[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, March 20, 1997
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[English]
The Chair (Mrs. Bonnie Hickey (St. John's East, Lib.)): We can start now. A couple of members are still to come, but we're okay to begin.
We have four witnesses to appear before us today. With respect, I'm going to ask each presenter to stick to the contents of Bill C-47, if they could. I would like it to be no longer than five minutes. When everybody is finished, we'll have a question and answer period with my colleagues.
Mr. Murray Mollard (Policy Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association): My name is Murray Mollard. I'm with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
I'll let our president, Kay Stockholder, actually speak for the five minutes.
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Ms Kay Stockholder (President, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association): My name is Kay Stockholder. I'm the president of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.
There are about three main points that I want to make in the very short time that has been given to us.
I do want to comment in a personal way on the haste with which we were informed that we were invited to this: it was less than a week ago. We were given no option about the timing. In fact, I'm supposed to be attending an annual general meeting tonight that I won't be attending.
The more important aspect of what seems to be haste in these hearings is that this seems to be very improper in proceedings that could issue actual criminal legislation, or legislation that carries criminal sanctions. Even if it's the case - I think there's some doubt that it is the case - that there is a massive outcry from the general public for immediate legislation, such legislation has to be deliberative. It should not, on general principle, be taken on a wave of that kind of excitement that is generated by such news stories as that about cloning, which has of course increased the amount of energy devoted to that issue. But it should be noted that cloning is not really relevant to this, as it's not yet possible; it's not yet with us. Therefore, it's not a harm that should be addressed. Furthermore, it's separable intellectually from the other issues that are raised by the new reproductive technologies. I think that's important to keep in mind.
Also, the entire Bill C-47 is based on the notion not of actual harms that are addressed, but on harms that might arise. That phrase, both in the bill and in the documents that constitute the rationale for the bill, of future harms - I think the phrase used is ``unknown harms'', but if they're unknown, I wonder how they can be harms - is used over and over again.
So here we have criminal sanctions introduced not to deal with actual, clear, and serious harms to persons or society at large, but the fear of future harms. Our argument is that it's inappropriate to use criminal legislation in this way. There are other ways of proceeding with regulations and licensing of various kinds at different levels. In fact, the procedure in this is altogether backwards in the sense that it's attempting to put criminal legislation in place as the first recourse rather than the last one.
A basic democratic principle is that criminal sanctions should not be used for a person's own good; they should be used only to protect others from harm when the harm is serious and when there is no lesser means by which it can be addressed. This proposed legislation violates all those principles upon which criminal law and democratic society have traditionally been based and ought to be based.
The second point that grows out of that is crucial. The harm that's mentioned or feared in the future is from the unchannelled use of these technologies being detrimental to the dignity of women and children. The coupling of these terms appears regularly: ``of women and children''.
The point I wanted to make here is that adult dignity depends not totally, but in large measure, on a sense of autonomy and liberty and having one's actions as unimpeded as possible given the social nature of human communities and the necessity for a legal framework. Therefore, to couple women and children is to imply that adult women's consent to their own activities is as ineffectual as children's consent ought to be, because children, by definition, need the protection of adults.
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This legislation assumes that adult women are like children in needing the protection of adults. The entire legislation is paternalistic. I should say it's maternalistic, since one wing of the women's movement has espoused it.
Part of the argument is that it doesn't matter what any particular woman wants, because that woman is obligated to consider the good of all women, as distinct from each of us being required to consider our own good in connection with all other persons.
So in this way, this document, undertaken to protect women's dignity, in fact, diminishes and insults the dignity of adult women. I think that's a very strong argument against it.
The further manifestation of that - I don't have time to address the particulars, so I'm limiting myself to these general principles - has to do with the proposed ban on the commercialization of anything to do with human reproduction, including fetal tissues. The argument assumes that the dignity of adult living persons can be reduced in some sense to the dignity of accorded fetal tissues. It is as though there is a kind of magical thinking in this, as if fetal tissue is a kind of religious or semi-religious object such that if you don't treat the fetal tissue with respect, then somehow you will undermine the value of human life. There is no reason to think that's true. There is no reason to think there is any causal relationship between the two.
Furthermore, as everybody knows, many people go to third world countries in order to adopt children when they cannot adopt them here. They often pay $10,000 or $15,000 in order to do so. I've never heard any evidence that the people who acquire children in this way - paying for them - treat those children as though they were commodities or care any less about them than if they had given birth to them themselves. So there is no reason to fear that there is any such connection in commercialization.
The other argument given for banning commercialization is that all Canadians should have equal access to all technologies. That, of course, would be an ideal situation if it were possible to achieve it, but it does the poor no harm if those who have more money can in fact select the sex of the child or have medical diagnoses of various kinds. So the argument against commercialization, to criminalize it, does not follow. That doesn't preclude regulations of various kinds.
We therefore think that this legislation should be withdrawn. We think it has been composed too hastily. The hearings have been held too hastily for grievous matters dealing with criminal sanctions. In its present form, the reasoning behind this legislation is denigrating to women in the very process of claiming to protect them. The serious issues at stake should not be treated in this way.
It is true that almost everybody has gut responses to some of the issues raised here, such as creating fetuses for purposes of research, and so on. There are serious issues, but I think one should not allow one's gut responses to become the determinant of what becomes the criminal law. People in pre-modern societies had equally strong gut responses to the notion of the scientific investigation of the secrets of nature. Their feelings were as strong as ours.
Even though one could say there have indeed been harms that have come from the development of science over the centuries, I think most of us would agree that the greater good has come out of that. We may well be in such a situation.
So I think it's a distortion of the criminal law to try to close the door on future developments that may be good but will cause problems by putting it into criminal law at this point.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. As we are going into a vote, I'll ask you to really keep your time down as much as possible to five minutes.
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Ms Alison Harvison Young (Faculty of Law, McGill University): Thank you.
In trying to stay to five minutes, I'm going to very seriously assume that you have read my brief, as I know you have.
I want to emphasize that the focus of my concerns, as articulated in my brief, is really more on the assisted reproduction issues, the issues that are dealt with in clauses 5 and 6 of the bill as opposed to clause 4 of the bill. Of course, it's clause 4 that has been really highlighted recently, with the cloning issue Ms Stockholder talked about.
These issues raise different enough concerns that we shouldn't just automatically assume that the same factors govern all of them. Having said that, my remarks are dealing more with the assisted reproduction issues.
