could also represent a health risk. A person may be unhealthy in ways we could not detect and pass along genetic defects to hundreds of others.

The Standing Committee on Health recommended limits on the number of donations from the same donor and the number of babies born through the same donor. The government has ignored this in Bill C-56. However it is too important to ignore. A clause must be added to the bill to mandate that the agency set such limits.

I will move to an important topic: the right of the child to know his or her heritage. The bill's preamble states that:

--the health and well-being of children born through the application of these technologies must be given priority in all decisions respecting their use--

We in our party agree, but apparently the government does not. Bill C-56 would give complete anonymity to donors of sperm and ova, leaving the children born as a result with no information about their parents. The bill should give priority to children who deserve to know their heritage. Although the agency created by Bill C-56 would retain all identifying information about the donors, the bill would not allow the agency to give it to children conceived using reproductive technologies.

Reproduction should take place within the context of human relationships, not divorced from them. Children have the right to know where they came from. That is why anonymous donors of sperm and ova should not be allowed. This principle of the bill is directly contrary to the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Health which states:

We believe that only donors who consent to have identifying information released to offspring should be accepted. We feel that, where there is a conflict between the privacy rights of a donor and the rights of a resulting child to know its heritage, the rights of the child should prevail...We want to end the current system of anonymous donation.

The textbook Bioethics in Canada states:

One's genetic history links one to a network of persons. Grandparents, great-grandparents, and the collateral relationships of uncles, aunts, cousins, are integral strands in the pattern of human connections essential to one's sense of personal identity. One may experience a very shallow sense of identity, if one's social identity rests upon no identifiable underlying grid or network of connections to one's genetic ancestors and relations.

We need to feel the pain of adopted children who want but are not allowed to discover their origins. Their pain would be multiplied thousands of times over if Bill C-56 passed unamended. We can easily prevent that from happening.

Today the criminal code calls children born of unmarried parents bastards. Even though children have nothing to do with their origins they can be marked for life for something their parents did. We may be stigmatizing an entirely new social class of people who have no known linkage. This would be cruel for children who are artificially conceived.

An identified donor is a responsible donor. If all donors were willing to identify, people would donate for the right reasons. Unfortunately, one important motivation for anonymous donations is money. One might think donors would stop giving if they could not be anonymous. However the experience of other countries and jurisdictions shows that there would still be donors if they had to be identified. A sperm bank in California found that half of all donors were willing to be identified. An earlier study in New Zealand found that nearly all donors were willing to meet with future offspring.

The government claims that the policy of anonymous donation is like adoption where parents who give up their children are able to remain anonymous. This is untrue. Donations of sperm and ova are intentional, with an opportunity to identify before the donation is made. The decision to put a child up for adoption is made after an unintentional pregnancy is already in progress. The two cases are entirely different.

New Zealand has a policy to accept only identified donations. Sweden made anonymous donations illegal in 1985. The state of Victoria in Australia has also made them illegal. Austria and the Netherlands are planning to implement such laws by the end of the year. Sperm and ova donors have plenty of time to consider their choice carefully before they go ahead. Bill C-56 is unacceptable in this regard.

I will comment on the structure of the Assisted Human Reproductive Agency of Canada. As we have heard in committee, for the agency to be effective it is essential that it gain the trust of the industry and all Canadians. The opposition will attempt to win trust for the agency by ensuring it is strong, independent and transparent.

I will address the agency's mandate. The Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies adopted as its central principle an ethic of care based on the first principle of medicine that one should do no harm. The commission said:

The concept...goes beyond simply avoiding actions that might cause harm, to taking steps to prevent harm and create conditions in which harm is less likely to occur--

The Minister of Health told the standing committee:

There must be a higher notion than science alone...that can guide scientific research and endeavour. Simply because we can do something does not mean that we should do it.

The standing committee recommended a careful approach when any assisted reproductive technique raises threats of harm to human health. The committee said:

--the interests of researchers and physicians are supported to the extent that they do not compromise the interests of the children and adults.

The opposition in its minority report added a wise principle:

--where there is a conflict between ethical acceptability and scientific possibility, the ethically acceptable course of action shall prevail.

The interests of people come before the interests of research. The ethic that one should do no harm should be part of the legislative mandate of the agency or be included in the statutory declaration at the beginning of the bill.

