44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 13, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague who is a member of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying.
I would just like to provide her with a bit of context. Bill C‑7, which is the fruit of a compromise with the Senate, was meant to respond to a requirement in a court ruling to allow Ms. Gladu and Mr. Truchon to have access to medical assistance in dying.
No one in Quebec considered the passage of Bill C‑7, which allowed Ms. Gladu and Mr. Truchon to have access to medical assistance in dying, to be reckless. There was a consensus on it. It needed to be passed. We passed it while creating a special panel of experts that was meant to table a report within two years to inform a joint committee, which was tasked with reviewing the report and making recommendations that would come later.
We have to be careful when we talk about rushing things. Let us take our foot off the gas. By March 2024, we will have been thinking about this for three years.
What is more, when my colleague says that the public is not on board, I would like her to show me some polls to support that claim. In any event, the current problem is that her party wanted the committee to table a report in June because the Conservatives were against giving the joint committee any extensions on its deadlines so that it could do a good job. Each time, we fought for an acceptable deadline to do decent work. I think they are being a bit hypocritical.
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Madam Speaker, I think it would be better for my colleague to choose his words more carefully.
Unless I am mistaken, last week we heard him say in an interview that there was no agreement on the issue of MAID for those with a mental illness. My colleague also went to the trouble of stating that one in two experts did not agree.
I will close by citing the panel he spoke about.
The evolution of many mental disorders, like some other chronic conditions, is difficult to predict for a given individual. There is limited knowledge about the long-term prognosis for many conditions, and it is difficult, if not impossible, for clinicians to make accurate predictions about the future for an individual patient.
I will stop there.
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Madam Speaker, there is another crisis underlying the discussion we are having right now, and that is the mental health crisis in this country. The government promised to put funding in place for Canadians to get help, but the Liberals have really been dragging their feet on that.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the current situation. Does she think the government should provide more resources and make sure that mental health issues really are recognized as a serious problem?
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Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. Mental health is a very serious issue in our society. Rather than talking about medical assistance in dying for people with mental health disorders, the government should make funding available, and quickly, so that everyone in this country living with mental health challenges, whether in rural or urban areas, has access to care.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-39, an act to amend the Criminal Code with regard to medical assistance in dying. It is a bill I will be supporting to protect the most vulnerable Canadians from the Liberal government's reckless expansion of medical assistance in dying to Canadians who are suffering solely from a mental illness.
Unbelievably, if Bill C-39 does not pass, Canadians struggling with a mental disorder or illness will be able to access MAID as early as next month. As the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention said, “Just as life is getting harder in Canada, it is getting easier to die.”
It is important to be perfectly clear that when considering MAID in the context of someone who is not dying as a result of their condition, such as a mental disorder alone, we are talking about suicide. It is almost as if the Liberals have given up. Instead of protecting the most vulnerable in society, they have opted for the easy way out. They have chosen a dangerous path, a slippery slope. They have opened medical assistance in dying to the most vulnerable in our society, and now they want to stop the clock, buy more time and find another politically expedient reprieve without doing anything to help.
I listened intently to the debate today, and honestly, it almost makes me ashamed to be a politician. Earlier today, the minister said that we need more time. Yes, we do. I have said this since the very first debate we had on MAID in 2016. During my intervention back then, I said as a new member of Parliament that nothing prepares one to adequately debate or intervene on such a weighty issue. We need to ensure we get this right, yet the Liberals rushed it through.
We have all heard very real stories: an Ontario man requesting MAID because it was more preferable than being homeless, the woman who has applied for MAID after seven years of not finding affordable housing and Canadians accessing food banks and asking for help with MAID. More and more Canadians are struggling, and we should be doing everything to support them, not giving up on them. We have also heard the unbelievable stories of Veterans Affairs employees suggesting MAID to veterans who are struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. These are real stories; they are not sensationalism.