I also want to emphasize at the outset what I emphasized at the end of my brief and underline what Ms Stockholder said. What we really need is a serious regulatory structure in this country. It is, in my view, very much putting the cart before the horse to start with criminal prohibitions. Of course, the great fear is that one way or another, as sometimes happens through the political process, all we will end up with, given constitutional complexities and the vagaries of elections and so on, is the prohibitive measures. That would be a situation where the cure would be worse than the disease.
Two interrelated themes run through my brief. One has to do with the historical impotence of raw prohibitions in the face of socially contested matters. This is an important issue to underline.
Ms Stockholder focused on the inappropriateness of the criminal law in a matter such as this. My argument is slightly different. My argument is that whether it's appropriate or not, it just doesn't work. Any parent knows that raw bans are rarely effective ways of dealing with behaviour you don't approve of.
The other point I want to add with respect to autonomy is that there are problems in some of the assumptions underlying Bill C-47. It's problematic that there is absolutely no reference to reproductive autonomy in the preamble to the legislation. This, after all, has been the underpinning of the law in this country, as reflected in cases such as Morgentaler. To have it completely dropped from the face of the legislative earth in this matter is very problematic.
We know there's a lot more than an autonomy issue at stake when we're talking about decisions on surrogacy, sperm donation, egg donation, etc. Of course, we know choice is to some extent socially constructed. However, it's important to recognize that's also true in the abortion context. Any woman who makes a decision to have an abortion is doing so under very serious social constraints. We can just as easily ask whether she is capable of making a truly informed decision. This legislation does not show evidence of having grappled with that sort of anomaly.
I would like to flag a couple of other concerns very briefly. I know I'm going to run out of time.
How do I think this is going to make matters worse? First of all, there's a very real concern that this legislation could drive some of these practices underground. An example is certain forms of surrogacy - not gestational surrogacy particularly, because it requires a certain technological involvement, but the more traditional form of surrogacy, certainly. It could also make it less visible for Canadians to have some idea of what's going on. That's already an issue.
There's increasingly anecdotal evidence that these practices are going on. Here I'm referring particularly to surrogacy. So far we don't seem to have any mechanism for canvassing information. We don't know what we're dealing with; we don't know what's really going on in the trenches.
Finally, I want to suggest - and this is developed in my brief and I'll answer questions on it - that for some of the reasons Ms Stockholder pointed out, the bill risks undermining some of the very values it claims to seek to protect.
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An example is commodification. For the reasons Ms Stockholder pointed out, we don't think of commodification in other areas where we probably should. And with respect to the exploitation of women, there's a very strong argument that, as was the case with abortion - back-room abortions did a lot of damage to women - underground economies in some of these issues could have a similar effect.
I'll stop there and answer questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much. You didn't run out of time; you did very well. Thank you.
Doctor, you're next.
Dr. Richard MacLachlan (Member, Committee on Evaluation, National Council on Bioethics in Human Research): Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm Richard MacLachlan. I'm very pleased to be able to speak to you on behalf of the National Council on Bioethics in Human Research. You have my brief and I'll just speak to parts of it.
I'm a family physician in Halifax, I've been an administrator of a large teaching hospital, I've been in charge of a research program in developmental disabilities, and I am a parent.
As we stated in our brief to your committee about two months ago, we do support the objectives of Bill C-47. We recognize the legitimate need to have government action to ensure public safety in the domain of human reproductive and genetic technologies, but we do not feel this will be achieved through Bill C-47, and in fact public harm will likely ensue.
NCBHR is in total agreement with government that the public needs to be assured that there exists a comprehensive policy and regulatory framework to oversee this rapidly advancing field. However, this comprehensive approach does not seem to be part of the current strategy of government.
Bill C-47 would criminalize certain practices, many of which we would all find unacceptable. Nevertheless it precedes confirmation and definition of the comprehensive regulatory security of the Canadian public. It will also put Canadian women and families at a significant disadvantage in accessing current approved medical research.
NCBHR feels there are a number of issues that relate to public safety and access to current accepted and approved medical practices as well as research.
The Chair: One moment.
[Translation]
Ms Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): It's hard for us to follow the text, the witness is reading to quickly.
[English]
The Chair: Seeing as you're from the east coast, as I am, perhaps you can slow down a little bit for the interpreter.
Dr. MacLachlan: My apologies from Atlantic Canada. We're always a time zone out, so we have to catch up.
There already are a number of regulatory structures to ensure public safety with respect to the provision of health care, the creation and evaluation of standards for training of health care providers, the licensing and monitoring of health care providers in the provinces and territories, the development of new procedures, the accreditation of health facilities, as well as the conduct and evaluation of research involving or affecting human subjects.
The details are in our brief to you and I won't repeat them, but it's very difficult for us to support the creation of yet another regulatory structure without definition of perceived gaps in the current structures and of just how a new structure would add to the comprehensive nature of the process and relate to existing bodies.
My understanding is that government officials who appeared before your subcommittee last week confirmed our assessment at NCBHR that there is no evidence that researchers in Canada are currently working in any of the very troubling areas, such as human cloning or human-animal hybrids. It would thus seem as though we do have the time to address these issues in a comprehensive manner, without moving piecemeal into criminalizing activities that are not yet a major societal problem.
Much of the impact of Bill C-47 is likely to be not on practices yet to occur, such as those I described earlier, but on research with direct impact on patients. This will limit the access of Canadians to current research and innovative therapies. It will also advance a two-tier system, as the affluent will be able to access these therapies in other jurisdictions.
NCBHR has, almost since its inception, been concerned that all Canadians have equitable access to properly approved research studies. In particular we've been concerned with the access of special populations - such as children, the elderly, and the developmentally challenged - to properly conducted research. We feel at NCBHR that Bill C-47 will add a new part of the Canadian population to these vulnerable categories: women and families.
NCBHR supports the concept that research subjects should be compensated for reasonable expenses incurred in participating in research studies. Bill C-47 bans the reimbursement of research participants in certain studies involving reproductive technology. It asks these subjects to underwrite the costs of their altruism as volunteers in approved research studies.
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In closing, I'd like to walk the committee through the current process with respect to a fictitious research proposal in which a researcher proposes to clone human embryos.
This type of research would only occur in a setting where there's access to human embryos, and this would have to be what we call an academic health sciences centre - a union of a faculty of medicine and teaching hospitals.
The researcher would need to be appointed to the health centre. His or her credentials would have to have been reviewed by the credentialling process of the hospital and the university. This would have in turn triggered a review of the researcher's credentials granted by the provincial licensing authority and his or her current registration.