We have a number of structural concerns about the agency. It would not report not to parliament but only to the minister. It should be an independent agency. Unbelievably, clause 25 would allow the minister to give any policy direction he or she liked to the agency and the agency would have to follow it without question. The clause would also ensure such direction remained secret. If there were an independent agency answerable to parliament such political direction would be much more difficult.

The powers of delegation and inspection under the bill would be considerable. We want to take a careful look at them. Members of the board should have a fixed, twice renewable term of three years to ensure the minister cannot simply get rid of non-compliant board members or keep members forever. This was recommended in the report of the health committee.

The chair of the agency should be appointed for a five year rather than a three year period so that his or her appointment surpasses the electoral cycle. This would minimize political pressures 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. The licensing process of new fertility clinics should be transparent and public.

Bill C-56 would allow for the creation of advisory panels. We in our party believe key stakeholders should be given statutory standing. These include: users of and children born of assisted reproductive technologies; people with disabilities; scientific and medical communities; the faith communities and professional ethicists; private providers and research firms; taxpayers and their representatives; and provincial and territorial governments.

I will speak to the records that would be kept by the agency. I was surprised to find that no reporting would be required under the bill. At the very least an annual report to parliament must be mandated. The report should summarize the activities of the agency including the number and type of donors, the number of embryos created and destroyed, those who undergo assisted reproductive procedures and persons conceived as a result, and research projects undertaken including projects using human embryos.

A new clause in the bill should specify that all embryos produced and destroyed by licensees be mandated on the registry of the agency. In recognition of the respect and dignity due to the human body, no human embryo should be created or destroyed anonymously and forgotten. Each should be identified. For this purpose a naming convention should be used rather than a numbering system. It could use what I would call an embryonic name or a standard formulaic combination of both donors' names.

In private life I worked in animal husbandry. In the artificial insemination of cattle every sperm or ovum, let alone every embryo, carries both the number and the name along with a record of the genetic line of the sample. How could we do less for living human embryos? It would be unfortunate to allow the creation and destruction of anonymous human embryos. Recognizing them by name would help us to remember their origins and why they were created or destroyed. It would underscore their value.

We need to address the topic of federal-provincial relationships. As we know, reproductive technologies fall broadly under provincial jurisdiction. While the law allows provinces to name one observer to the board of the agency, the observer is not a voting member. The provinces should be able to name a non-government designate who automatically becomes a voting board member.

The government did not implement all the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Health regarding equivalency agreements with the provinces. Specifically the recommendations on parliamentary accountability, public consultation and information, and reporting requirements should become part of this session.

We have concerns about the equivalency agreement. A province might want to operate a more conservative program than the federal government. Under Bill C-56, for example, unless a province was willing to allow experimentation on human embryos no equivalency agreement could be possible. The federal government must not impose its views on the provinces in this regard.

The regulatory process envisioned in Bill C-56 is flawed. The regulations laid before parliament ought always to be referred to the Standing Committee on Health as the committee report recommends. Wording should be added requiring the minister to consider any report of the standing committee pursuant to the regulations laid before parliament. Regulations should not be made until the standing committee has reported on them, thus eliminating the 60 day limit placed on the standing committee to scrutinize legislation. Finally, a three year review process should be made a permanent feature of the act rather than a one time review.

We have other questions about the legislation and other amendments to make, which we will deal with in committee.

In closing, I want to address a significant omission in the preamble of the bill. The very first declaration of parliament is the protection and promotion of human health, safety, dignity and rights, and of course I am in accord with these objectives. However, there is one vital word missing. The purpose of the bill is to regulate technologies and assist Canadians to procreate. The protection and promotion of human life is an overarching concern of the bill. The missing word is “life”.

Human life is cheap in many countries of the world. I want Canada to be different. The preamble of the bill must reflect its overarching purpose. I would therefore request that the government include the protection and promotion of human life in its statutory declaration. I look forward to the input of my colleagues on both sides of the House, I look forward to the amendments and I look forward to all members voting freely on this issue.

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Health]

moved that Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak about this very important legislation.

Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction, is important because it would provide a legislative framework to protect the health and safety of Canadians and their offspring. It would, at the same time, offer new hope for infertile people, as well as those suffering from illness and disease.