As the Canadian Mental Health Association has said, “Canada is failing to meet its human rights obligations when [Canadians] with a mental illness cannot receive the programs, supports and resources they need to be well and live with dignity.” The government is failing to provide even the most basic programs and supports.
This is a topic that my constituents feel very strongly about. It is a divisive topic, to say the least, and I respect people's decisions, but one thing is clear: A majority of my constituents, and indeed Canadians all across our beautiful country, are against the expansion of MAID for Canadians solely dealing with mental illness or disorders.
Canadians need to know what we are fighting for today. We need to look beyond what we are debating. The simplicity of Bill C-39 is a contradiction to the complexity of the issue. What we are really talking about is the ability for those suffering with mental illness to end their lives. Instead, we should be here today talking about what we can do to help those in need and what we can do to provide the services that will save lives.
Earlier today and throughout the debate, the Liberals have tried to explain away the provisions that included mental illness in MAID. They have attempted to shift the focus from what is actually happening to what is politically expedient, with the exception of our hon. colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River, whose speech I truly appreciated. Instead of addressing the issue head-on, they are looking for us as parliamentarians to buy more time to find a soft landing.
I will be voting in favour of Bill C-39, but I cannot support the addition of suicide to MAID ever. Let us be honest that this is exactly what we are talking about. There are times when partisan politics are called for and this not one of those times. We can disagree on tax hikes, we can disagree on gun legislation and we can disagree on who is best prepared to move our country forward. However, we cannot disagree on the importance of life and the importance of fighting for those who are struggling and who believe their only way out of the hardship they are experiencing is death. Is that not what we are here for? Is that not what all of us, all 338 members of Parliament, ran on? Was it not to stand up for those who are struggling, Canadians from coast to coast?
We need to be doing everything we can to make sure we are helping those who are struggling and who are the most vulnerable. We should be focused on offering help and treatment rather than assisted death.
Just two short years ago, all members of the House stood and voted in favour of creating an easy to remember three-digit suicide prevention hotline. It has been a long road forward, but this fall, Canadians who find themselves in trouble will have a chance to get the help they need. When seconds matter, they will not be forced to google a 10-digit number. They will simply pick up their phone to dial or text 988, and they will be able to talk to a person to start the process to get help.
The 988 hotline will not be the end point. It will be the beginning. It will provide one more tool with which those who are suffering can reach out for help.
As many of my colleagues know, I have dedicated my life to fighting for those who suffer silently or struggle with mental illness. I have sat with so many families devastated by suicide whose only hope is that we do everything in the House to ensure other families never experience what their families have. There is so much pain and so much guilt. Through my work, I have met many who have struggled with mental illness or mental injury due to their service.
I think about my friends. Jason is a giant of a man who was a firefighter. He was gripped with PTSD and wanted to die by suicide, but instead, he chose life. Now he helps others on their journey to beat PTSD and OSI. My friend Kent continues to serve our community each and every day. I think about their families every day and how I am so thankful my friends chose life.
I think about my own life and how at one point, I was struggling. It was one intervention, one by chance intervention that made me chose life. When someone is struggling with a mental injury, it is sometimes tough to see the forest through the trees. Sometimes people cannot see the light through the darkness. Sometimes people just need someone to tell them they are fighting for them and to help them get the assistance they need.
I live every day to fight for those who are struggling. We need to be doing everything we possibly can to make lives easier for Canadians, to give hope when it seems there is none. We need the government to be working with stakeholders to find the means to support those with mental illness. We have spent far too long talking about it. We have spent far too much time on studies that sit on shelves somewhere and gather dust. We have spent far too long doing nothing.
I will be supporting this legislation, but I will never support the inclusion of mental illness in MAID. It is a slippery slope. We need to take the next year or longer, find out how we can provide real support and figure out where we can actually make a difference. We need to spend the next year at least working on solutions that will keep Canadians alive.
A few weeks ago, I had a meeting with a man whose young daughter had ended her life by suicide. We spoke over Zoom for almost an hour, and I listened to his story. I heard the grief. I heard the despair, and I heard the regret.