The hospital would have had its quality assurance standards and its research approval process accredited by the Canadian Council on Health Facilities Accreditation. The faculty of medicine concerned is regularly accredited as well, including its process of managing research protocols.
The researcher would have had to submit his or her research protocol to an institutional research ethics board. The composition of these boards is outlined in the current Medical Research Council of Canada guidelines on research involving human subjects, and this includes representation from the public on the REBs.
This proposal, from a fictitious researcher, would have been turned down by any health sciences centre research ethics board in Canada.
NCBHR has accepted as part of its mandate the overseeing of the function of the REBs reviewing research involving human subjects in Canada. We have visited all 16 academic health sciences centres in Canada in the past four years and we have assessed the process of research ethics review. The results of these reviews are now a matter of public record, and they certainly did not detect any concerns over the practices that Bill C-47 seems to focus upon.
This type of research would require extensive funding. No funding agency in Canada would contemplate funding such a proposal.
Standards of what is an appropriate approach to research change, as well as their significance. To this end, the three councils that are our sponsors - MRC, NSERC, and SSHRC - have undertaken a thorough review of the current guidelines for research involving human subjects.
Article 11.7 in the February version of the code of human conduct proposed by the councils would forbid this cloning, and anyone undertaking such activity would be deemed in breach of the code of conduct and would face disciplinary action from an institution and the provincial licensing authority.
In summary, Madam Chair, I strongly laud the effort of government to ensure public safety in these domains. NCBHR is committed to its role in working with others to ensure the highest possible standard of clinical care and clinical research for Canadians, but in our estimate, Bill C-47 is a significant retrograde step as currently proposed.
I greatly appreciate this opportunity to be here. Merci beaucoup.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Professor, do you wish to start?
Professor Pran Manga (University of Ottawa): Yes.
I'm Pran Manga, a professor of health economics and bioethics at the University of Ottawa. I've had several senior positions with federal and provincial governments in the past. I had a very material role in the Canada Health Act. I've been a consultant on many occasions to virtually every royal commission on health, including the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. Of my about 100 publications, quite a number of them are pertinent or very relevant to Bill C-47.
Some of the prohibitions you would like under this act are valid and legitimate. However, the bill as it stands is seriously flawed. It particularly does grievous injustice to the needs of the infertile in Canada.
I strongly urge you to eliminate subclause 6(2), which prohibits the reimbursement of expenses to donors. Here are my arguments.
The prohibition is inconsistent with how expenses are treated in other actual donations, such as bone marrow donations, and indeed other donations in the health care field.
This prohibition will reduce the already very low levels of donation of eggs in Canada. They are very low compared to other countries. Maybe you'll remember that donation of eggs is one of the most successful ways of the infertile having children. The success rate is somewhere between 40% and 50% currently in Canada.
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This prohibition will increase the already significant flow of infertile couples accessing IVF treatment in the United States, at costs two to three times higher than the cost in Canada. They will succumb to commercial transactions they could have avoided in Canada, not to speak of all kinds of aggravation, inconvenience, costs, and difficult moral choices that Canadians are bound to encounter in a highly commercialized and laissez-faire system that characterizes the U.S.A.'s therapeutic infertility regime.
Canada has the dubious distinction of being number one in the world in terms of the percentage of the infertile accessing IVF therapies abroad, and we'll make this even worse. Many infertile couples are forced to adopt children from abroad because they don't have the adequate services within Canada.
As you've heard before, international adoptions are subject to elements of commodification, commercialization, and related fears that this bill is trying to eradicate.
I should like to note, too, that this prohibition was certainly not recommended by the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, nor by the report of the discussion group on embryo research, established by Health Canada itself in 1995, and whose report was issued in 1996.
The government has given no evidence that this prohibition is warranted. What harm is there to the public? Could one demonstrate that?
You should remember also that IVF treatment is not an insured benefit in Canada, largely because of the economic cost involved - and, I might add, for no other reason. So the costs are borne privately. One could hardly argue, for example, that allowing such reimbursement of expenses would add to the burden of the health care system.
The restriction in subclause 6(2) is not at all common in western industrialized countries or the OECD generally, or for that matter anywhere in the world. I know of no other country that does this. This particular section, and a number of others, marginalize even further infertile couples who are presently very poorly served by the health care system in Canada. There's no public insurance and no private insurance for such services in Canada. Frankly, I do not know of any OECD country in which infertile couples are worse off than they are in Canada.
I should like to add that there are a whole lot of other prohibitions of research in paragraphs 4(1)(e), (f), (g), and (k) and several others identified in my brief that go beyond what is necessary or needed in the Canadian context currently and in the near future. This section will tie up research that can be conducted ethically and for the ultimate welfare of society, and not just infertile couples.
I believe the bill as written is evidence of an inadequate, and perhaps even incorrect, understanding of the technologies, and certainly insufficient consideration is given to alternative ways of solving and preventing the problems Bill C-47 incriminates.
In many ways I've described in my brief, Bill C-47 goes beyond the royal commission. It certainly goes beyond the discussion group on embryo research. Improved particular research endeavours that would be helpful for the infertile couples in Canada, indeed for the larger public, are the in-vitro maturation of eggs and embryo freezing.
I'd like to mention one other section of the bill that I find especially weak and in need of modification. You might find what I have to say quite controversial, but it needs to be said.
I'm talking about subclause 6(1) where barter and exchange is prohibited. I think barter and exchange is very different from the selling and buying of gametes. In my first few pages I've offered a defence for allowing barter and exchange in the context of acquiring in-vitro fertilization.
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This kind of barter and exchange is not at all like commercialization, with which a lot of people equate barter and exchange. I submit that you can have barter and exchange for the benefit of lower-income infertile couples who can fully conform to principles of ethics, such as informed consent, autonomy, confidentiality, beneficence, non-maleficence, and, most importantly, justice.
We have a health care system where a lot of infertility therapy is simply not available to people who are in the lower middle class, and even in the middle class for that matter, and certainly those who we would characterize as poor. There's no good reason for it.
Here is a way that we can help people access care they badly need and cannot access in the current regime. They certainly wouldn't be able to do so in the regime that is likely to develop following the passing of Bill C-47.
I'd like to make an offer, through you, to the Department of Health Canada. I'm prepared to write a 30- to 50-page report explaining how the system could work - how my proposal could work - how it meets all the principles of ethics they could think of, and how it would not violate what was not supposed to be violated in Bill C-47.
The Chair: Thank you.
