44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 13, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak on Bill C-39 regarding medical assistance in dying, which proposes to delay for another year the implementation of provisions that would expand the availability of medical assistance in dying to those whose sole underlying condition is mental illness. I think we really need to start looking at how we got to this stage.
It went to the Senate and we had no issues with it, to some degree. Most of Parliament was fine with it. However, when it came back, the Senate had added in a provision with respect to one's mental state.
I started thinking about the many people I have spoken with over the years when I was either a mayor or now as a member of Parliament. When people would phone me, they would usually start the conversation easily by talking about whatever issues they were dealing with. Then they would start talking about themselves. I do not know if it is me, my voice or my appearance, but they would open up to me and start telling me about how they were going through these troubles and the difficulties they were facing. It was not necessarily financial. Sometimes that was the trigger, but most times it was their mental state itself. As they would start talking, I would start getting very worried about people like this who have a mental condition and whether there was somebody there to help them. As they kept talking, sometimes they would break down crying or get angry, and that would change throughout the whole conversation.
However, as I was dealing with them, I would hope that they had some kind of assistance from some medical professional. If they did not, then who would be there to help them? I am worried this is the help they are potentially looking for, but I hope that will never be the case. When I was speaking with these individuals, I would usually try to steer the conversation gently and ask if they had a psychologist or psychiatrist working with them. They would say something like they did, but that person does not know anything, and they would start getting angry again. Then I would start to get worried because I did not want to see them in that state of agitation. I wanted to try to help them as best I could. I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, so I do not have the expertise, but I would try to at least direct them to where there was help.
Probably one of my biggest concerns with respect to this legislation is the fact that we are relying on our medical professionals more than ever. We all know that there is an extreme shortage of doctors and nurses right across this country, so when we start talking about people having the ability to apply for MAID due to their mental state, how is that going to help them if there are no doctors to assist them?
My next concern is whether we are really there to assist them, to cure them or help them out of that state. That to me is where it seems like we as a society have failed on so many fronts.
When I was talking to a grade 10 class during COVID in 2021, the students asked what I thought the number one issue in Canada was going to be when we came out of COVID. I said that was very easy because the number one issue was going to be the mental state of Canadians. It was surprising that the class all responded with, “Really?” I asked them what they thought it was going to be and they said that it was the economy. I said that was not something we really had to worry about and that once people started getting out again and businesses started opening up that, yes, it may be slow at the start, but eventually we would get back to some sense of normal again, but that the mental state of Canadians was something that was going to be with us for years. That was just during COVID.
Unfortunately, before COVID, the mental state of Canadians was suffering. That is something the current government has yet to help with. It promised in the last election that it was going to put more money toward the mental state of Canadians and assist with more doctors, medications and facilities to help those people. However, as we debate here today, it seems that it is easier for the government to offer medical assistance in dying instead of assisting them in achieving the mental state they so deserve.
I have spoken to many people, and they have asked what this MAID legislation is about. Why are so many people concerned about it? I said it is not so much about MAID. It is more about the addition of someone with a mental illness, without a foreseeable death, to actually apply for MAID. People have given me looks, asking what I mean by that. I have said that someone who has a mental illness, depending on what mental illness they have, may or may not qualify for MAID. I would still get people asking why there would not be a doctor, psychologist or somebody there to help them, as opposed to offering them MAID. I replied that that was a very good point and that it is one of the reasons I am speaking out against this legislation.
With moving Bill C-39 forward to extend it for another year, Canadians also need to understand some of the legislation that we are putting forward in the House and how it is not necessarily helping all Canadians. I am not going to bring up someone who has ALS or another disease. That is their right, and that is absolutely fine. To me, they are in charge of their faculties. However, when someone has a mental illness, my biggest concern is whether they are mentally capable of making these decisions.
I know someone will talk to me later and say there will be two psychiatrists evaluating them. Everyone knows that people, when they have a mental condition, have different states of mind where they may seem better at one time, and then they may seem worse or go into a depression, whatever the case may be. Is someone truly getting a fair assessment of the condition someone is dealing with at the time? To me, it is very cold and heartless that people can say, yes, we think someone is acceptable for medically assisted dying, as opposed to really diving into the areas as to how we can help them.
Over the years, there are people who have reached out to me and it is heartbreaking. I do not know if many other MPs have had to deal with something like this, but it is a very sad state. When we start getting into all the funding, or lack of funding, to deal with a mental state. Before COVID, it was estimated that about one-third of all Canadians had had some form of mental condition at one time or another. I cannot imagine what it has grown to after COVID. Are we at 40% or 45%? I do not know the numbers, but we can see how we are escalating the mental stability of Canadians.
Is the government reaching out to them, trying to make their lives any better? I do not believe so. That is one of the reasons I am so happy that we are able to take another year to look at what we can do to either refine or change this legislation, or actually start dealing with the problem itself. We need to deal with the mental state of Canadians and get the people the help they so rightly deserve.
For people to keep living on with a mental condition, they do not get better until they get help. Without the doctors, nurses or facilities out there, there is no way Canadians are going to see a better society. When we start looking at the mental state of Canadians, there are other areas that we can possibly improve upon, such as our criminal system, because a lot of people are addicted to drugs or whatever else, but we need to start dealing with that as best as possible.
I wanted to focus more on what we can do to assist people with their mental state, as opposed to offering them MAID. We need to start getting into the real cause of the problems and the real situation on why they got to this state. If we can accomplish that, we can build a far superior society than the one we have today. As parliamentarians, our number one goal is to make Canada a much better place to live, as opposed to the alternative being proposed tonight.
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Mr. Speaker, I always do enjoy my hon. colleague's little fairy tales. He likes to talk about how great the government is doing, but if it were the case that the Liberals truly believed this, why are they not having a better effect on Canadians right now?
We have many people suffering. The Liberals promised in the last election that they were going to put more money into mental health. Did they? No, unfortunately, they did not, and that is typical for the governing party. It likes to talk a lot, but it actually does not deliver as much as it likes to talk. I can assure the House that the member sure likes to talk.
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Mr. Speaker, very much so, that is what needs to be done. We have a different culture, completely, in Canada, that needs to be dealt with differently, and I will give her an example of that.
When I was mayor, I was also the chair of our seniors foundation, and one of our board members from the MD of Greenview had said he wanted to build an indigenous lodge right in Grand Cache. That is actually in the works right now. It is going to be 12 rooms. It is only going to be breaking ground this spring, so we are getting ahead of ourselves, but I know when he brought that forward, he said it was going to be a round building with a lot of cultural amenities, so I am very much in favour of making sure we take care of the needs of our indigenous peoples.
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Mr. Speaker, that is a very good point. Like I said, when I was mayor, that was one of the things we also talked about. Our county started about half an hour west of Spruce Grove. That was our closest location to get assistance for mental health, and unfortunately in rural Alberta, and I should say rural Canada for that matter, we do not have nearly the level of assistance compared to our urban partners. We need to really balance out and make sure we have equal access right across the country to deal with the mental issues in Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I did not mean “our” as in possession, absolutely. I just meant “people as well”. I thank the member for bringing that forward, and I do apologize for that.
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