It is important because it will fill a void. At present, Canada has no law to prohibit or regulate activities relating to assisted human reproduction. And it is equally important, because these issues are not easy ones. Nor should they be, as they go to the very heart of our values as a society, with regard to the way we build our families.

In the time available to me today, I intend to remind hon. members of the content of this legislation, and its impact on individuals, families and Canadian society.

I would like to express my appreciation to my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Health for their thorough review of an earlier draft of this legislation. Their comprehensive consultations assured Canadians that we have, in fact, made every effort to find an appropriate way to legislate these complex issues.

I also wish to thank the individuals, groups and organizations who have shared their views on the bill and the issues involved. When the royal commission on new reproductive technologies began consulting with Canadians in 1989, it became clear that there was a myriad of strongly held opinions on assisted human reproduction and related research. Ever since then people have been articulating their thoughts on the science and the ethics of these issues. For that reason, we believe that we have developed a bill that is balanced and ethical, one that would put us in step with other industrialized nations.

The bill before us today speaks to one of the most fundamental human desires, having a family. The truth is that approximately one in eight Canadian couples faces the challenges of infertility. Bill C-56 seeks to provide a measure of comfort and protection through various means.

There is another overarching purpose to this legislation. It is to make clear to Canadians and to the world our position on this complicated and fast changing issue. This legislation would clearly prohibit the cloning of human life. We will not let people profit from the creation of a baby or favour one type of child over another just because we have the technical capacity to do so.

The legislation opens with a statutory declaration, six principles that would guide the interpretation of the proposed law. These principles assert that: the health and well-being of children born through AHR techniques must be paramount; human health, safety and dignity in the use of assisted human reproductive techniques and related research much be protected; AHR technologies affect all Canadians but women most particularly; the principle of free and informed consent is fundamental to the application of AHR technologies; there should be no trade in the reproductive capacity of women or men, or any commercial exploitation of children or adults involved in AHR; and human individuality and diversity as well as the integrity of the human genome must be safeguarded.

These statements of principle describe the values that Canadians believe should support any legislative initiative of this nature. They represent the touchstone that guides the regulations and underpins the prohibitions that are contained in this legislation.

I would like to speak about these prohibitions, those practices that would become illegal under this legislation. These are activities that Canadians simply will not countenance because they offend our shared values and the fundamental principles of the statutory declaration.

Several of these prohibitions deal with what we refer to as the inappropriate use of reproductive technologies. For example, Bill C-56 would outlaw the creation of human clones whether for purposes of reproduction or research. Under Bill C-56 the DNA of an embryo could not be changed if that change were to be transmitted to future generations.

Another key prohibition relates to sex selection practices. These technologies would not be permitted except for health purposes, for example, to screen for serious medical conditions that are carried on a sex chromosome and are more likely to occur in one gender than the other. However, couples could not request that a child be designed to meet their personal preferences.

The commercialization of reproduction is another category of prohibitions.

Canadians feel strongly that human life is a gift. It cannot be bought and sold or treated like a consumer commodity. Canadians do not want people to engage in activities that create human life for profit. Thus, Bill C-56 would prohibit commercial surrogacy which pays a woman to carry a baby to term for someone else.

Canadians do not want a situation in which women can rent out their wombs, nor do they want women to be exploited because of their reproductive capacity. The legislation would not allow children to be the result of a profit making transaction. Again, because the legislation is about helping Canadians build their families, it would not stand in the way of altruistic surrogacy arrangements.

Women who act as a surrogate, say, for a sister, may be reimbursed for reasonable expenditures. Similarly, people could donate eggs, sperm and, as I mentioned before, embryos, but these eggs, sperm and embryos are not marketable. No financial gain must be attached to these activities.

A third class of prohibitions relates to unacceptable scientific activities. For instance, it is internationally accepted that researchers will not work on an embryo beyond the 14th day of its development, nor could researchers engage in any activity that would serve to mix human and non-human reproductive material for purposes of reproduction. There are several activities in this area, including transplanting non-human reproductive material or an embryo into a human and creating an animal-human hybrid. Canadians believe this kind of research is unacceptable.

In addition to prohibitions, Bill C-56 also outlines the regulations under which assisted human reproduction activities can take place. In fact it establishes the first ever regulatory regime for Canadian fertility clinics. Until now these facilities have operated without enforceable rules or supervision. Under the legislation there would be rules on informed consent as well as information in general. Couples who turn to in vitro fertilization or other AHR procedures need reliable information about the technology, the treatment and the chances for success.