I would like to rush this a little and move right on to my colleague, Madam Picard. She has to leave for other meetings, so we'll let her ask her questions before she goes.
[Translation]
Ms Pauline Picard: I'd like to answer Ms Stockholder and perhaps put a short question. I'm quite startled by her testimony.
First of all let me point out that there was a Royal Commission of Inquiry on new reproductive technologies that lasted four years. Mr. Manga will correct me if I'm wrong. It met 40,000 people and tabled a report with 293 recommendations. When we are told that we are acting hastily and legislate without due consideration, I do not believe this to be so. We've been waiting for this bill for four years. In my opinion, it is important for us to enact legislation on this matter.
Reference is made to cloning and we are told that people are getting frightened for no good reason because so far absolutely nothing has taken place. Let me point out that we do not have to wait until a scandal happens as was the case for contaminated blood for us to react and legislate. Although I'm neither a doctor nor a scientist, I have enough common sense to know that when animals have been successfully cloned, then it won't be long before they do the same with humans. I've learned from my own research and reading that certain labs in the US have already been successful in doing this. I think the point is worth making.
When I hear comments about the dignity of women and the idea that the problem of poor women will be settled by allowing them to choose the sex of their child, I am not at all in agreement. In my opinion, this is not an acceptable way to look at things. I consider this to be a double standard and completely discriminatory. I'd like to ask Ms Stockholder what she thinks about the surrogate mother who has just been inseminated with two embryos from different parents. When she gives birth, one of these two children will be given to one couple and the other twin will be given to another couple. And what about human dignity in all of this?
[English]
Mr. Mollard: Maybe I'll just answer the first couple of points about the fact that the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies took four years. With respect, indeed they gave a great amount of time and expense to consideration of the issues, but the report is not without criticism.
There has been a significant amount of criticism about some of the value assumptions that are played out in the final recommendations. I'm not sure this legislation has dealt with that criticism satisfactorily. So I think that's an important point.
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This debate goes on. Just to reiterate Ms Stockholder's point from the beginning, as far as the harm goes, I think it's up to Parliament to demonstrate clearly that this harm is real and pressing now, before criminal sanctions are invoked.
As far as the tainted blood example is concerned, I just want to make a distinction between tainted blood and a lot of the very difficult ethical dilemmas we have here. I think you're comparing apples and oranges. I'm not sure they're exactly the same thing.
I'll let Ms Stockholder answer the surrogate mother question.
Ms Stockholder: I don't think cloning can be compared to tainted blood. There is no doubt that tainted blood causes harm. It causes specific diseases.
Cloning is certainly new. It's certainly puzzling. It isn't clear that it causes harm. A clone would be like an identical twin. It would not guarantee... People talk about this in the press as though cloning opens the way to personal immortality. It does nothing of the sort. It merely brings a human being into existence in a rather peculiar way.
I'm not saying it should be allowed to proceed, but I don't think one needs the sledgehammer of the criminal law to regulate it.
As to the question of the surrogate mother of twins, I don't see how that touches upon human dignity any more than the surrogate mother of one does. Each of the twins, each of the children, will be wanted by the parent who has made this arrangement, and presumably loved and valued as their own child. It would be their own child, certainly as much as a child who is adopted.
If surrogacy itself is undesirable for fear that poor women will be treated with lesser dignity, because they have to make money in this way, one might instead address the issues of poverty, cutbacks in welfare payments, and cutbacks in unemployment insurance, instead of assuming that a mature woman does not have the right to use her body in this way, if she so chooses, and does not have the freedom of her own consent, as she ought to have.
I think it would make better sense to work on the social background that necessitates such a choice in the first place. I don't know that it's any less dignified to carry twins to term than it is to mop floors, if that's the way one has to make one's living.
[Translation]
Ms Pauline Picard: I'm sorry I referred to the tragedy of contaminated blood. I didn't want to make a comparison between cloning and contaminated blood. It was only an example. Do we have to wait until a tragedy takes place as in the case of contaminated blood? It was not my intention to make a comparison.
Ms Stockholder, I don't think we will ever agree. As far as surrogacy is concerned, I can understand that a couple unable to have children may wish to recourse to a surrogate mother but there must be some rules governing this situation. I am concerned about the surrogate mother carrying the twins. There is a risk of undermining human dignity in all of this. In all of these attempts there seems to be a trend to consider that women's bodies can be used as a lab and that is what worries me.
[English]
Ms Stockholder: Well, the woman herself is agreeing to use her body that way, and therefore nobody else is using the body of a woman as a lab. And though you disclaim the tainted blood analogy, in fact you continue to use it.
If in the case of tainted blood it were possible to have prevented that from happening, it would be clear that one was preventing a clear and certain harm. We know that the spread of AIDS is a harm. We do not know that we are preventing a clear and certain harm in this issue, and that's the trouble with using the criminal law in order to stop it.
Murray, did you want to add to that?
Mr. Mollard: I just wanted to add a couple of points, and I respect your value judgment about the dignity of that particular procedure.
We're suggesting, though, that this legislation is paternalistic, because it imports your value judgment, and that of others who agree with you, to prohibit the autonomy and freedom of choice for all women. That is an approach we don't think you should follow.
As far as the tainted blood scandal is concerned, I just want to make this final point. As parliamentarians, it's your role and responsibility to act with measured response to the harm. Now, obviously the public and the media will at times seek to create controversies, or exploit controversies, to whip up hysteria, but you've been elected to bring a measured response. I think it's your responsibility to act prudently, and we urge you to do that. We don't think this bill is a result of prudence.
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The Chair: I believe the professor wanted to make a comment.
Prof. Manga: I think the act should respond to actual and demonstrable harm, and to some degree even to expected future harm.
I'd like to know why Bill C-47 did not respond to all the harm we know about? There's a whole lot of demonstrable and actual harm under the existing system, which we know about. We know about the hundreds of women and couples who are going to the States and buying eggs, and they don't like to do that. We know about the high cost of doing so. We know about thousands of couples who are going abroad to adopt in circumstances they find unsavoury, uncomfortable, and perhaps even unethical. We know of many thousands of women, and obviously couples, who are going without children because they can't afford the technologies and services that are available here and elsewhere. Are those not harmed? They are indeed, and there is harm to hundreds of thousands of couples in Canada.
Why did this bill not address the issue of accessibility to such services? It's totally ignored in this act.
I can't understand responding to hypothetical or future harm when you hardly seem to have addressed existing harm to hundreds of thousands of couples in Canada.
The Chair: Thank you.
