Part III: The Canadian Situation
1. Time Line on Canadian Stem Cell Research and Cloning

October 1989: An order-in-council establishes the Royal Commission on Reproductive Technologies.

Its mandate is to “inquire into and report upon current and potential medical and scientific developments related to new reproductive technologies, considering in particular their social, ethical, health, research, legal and economic implications and the public interest, and recommend what policies and safeguards should be applied.”

November 1993: The Royal Commission issues its report consisting of two volumes, titled, “Proceed with Care,” It made 293 recommendations. Fifteen volumes of research are also published.

The recommendations include the establishment of a National Reproductive Technologies Commission, restricting access to in vitro fertilization, allowing embryos to be experimented upon for up to 14 days post-fertilisation, regulating donor insemination and oocyte donations, requiring licensing for assisted conception services, and generally permitting only non-commercial services.

The report also recommends that research on ectogenesis[1] , cloning, animal/human hybrids, collection and maturation of oocytes from aborted human foetuses and some other practices be prohibited under the Criminal Code.

After the Commission’s report is issued, the federal government calls for a voluntary moratorium on the part of researchers on some of the practices, which is generally ignored. The government then brings forward a bill regulating some of the aspects of the fertility industry, which died when Parliament was dissolved in 1995.

May 2001: Federal (Liberal) government tables new legislation, C-56, that it claims will ban human cloning. Health Minister Allan Rock (a Catholic) tells the Parliamentary Health Committee that research using what he calls “human reproductive materials” has the potential to bring “significant benefits to Canadians and, therefore, this research should be encouraged."

The bill allows:

• research on the extra embryos created for in-vitro fertilization with the donors' consent at any time during the first 14 days of development;
• the use in experimentation of stem cells derived from existing embryos;
• surrogate motherhood or so-called rent-a-wombs (although not for profit);
• the creation of chimeras-"a human embryo into which a cell of a non-human life form has been introduced";
• research involving specified combinations of human and animal DNA.

December 2001: The House of Commons Health Committee, in its recommendations on reproductive and experimental technologies, supports the destruction of human embryos for research purposes. The committee, while opposed to the creation of embryos for the purpose of research, would permit licensed researchers to use so-called surplus embryos from fertility treatment (in vitro fertilization) "subject to the consent of the donors."

February 2002: Quebec Minister of State for Science and Technology David Cliche announces a provincial ban on all destructive research involving human embryos. Under new guidelines on ethical research announced on January 10, the creation and use of stem cells extracted from human embryos is forbidden. So are all forms of human cloning and the creation of animal-human hybrids. Unlike many bans in other countries, the Quebec prohibitions also apply to privately funded research.

March 5, 2002, Canadian Institutes of Health Research issues guidelines allowing human embryos that had been left over and were donated by parents, may be used for medical research before the age of 14 days. The consent of the parents or “donors” is the key element in judging the ethics. The guidelines allow The CIHR proposed to establish a Stem Cell Oversight Committee to review funding decisions. The guidelines prohibit the funding of human cloning, including cloning for research or so-called therapeutic cloning. With the government’s legislation in Committee, pro-life advocates accuse the CIHR of pre-empting Parliament by issuing funding guidelines before there is a law regulating or prohibiting the practices in question.

May 2002[2]: Noted U.S. expert Dianne Irving issues a detailed technical analysis of bill C-56. Dr. Irving points to numerous problems with the bill: it makes no differentiation between sexual (in vivo and in vitro) and a-sexual (cloning) reproduction; many reproductive terms are not mentioned in the legislation and thus fall outside its jurisdiction; it does not define or insufficiently defines numerous vital terms such as embryo, clone, gene, genetic, human being, person, free and informed consent, cloning, thus making it practically impossible to enforce the prohibitions and regulations. Furthermore, its definition of cloning applies to only one technique, thus leaving the door open to other forms of cloning.