Children born of donated reproductive material also have information needs. Currently these needs are not necessarily met. It is left up to the clinics to decide what information, if any, will be provided. Bill C-56 would change this. These children would be entitled to know the medical history of their biological parents. This is vital information if an inherited disease develops.

I would like to make it clear that there will be no anonymous donors. All donors will have to provide their names to clinics before they can donate. However the release of donor names would require the donor's consent. This approach is similar to that used by the provinces and territories for adopted children.

Another one of the regulatory objectives of Bill C-56 is to ensure that promising research involving in vitro human embryos, which are no longer needed for purposes of reproduction, is conducted in a manner consistent with Canadian values.

As a society we have a compelling interest in permitting this research but we will not pursue research that does not respect human life and health, as well as the integrity of our human genetic make-up for generations to come. That is why Bill C-56 calls for the careful regulation of research involving embryos.

Still, our consultations revealed that Canadians believe that there is great merit in other types of research in the field of AHR. For instance, our society has a profound interest in encouraging scientists to investigate the causes of infertility and miscarriages in the hopes of some day finding a solution to these problems.

Similarly, we would favour research into the causes of other medical problems that affect many Canadians, conditions like cancer, juvenile diabetes and spinal cord injuries, as well as degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Nobody is promising a miracle cure for these devastating ailments but there are optimistic signals emerging from stem cell research projects being conducted around the world.

As we know, embryonic stem cell research is not without controversy. Stem cells are the immature precursors of cells that will eventually mature into specialized tissue such as a heart, muscles, a brain or a spinal cord.

While embryonic stem cells are felt to be the most promising at this time, research is needed to better understand the potential of adult stem cells. There is no doubt that Canadian researchers will be making an important contribution to knowledge about all types of stem cells.

That is another reason why Bill C-56 is so important. It would establish the regulations under which embryonic stem cell research may be performed. These regulations would ensure that the work is conducted in an ethically appropriate manner consistent with society's values.

For example, the regulations would require researchers working with embryonic stem cells to obtain a licence from the regulatory authority for each of their research proposals. They would also need to obtain approval from a reputable ethics board for any project proposal and demonstrate that no other source would be adequate for their needs.

The only acceptable source of embryos would be from fully informed couples. It would be up to the couple to choose whether their unused embryos would be discarded or donated either for research or to other infertile Canadians.

All these AHR activities would be overseen by a new regulatory body, the assisted human reproduction agency of Canada or AHRAC. This body or agency would monitor and enforce the act, including the prohibitions and the regulations. It would also grant or refuse licences for the performance of regulated activities such as in vitro fertilization. Reporting to parliament through the Minister of Health, the agency would be governed by a board of directors representing Canadians from all walks of life, including lay people and experts.

I am suggesting today that Bill C-56 is about balance. It is a way to respect profound and legitimate differences of opinion while serving the broadest interests of Canadians. We have listened to Canadians. For more than a decade we have consulted with groups and individuals, the provinces and the territories, and countless professional organizations and associations representing the widest possible cross section of Canadian views. These consultations will continue as the legislation makes its way through the House and the Senate.

Hon. members recognize that there is no current legislation in the area of assisted human reproduction. We have no law that prohibits human cloning. We need to fill this void. All parties have called on the government to take decisive action. It is my hope that the legislation will receive speedy passage through the parliamentary process. Once the legislation is in place I will be reporting to parliament on its progress every year. Parliament would have an opportunity to review the entire law after three years.

Canadians have told us that they welcome federal legislation in this area. The last years were spent working with Canadians, who took the time to ponder these difficult issues, to come to an understanding of what they mean, and how we feel about them, to discuss them and to find a consensus.

We have spent many years working with Canadians. They have spent much time considering these difficult issues. They have spent much time coming to an understanding of what these issues are about, what they mean and how we feel about them. What we need to do now in the House is to further discuss these issues and hopefully find a consensus among ourselves to move this important legislative work forward.

The legislation gives us a way to move forward as a thoughtful, caring and principled society. We are confident that we have found a balanced, reasoned and principled approach to these very complex social issues.

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Health]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)