Ms Parrish.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish (Mississauga West, Lib.): I'm going to have to respond with a great degree of self-control. One of the jobs we have here... I don't want to get off on a tangent, as we seem to have done with regard to responding to future harm; that's not what we're here for. We're not here to worry about future harm. We're here to set Canadian standards, or to accept the standards set by Canadians during the circulation of the royal commission papers. They were circulated for at least two and a half years. We collected thousands of documents and responses. Our job here as Canadian legislators is to come up with a bill that truly reflects the status of thinking out there in that country.
Now, you're scientists and lawyers, and you're 1% of the population. You're not the regular garden-variety folks we're here to represent. We're not here necessarily to address future harm from what you're doing. We're here to address what the Canadian public wants right now, and I believe this bill does that.
We're also here to take input from you on fine-tuning. You're the second group we've had here today that pretty well gives the impression we should scrap the thing. To me, that's not productive input, and you're not going to get us to scrap it. That's not going to happen, so you should probably focus on points in here that can be finely tuned, that will address some of your major concerns, rather than just scrap the thing holus-bolus.
One example causes a chill down my spine. I'm sorry, Ms Stockholder, but when you say that wealthy people should have the opportunity to select the sex of their children, I find that absolutely offensive. I don't think human beings should have that right. If a fetus in the womb is more predisposed to certain genetic diseases if it's a male or female, I can see abortion occurring in those cases. But simply because you have two girls and you'd like a boy, and you're very wealthy...I think that's an abuse of human reproduction.
Let me finish. It's comments like that that cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. I think that's what causes the great Canadian public out there to say, hey, wait a minute, you scientists are a little weird. So that one bothered me.
I think when Ms Young talked about driving things underground and used the abortion example, that was a little inflammatory. One of the problems we have right now - and you repeatedly say that people have to go somewhere else to adopt children - is that we've allowed the medical profession at this point to pretty well regulate themselves as far as abortion is concerned. There are hospitals in Toronto that abort more babies than they deliver, and that's why we have a problem with adoption here in our own country.
So you're going to have to be patient with us. I don't want to speak for Joe, but you have to be patient with us if we're a little bit more reflective of common man, rather than esoteric man, and scientists and lawyers. We're here to reflect the concerns of the Canadian public.
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If I could ask you something, I'd ask each of you to pick one part of the bill that you think you can make a constructive comment on. Don't tell us to scrap the bill, because we're not going to.
Prof. Manga: First, I didn't say we should scrap the bill. I said we should scrap certain sections of it. I don't know how you've learned - whether common, garden-variety folks have told you - about what to prohibit and what not to prohibit. I can't believe ordinary people said we should not allow the reimbursement of expenses that people incur in donating eggs, for example. I don't believe that for a moment. I don't think there is any such study that will demonstrate that's what ordinary people are saying.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Is that the one point you want to focus on to ask us to change?
Prof. Manga: No, that's just an example.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Well, I've asked you a specific question. I've asked each one of you to pick one section you'd like us to alter that would suit you better. Rather than telling us you can't do this, you can't do that, you shouldn't be doing this, pick a section you'd like to see us take some positive input on.
Prof. Manga: I'm already on record saying scrap subclause 6(2).
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Which one is 6(2)?
Prof. Manga: It forbids the reimbursement of expenses.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: So that is your most important point in the bill that you'd like to see us change?
Prof. Manga: That's right.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Thank you.
Dr. MacLachlan.
Dr. MacLachlan: When you talk about us being out of touch with ordinary persons, one-third of the composition of the National Council on Bioethics is lay representatives. They're not lawyers, they're not doctors, they're not scientists; they're lay representatives. We have mandated that each of the research ethics boards in Canada have lay representation. Through our various workshops, etc., we ensure that there's substantial lay representation. I think your point is apt; we need to make sure we are not living in ivory towers.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Am I allowed to interrupt for one second? Do you have any priests and nuns sitting on those boards? Do you have any Roman Catholics?
Dr. MacLachlan: Oh, yes. Our research ethics board at Kentville in Halifax had two priests sitting on it, actually.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: They have no problem with putting together sperm from animals and eggs from human beings?
Dr. MacLachlan: The process I outlined in my presentation would clearly forbid that. That's the sensational part that I think could cloud this whole debate. That's not going on. That's not going to pass any regulatory body that exists right now. You don't need to criminalize it because it ain't gonna happen.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Did those people you point to have any difficulties with fertilizing an egg in a Petri dish and using it for an experiment outside the body and then terminating it after 14 days?
Dr. MacLachlan: Those people would be extensively involved in that discussion. I'm not saying there was unanimity at every research ethics board in Canada on every research discussion, but those points are brought forward and debated in very detailed discussions, because I think that's an important perspective to have. There are other perspectives, such as the infertile couple trying to look for a technology that would allow them to succeed where the other 92% of the population has. Infertility is twice as common as diabetes at 8%.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Dr. MacLachlan, can you pick one section of the bill that you'd like us to give serious consideration to adjusting?
Dr. MacLachlan: It's hard to pick only one. I would have chosen perhaps clause 6, but I don't think we should be picking on the same one. I have great concerns with not being able to reimburse research subjects for reasonable expenses. We cannot be into coercion or enticement, but reasonable expenses are incurred and I don't know how we can expect people to live on their altruism and contribute personally the costs of research when they're research subjects. I just think it's going to absolutely dry up.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: That's a concern we've had from other scientists, so I thank you for that.
Ms Young.
Ms Young: First of all, I object to the notion that we have to say what we would change in one particular section. That's not the thrust of my views or my arguments here. But I would object to the criminalization of reasonable compensation for the practices outlined in clauses 5 and 6 in particular. Those are the assisted reproduction issues.
I just want to respond to your point about the abortion context. Whether it's inflammatory or not I think depends ultimately on your position about abortion and whether one believes in a relatively pro-choice position or not. I do think that as legislators you're not simply there to do whatever the public wants. I think you're there to do it in an educated way, and one of the things that involves is taking very seriously what the effect in the trenches is going to be of the actions you take.
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Sometimes what looks like a very simple, clear, categorical response that would be supported by every ordinary Canadian is going to have an effect that could undermine utterly the purpose behind the exercise. That is the thrust of my brief, and that's what I've tried to argue. I think that's a very serious problem with many parts of this bill.
The final point I'd make here is that your comments to Dr. MacLachlan and to Ms Stockholder were putting everything into the same basket. I think it is unfair to put the cloning issue or the possibility of hybriding animal and humans in the same basket, for example, as sperm donation for reasonable compensation. I just don't think that's fair in the context of this debate. I think most people would agree that this bill covers a wide range of topics.