Irving, who had examined dozens of such pieces of legislation from around the world, calls the Canadian bill the “most deceptive” bill she has yet encountered. Irving’s warning marks the beginning of concerted pro-life opposition to the bill and the effort to defeat it outright.

Campaign Life Coalition, Canada’s main pro-life lobbying group receives much criticism from within the pro-life community, including pro-life MP’s for its “all or nothing” approach and is accused of being opposed to the “incremental approach”. Ultimately, these criticisms leave the group virtually alone in opposing the bill. In the end, even the representative of the Canadian Conference of Catholic bishops in his presentation to the Senate at the 11^th hour, supports the idea that a Catholic could vote for the unamended bill in good conscience and that perhaps any bill, no matter how flawed is better than none.

December 2002: Dr. Irving presents her conclusions to the House Committee examining the legislation, (that has been renamed C-13). In her written testimony to the committee, Dr. Irving points out that the legislation is all but completely useless failing to prohibit the procedures it claims to prohibit. According to Dr. Irving, by the use of false definitions, Bill C-13 would even allow for human reproductive cloning. She warns that under the legislation legally valid informed consent will not be possible and she presents compelling reasons why “no bill is better than a flawed bill” such as bill C-13.

January 2003: Campaign Life Coalition issues a warning and an appeal to pro-life supporters that the C-13 is the “most dangerous piece of legislation since 1969”. Comparing C-13 with Pierre Trudeau’s notorious Omnibus Bill of 1969, which legalized abortion on demand. CLC writes in a newsletter, “If stem cell research is allowed, a Pandora’s box of ethical horrors will be opened as scientists will demand a never-ending source of stem cells; they will demand that any limits on the research be lifted and that any source be mined for their stem cells: so-called leftover embryos from IVF treatments, the remains from abortions, the creation of clones.”

Throughout the history of the legislation, the media unanimously echoes the government's claim that the bill bans human cloning and regulates the use of embryonic stem cells.

December 2002: The Health Committee amends the bill to read, “Persons who seek to undergo assisted reproduction procedures must not be discriminated against, including on the basis of their sexual orientation or marital status.”

February 2002: John Bryden (L, Wentworth-Burlington), a pro-abortion MP, who supports embryonic stem cell research, points out an inconsistency in the bill regarding its supposed prohibition of the creation of human embryos for research. Bryden notes how one clause in the bill specifically permits the creation of human embryos for the purpose of instruction and better working of in vitro fertilization. Under the prohibited activities section 5 (1) b the bill reads "No person shall knowingly create an in vitro embryo for any purpose other than creating a human being or improving or providing instruction in assisted reproduction procedures."

June 2002: the government recesses for the summer on June 19 without voting on C-13, giving pro-life lobbyists and supporters the opportunity to approach MP’s in their constituencies over the summer.

June 2002: The federal funding agency, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, is petitioned by the Stem Cell Network (SCN) to fund two projects that will use embryos for research. Dr. Ron Worton, the SCN's scientific director, said that scientists are tired of waiting for government to act and that the "courtesy" of not going ahead with such research will soon end. Worton added "There is nothing that we are doing or contemplating doing that would be outlawed or banned by the legislation as it stands."

September 2003: Campaign Life Coalition issues a CD ROM explaining their criticisms of the legislation and distributed them to MPs. They ask MP’s to defeat the legislation saying no amendments could make it supportable. CLC says the bill is more than merely “flawed” but that its premise assumes the non-personhood of the embryo and treats them as mere raw material for experimentation.

September 2003: Despite that the government had, in June, declared that C-13 is a top priority, a vote continues to be delayed as more pro-life MP’s in opposition and in the Liberal backbenches continue to oppose it.

September 2003: Liberal MP Paul Szabo (Lib, Mississauga South) brings forward a list of amendments meant to overturn some of the worst provisions of the bill. Szabo is the most prominent of the Liberal opponents of the bill. He would later have to fight his own caucus and party leader to keep the nomination for his Mississauga South seat at the next election.