Thank you.
Ms Stockholder: I will start with the specific, and then I want to address other parts of your question.
I suppose if there's a specific part, in terms of tinkering - it wouldn't satisfy me, but if all you can do is tinker then I'd be happy to tinker - it would be to separate the notion of requiring consent for the use of fetal tissue or reproductive tissue for research from requiring consent for the use of tissue of donation in view of a birth.
It seems to me those are very, very different things. If my egg is to be used to generate a child, then I want my consent for that. If some fetal tissue or reproductive tissue is to be used in research, that's entirely different. At the present time organs removed from surgery performed for illnesses and so on - these organs are used for research. Nobody is - and I don't think they should be - required to consent to this. It's like saying do we have to consent if there's research done on fecal matter in sewage plants, and so on. So I would like that changed.
As to the issue... I didn't say that I think it's okay for wealthy women to select the sex of their child, implying I don't think it's okay for poorer women. According to the Baird report, most Canadians, if they had this choice, wouldn't avail themselves of it. Of those who would, something like 51%, slightly over 50%, would opt for girls.
There isn't any evidence that if people had this power to select for gender that it would in any way skew the population of Canada in general. It might for specific groups, but that's another issue. The general harm that could flow from it hasn't flown. If there were evidence that it would skew the population in a disastrous way, then I would agree that measures should be taken.
I think this ought to be available to all women. It would be desirable for it to be equally available if the facts of the matter and the economic reality were such as to make that impossible, because I don't think at the present time we could argue that this ought to be under the health services, for the obvious reason that the health services don't have enough money.
As to the Canadian standards, I would like to read you a sentence from the Baird report. Regarding preconception arrangements, she says:
- We found that opinions on this issue are diverse and difficult to catalogue, ranging from
outright opposition to the practice in whatever form it might take, to acceptance and even
encouragement of the practice.
- And so on. That's true on every issue. Yet I don't think it's clear that this document or the
legislation that has grown out of it does represent Canadian standards, because of the way in
which the reasoning goes. The reasoning in the report is that there are underlying values. These
values, such as equality and the dignity of persons and so on, were elicited from respondents in
this two-tier questionnaire about fundamental values. As the report says, ``This neither
reflects, nor too greatly transcends'' - so it's a little hard to know what it means - ``the actual
responses of people''.
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But a further point, and more important, is that even if it did represent that, part of legislation is involved in protecting the rights of minorities and individuals from majority opinion. That's why we have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That's why there is a Bill of Rights in the United States.
It's a very foundational principle of democracy that though majority opinion is extremely important in most areas, individual rights and the rights of minorities must be protected from what has classically, famously, been called the tyranny of the majority. So for our legislators to assume that their only role is to reflect the majority seems to me a violation of the very foundational principles of democracy.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: If I might, Madam Chair -
The Chair: I'll get back to you when -
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: Could I just add a very short comment to that, Madam Chair?
The Chair: Okay.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I didn't want to imply that we are here to reflect strictly the ideals of the majority, but I think we are here to set standards. Those standards are based on the fact that we fund much of what goes on through tax dollars. We're here as a filtering system, and what we're saying through this legislation is, don't even get into these areas, because we're not funding them now. This isn't an area we want you to go into. Concentrate on areas that we and the Canadian public find more acceptable.
The Chair: We'll go to Mr. Volpe, and then if we have time we'll come back.
Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton - Lawrence, Lib.): Madam Chair, thank you very much. I hope we do have time. I apologize to the intervenors for not having been here from the very beginning. I realize I may do them injustice by asking some of these questions, but I hope that in the course of the dialogue some issues will come forward.
You'll forgive me if I've misunderstood, I hope, but please take the liberty to correct me. In your responses and in the presentations I heard, I had the distinct impression that the issue that stands foremost - not singularly, but foremost - in your mind right now is the question of compensation for donation; the compensation of expenses that are incurred, putting some people to great expense and unfairness. Secondly, it might lead to a situation where the entire system might collapse for fear there wouldn't an incentive for participation.
If I were to tell you now, even though you're shaking your head, that this committee might consider a transitional period whereby we would test that out, would your opposition be as determined as it appears? Secondly, if I were to tell you that the committee were considering some formula whereby those expenses incurred would be defrayed, or would allow for a system where some of those expenses would be reimbursed, would that, too, abate some of your vehement opposition?
Prof. Manga: Mr. Volpe, you certainly misunderstood what I said.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: Okay.
Prof. Manga: What I objected to... My main concern is about access to needed medical services on the part of the infertile. That was my main concern, and I think this bill does nothing for them. In fact, it inhibits access. It makes it very difficult. That was my main complaint.
One of the solutions to this is to eliminate subclause 6(2), which prohibits not compensation but reimbursement of expenses incurred by those who wish to donate eggs or sperm for therapeutic or research purposes. We allow in Canada such reimbursement for virtually everything else. Social experimentation is what you're doing here, and on the most vulnerable people.
We allow reimbursement of expenses when they submit a specimen or what have you, or get involved in clinical trials. You don't object to that. Nobody's arguing that we should disallow it. We give blood. We give bone marrow. I sit on the unrelated bone marrow registry program, which is part of the Canadian Red Cross, and I have a very good sense of how much expense we incur in getting a donor to give bone marrow for a needed case - a patient. Sometimes it runs to many thousands of dollars, and we allow that.
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Mr. Joseph Volpe: Just a moment. I think I gave you an indication that you could correct me, and I'm glad that you took the opportunity, but I also gave you an indication I would prefer to dialogue.
Prof. Manga: Yes.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: If we could go then for a moment on the question of compensation, because that leads me to -
Prof. Manga: Reimbursement, please.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: Reimbursement? Okay. Compensation. Reimbursement - we'll use your word.
Prof. Manga: There's a big difference there.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: Yes. I think we're both in a trade where words mean a great many things, and I think Ms Young is probably in a career where words are the weapons of modern warfare, but...
If we are going to be dealing with reimbursement, I think you've raised a couple of other questions, and you yourself entered into a word - you said we're dealing here with social experimentation.
We may engage in a philosophical and ideological discussion, Mr. Manga. I'm not sure that's going to be terribly productive, except insofar as it will give us an indication as to the acceptability of a bill that attempts to establish the social acceptability of the philosophical discussions and the ideological parameters of any social experimentation or social acceptance.
I do believe that one of the areas I am involved in is in collecting the public view as to what is acceptable under social experimentation. That doesn't mean that someone else's methods of collecting that information are any less significant than my own, but this is the area in which I practice my living.
Do you think it is appropriate to engage in the kind of social experimentation listed under the prohibitions of Bill C-47?
Prof. Manga: I'm not sure I understood your question, but let me answer it to the best of my ability.
I don't think it's appropriate -
Mr. Joseph Volpe: Okay. Ms Young?
Prof. Manga: Sorry, I'm not finished yet.
I don't think it's appropriate for the government to have legislation where they have no evidence, no research, no survey results that say the public wants to limit or prohibit the reimbursement of expenses of donors. You don't have any evidence of that kind. What we have is lots of evidence that the public actually believes and practises just the opposite.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: I think we're going to differ on that. Let me -
Prof. Manga: Could you give me an example, sir, of any other donation where we disallow reimbursement of expenses?
Mr. Joseph Volpe: Do you drive?
Prof. Manga: Yes.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: Do you sign the donor card that's on the back of your licence?
Prof. Manga: Right. Could you tell me the expenses I would incur in the process of dying so that -
Mr. Joseph Volpe: No, I'm sorry -
Prof. Manga: But there are no expenses involved.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: But we do this sort of thing virtually all of the time. We give blood. We have a voluntary blood donation system, and I think there is ample evidence that a voluntary system of donation works in the long run much more effectively than one that involves reimbursement or compensation.
Since I was willing to give on the question of hypothetical discussion, I gave you another hypothesis, which you did not accept, and I said okay, I can deal with that.
Now let me turn to Ms Young.
Ms Young: I'll try to respond directly to this.
First of all, as far as I'm concerned, the ``least worst'' option would be to allow some compensation or reimbursement - and I'm not going to get into that argument - for expenses. I indicated before that that would be preferable, but I want to underline something I think most of us made in our initial presentations.
The concern most of us have is with the use, as Ms Stockholder put it, of the sledgehammer of the criminal law here, not with the idea that some of these practices are unacceptable. Most Canadians, I'm quite willing to agree, are going to find cloning or animal-human hybrids unacceptable. The thing we are taking issue with is the use of the criminal law to deal with that.
Finally, and to reiterate -
Mr. Joseph Volpe: But as a lawyer, you find that's a technique that is used in the legislative process virtually all the time.
Ms Young: No, not all the time.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: Virtually.
Ms Young: There are so many things in society - I can't even begin to think of examples right now - that most of us would think obnoxious, that are not the subject of criminal legislation.
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The criminal law is generally reserved for issues that cause demonstrable harm, and this is something Ms Stockholder addressed in her presentation. It's the last resort. It's Draconian in many respects. It's not simply a response to anything that public opinion is united about. I don't want to get sidetracked on that.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: Another discussion.
Ms Young: On public opinion, Professor Manga was focusing on ovum donation as something that he felt was very acceptable. I think it's not so clear. I'm not so sure Canadians, apart from the infertile, are so clear on that. There's another example that is much more acceptable, and that is sperm donation and the idea of reasonable compensation for sperm donation, which has been going on in this country for many, many years.
The analogy there with blood works so effectively. Obviously, there are sensibilities involved with sperm donation that are rather different from giving blood. They're not exactly going to be setting up the booths in the shopping malls and so on. In this case, this is something that is rather more sensitive and delicate and it may well be that -
Mr. Joseph Volpe: Ms Young, I find those words perhaps appropriate for the discussion that neither one of us wants to have: that's the philosophical one. For the scientific one, I find that they are rather emotive when we're dealing with the objective. We could probably be rather specific and talk about just how much it costs so that we understand exactly what the disincentive might be were we to go on a voluntary system.
I've had people in my office who are engaged in that business who have gone through detail after detail about what is involved. So I'm coming at this rather dispassionately. Just don't be afraid.
Ms Young: The sperm donation point I was just making was in response to your point about public opinion. You felt fairly assured about what public opinion was on this. Again, these practices raise a number of different issues and different levels of intensity of public opinion. Put it that way.
Compensation for sperm donations is at one end. The idea of compensation for surrogacy is something that might be at a different point on the spectrum. That's the only point I was making.
First of all, for most of us here, the issue is one of the use of the criminal law of power. My argument is not simply that it's not appropriate, but that it doesn't work. It hasn't worked historically with socially contested values. It's not likely to work this time.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: So is the answer not to use it at all?
Ms Young: In my view that's right. In my view the answer is a very carefully and seriously put together regulatory mechanism within which one can build in prohibitions. My view is the answer is not the simple raw use of the criminal law power.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: You've read the entire bill and you know -
Ms Young: Absolutely. I did.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: - that there is a provision for the establishment of a regulatory agency that reports through the minister to the House of Commons.
Ms Young: With respect, we haven't seen this, and all that is before us now is Bill C-47.
Ms Stockholder: Furthermore, you can't regulate -
Mr. Joseph Volpe: What's before all of us is a bill, which is one stage of a very clearly outlined, three-stage process that the government had put out for public consideration as early as last June when the bill was read in the House at second reading.
Ms Young: I know.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: So it's not as if somebody is doing some cloak-and-dagger stuff behind the scenes.
Ms Young: No, but as I mentioned earlier, many things could happen. This bill could be passed, God forbid, the government could change -
Mr. Joseph Volpe: God forbid! You're right.
Ms Young: We may never see the regulatory mechanism.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: It's a fair concern. Thank you.
.1645
Ms Stockholder: You can't regulate activities that you criminalize, because once you criminalize them you lose the capacity to regulate them.
In the proposal, the second stage you suggest is to regulate through both provincial and federal enactments what remains possible after you eliminate the activities that are banned under Bill C-47.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: That's fair.
Ms Stockholder: That's one of the problems with using the Criminal Code. You then no longer have the capacity to regulate them.
Mr. Joseph Volpe: What remains in the bill, Madam, is that once you go past the list of the prohibitions, there are those activities that are still not only permissible, but they're also even encouraged. What is suggested, though, by the bill is not that they be eliminated, but that they be regulated so that we do not deviate from the intent, as expressed through a variety of consultative processes of the reproductive technologies. The bill takes great pains, and so do the accompanying documents, to identify what the problem areas might be: those who are at risk, those who need the technology, and how the technology might develop and under what circumstances. That's what's left from the bill.