October 2003: The Liberal government whip, Don Boudria, "calls the question" and ends debate and any possible amendments to C-13.The government also refuses a request by Paul Szabo to reprint the bill so that it would reflect the already passed amendments and MPs could know what they are voting for.

November 2003: C-13 is passed in the House of Commons with a 149-109 vote but Parliament prorogues before the bill could move on to the Senate. It is renumbered C-6.

Campaign Life Coalition contacts in Parliament said the vote came only after a deal was struck with the New Democrat MP’s. 40 MPs abstained.

Campaign Life Coalition Director of Research Hilary White wrote in her clause-by-clause critique, “The bill's evasiveness, ambiguity and scientific inaccuracy on the subject of cloning and the creation of embryos exclusively for experimentation, has opened the door to human cloning. What is worse, once the bill is passed the public perception of urgency to prohibit cloning will pass. The procedures used to create clones will quietly go on in research labs protected by the bill's faulty definitions and unhindered by any further calls for prohibition.”

November 2003: The Bishops of British Columbia explicitly urge MPs to vote against the legislation. Archbishop Adam Exner of Vancouver, Bishop David Monroe of Kamloops, Bishop Eugene Cooney of Nelson, and Bishop Raymond Roussin of Victoria all signed a letter to Members of Parliament in April, arguing, "When it comes to killing innocent human beings for the sake of medical research, half-way limiting measures, i.e., beginning a regulated practice through this legislation, will not do. If human beings are somebodies, treating them under any circumstances as mere biological material flagrantly contravenes human dignity. We hope you agree… Human embryos are little somebodies, to be sure. But treating every human being as a somebody is also surely a core principle for any public policy worthy of consideration."

December 2003: Campaign Life Coalition distributes its 22-page “A Final Critique of C-13” to Senators. The Critique says the bill’s fundamental problem is its flawed philosophy that assumes a human embryo is not a person. “The bill is founded upon a materialistic philosophy that assumes a human being is no more than a biological machine, a collection of cells and biochemical functions. It presents a utilitarian

concept of the value of an individual human being: that value derives from his or her usefulness to another, whether it be for disease therapies or the enjoyment of parenthood.”

December 2003: The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops issues a letter to Senators, many of whom are at least nominally Catholic, taking a morally neutral stand on the bill. While it says that the legislation was "deeply flawed” the letter adds that "there is much in the proposals that could be supported." In the end, the letter from CCCB head Bishop Berthelet does not give clear direction to Catholic Senators, other than to leave them to "discern the best way to protect human life and dignity after reflecting on all of the resources available to them."

Campaign Life Coalition responds, “No matter what good there possibly is in Bill C-13, no amount of good can cover the evil that's in there with the sanction of destructive research on human embryos.”

February 2004: The representative of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), Bishop Terrence Prendergast, tells the Senate Committee during final hearings that there is no one moral way to vote on the bill. When asked directly whether the “Church really does not endorse this bill,” Prendergast replies, “The Bishops' Conference has not taken a position on that. It has simply laid out before you the difficult challenge that you have. I think the opportunity for a Catholic legislator is to allow his or her faith and mind and heart to be infused with the tradition and values, but also to see what is possible.

“If a person is informed by faith, informed by reason, and makes the proper decision, I do not think anyone can reproach that person.”

The Senate committee refused to hear presentations from pro-life groups. Both CLC, the political arm of the pro-life movement, and Life Canada, the educational arm, were denied an opportunity to present before the senate committee on the grounds that the pro-life position was already being presented by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

March 2004: C-13 is passed by a unanimous vote by the Senate social affairs committee on March 3.

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[1] Ectogenesis: the creation of mammalian life outside the womb.

[2] Irving’s analysis can be read at http://www.lifesite.net/features/stemcellembryo/IRVINGBILLc56analysis.html