So when you say, yes, after you get past the banned items, the prohibited items, the regulatory agency is there for what is left, what is left is a considerable amount. A considerable amount addresses the ``need'' - to use someone else's word - of a significant element in our society. I don't know whether it's a great quantity in percentage terms, but it's still significant, because the government, the people, still recognize that those in need are significant. I don't see the same pessimism you do.
Mr. Mollard: Perhaps there is not a lot of disagreement on this point in the sense that when it comes to the next phase we'll be open-minded about the approach that's taken and give you comments about how we think it can be improved, etc. The difference that's occurring here is that some of the activities prohibited are ones in which we don't see the harms out there in really substantial terms for the need to prohibit them at this time. We think there are opportunities to use a regulatory process to deal with any harms that may occur for some of the actions described in the legislation. That's the difference, and we may disagree on that.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Volpe. As usual, you've used up your time and somebody else's, probably mine. So if I could just get a word in before -
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: You're in charge. You can do what you want.
The Chair: I'm going to ask a question.
Canadians are very concerned about this Bill C-47, but morally what I want to ask you is when and where we draw the line on genetic research. I want to know when we accept mortality and stop trying to play God.
My other question is regarding cloning. I don't think you see this as being harmful, but don't you think it will upset our entire social order? Will the cloning be your property or will it be that of your brother or your sister? How do you see cloning being the responsibility of the person who's cloned, I guess?
Dr. MacLachlan: Perhaps I can start to address those. Where do we draw the line in respect of genetics? That's why we need a very comprehensive policy and regulatory framework to help us there. Right now, for example, the line seems to be drawn with respect to germ cell research, where we would actually get in and muck with the genes that could be perpetuated.
You probably have a number of people in your constituency who have children with cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy. You probably have some Alzheimer-type dementia patients in your constituency. For us not to be able to use our current knowledge in order to reduce the prevalence or to try to correct the problem once it's identified early...I think society would support us under a carefully regulated approach to this, to proceed to use our current knowledge.
There are concerns. There is a line and the problem is the line is going to change with time. If you criminalize it, the problem is that line is welded in the steel of the bridge. It cannot be adjusted somewhat.
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So if we do find there may be one aspect of germ cell research where it is self-evident that this is safe and there is no consequence, we don't have to go in and amend a criminal law. The criminal law is standing there all by itself in the absence of a fully integrated regulatory approach.
With respect to cloning, right now we have drawn the line, certainly in terms of our regulatory body, in saying it's forbidden. The code of conduct says it is forbidden and you would be deemed to be in breach of conduct, breach in your standard of practice. In my case, I would lose my licence to be a physician in my province and I would expect in yours. We have set that standard.
I think we can draw lines and I think we have bodies that can draw lines. I do not think you need to draw the line with legislation. I certainly do not think you need to draw the line with legislation alone.
If you end up with your regulatory framework and say we are all in agreement that there is never going to be a reason to have an animal-human hybrid, I think things like that are self-evident. It's just that they're not where the issues are. The issues are the 8% of people who are infertile. The issues are the number of other people in your practice with genetic disorders. I don't think you'd have any disagreement about the animal-human hybrid. Why harp it as a part of isolated legislation in the absence of the comprehensive policy framework? It just seems to be the wrong way to do it.
The Chair: Thank you, Doctor.
Ms Stockholder: Can I add something to that? In terms of the animal-human hybrid, I agree in general if what we're talking about is actually trying to take the sperm of an animal and a human egg, but I think the term casts a fairly wide net. In a certain sense you could say that using techniques to get pigs or whatever to produce human insulin is fooling around with animal-human hybrids. I know that's not the intention, but the wording as such is to have the capacity to frighten off a lot of research that people could find legitimate.
Certainly some of the wording suggests that, and I know that's not the intention, but I want to support what you say about the protocols on research. That seems to me the correct way to go.
About cloning, it's not that it's not a serious issue, but I don't think it's one to get hysterical about in a way, because I don't know how many people if they have the option would choose to have a child by means of cloning. I know I wouldn't. The very notion of bringing up myself or somebody who looks so much like me...I mean one is enough. It seems to me most people would have that reaction of not wanting it. That doesn't mean nobody would want it, but I don't think this is the way to go about it. I think it's a serious enough issue that it should be addressed on its own and separately from the general issue of reproductive technologies.
The Chair: Thank you.
Do you have any other questions? We do have a few minutes, and we have some housekeeping to do.
Mrs. Carolyn Parrish: I just have one little comment about criminalizing things. You know that in fact there are many laws on our books that are criminal activities where people look the other way. Euthanasia is one of them. In certain cases the law is there but it's not brought down with a sledgehammer on someone's head. One would expect that as the regulations are developed and this whole thing gets into a working process and it is observed for a few months and years, you're going to see a little bit more flexibility there.
I respect you for what you've said today. I find it fascinating to listen to people who are very involved in this. You're devoted to it; it's your life. It helps us. I don't want to sound confrontational. I'm not. I'm also not particularly religious. I'm probably more leaning on the science side myself.
I thank you very much and I just don't want to leave the wrong impression with you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mrs. Parrish.
Mr. Volpe, do you have any last words of wisdom?
Mr. Joseph Volpe: No. I just want to echo all the positive comments that some of my colleagues on both sides have made. It's instructive. This is part of the process, and it helps us to consider the bill in the context of those who have taken the time to come forward. Thank you.
The Chair: I too would like to say thank you for the very interesting discussion we had here today.
Yes, Professor, I'll let you have a word in just one second. I always tend to run out of time, I think.
Thank you for being here. We really do appreciate it, and we do respect your thoughts and we will take them under consideration.
Professor, I'll let you have the last word.
Prof. Manga: Thank you very much. I just wanted to add a few points to what Dr. MacLachlan said.
There are quite a number of technologies that are now being used in the health care system that could be further improved and refined with certain medical and scientific research, which this law would disallow.
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We are talking about ways to improve the technical expertise of people who are professionals in the field, such as occupational groups, for example, that do things like ICSI. There is lots of research being done that allows us to treat infertile men and women, and it is really research that doesn't offend public standards of morality in any way. The way this law is written, it disallows a whole lot of research of that type. I'm sure you heard many examples of that on Monday and indeed in the many briefs you've received.
I think it behoves your committee to take a hard look at the way this act is structured, how it's worded, and to make the amendments so that it doesn't foreclose some of the very work that is being done in Canada and in fact abroad. What you have here, of course, is the possibility of Canadians falling behind the kind of research that is being done virtually everywhere else. I frankly don't understand why we should be doing that.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We're going to adjourn for one minute and go in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]