Those who have children know what I am talking about. We live our lives to make our children’s lives better. We want the world for them. We want to give our kids everything we never had. We want this place to be better for them, and we want them to know we care.
What I heard in that man’s voice was utterly devastating. It was heart-wrenching. He said to me, “Todd, I can live with the death of my daughter, but thinking of what she had to go through, how many hoops she had to jump through just to access help, and how she had to navigate her crisis all alone is unbearable.” He said that he can live with the death of his daughter.
I honestly do not know how someone can listen to those words and think that what we are doing here is totally acceptable. I do not mean the year-long reprieve the government wants us to support. I mean the fact that we are even at this point, having this discussion. Until we have provided every support, exhausted every means, done everything we possibly can to help someone through their pain and suffering, my God, how can we even be here talking about this? The impact of that meeting will live on with me forever: the pain in his voice, the hurt, and the image of his daughter reaching out for help that was not available.
Conservatives do not believe that medical assistance in death is an acceptable solution to mental illness and psychological suffering. Our health care system should help people find the hope that they need to live, not assist in their deaths.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his touching testimony.
I want to tell him that, in a debate like this, it is important to be able to distinguish between various realities. This is not a debate about mental health. A debate about mental health means talking about prevention. This debate is not about all mental disorders but rather incurable mental disorders. We must accept that there are people with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia which is incurable and irreversible.
The suicidal state to which he refers, as he demonstrated both through his own testimony and that of other friends, is reversible. If he reads the expert panel's report, he will understand that this is not what is being discussed here and not what we will legislate. A suicidal state is reversible. No effort will be spared to provide the resources needed to reverse that state.
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Madam Speaker, the intervention of our hon. colleague across the way and others from the Bloc today have absolutely frustrated me to no end, but I appreciate their points of view. I believe recovery is always possible.
As our colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River has said, even the experts do not agree with what our Bloc colleague is saying. There are some who can recover and lead healthy and viable lives. Those are the people we should be fighting for all the time, making sure that they know we are there putting in the supports so they do not have to jump through a million hoops just to get the help they need.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for what I believe is an important intervention and intersection between health care, mental health and this bill. Of course, it is no secret that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are enduring an incredible level of poverty. Poverty is one of the driving forces that contribute to folks' mental health and the fact that they cannot see a light at the end of that tunnel when they fall behind.
Does the member support the New Democratic Party's call for a guaranteed livable basic income, which would raise folks out of this kind of poverty? I hear the Conservatives laughing right now about this, but a guaranteed livable basic income would ensure that folks actually have a chance to get out of poverty to begin a path of recovery. The member just stated that he believes everyone deserves a chance at recovery and that everyone can. Does he support this bill, which would ensure everyone has the resources to survive?
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Madam Speaker, I believe that we should be viewing mental health in parity with physical health. Yes, there are a lot of different things that contribute to one's mental health, such as affordability, access to food and homelessness. We should be making sure that we are doing everything to raise people up and offer the supports that they need. First and foremost, the government needs to follow up and actually follow through with its mental health act promise that it made during the previous election.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank our hon. colleague from Cariboo—Prince George from the bottom of my heart for the work he has done in this place for people who are suffering from mental illness and who are feeling suicidal ideation, and on the need for the ability to get that 988 number. I know how heartfelt his engagement is on this.
I will also be voting to see Bill C-39 through, but I probably differ from my colleague on the question of at what point do we say there has to be, with proper protocols and rules, access for people to medical assistance in dying. Is the member open to considering at some point, if there were a medical consensus on this, that we should proceed to extend to mental health issues as well?
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Madam Speaker, that is a tough one for me. I would have to actually work with the experts who are out there. Right now, as it sits, I could never support medical assistance in death for those who are struggling with mental illness because I believe recovery is always possible.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House. Of course, speaking on issues as weighty as medical assistance in dying, these are perhaps some of the most difficult things we will speak of in the House. I note that this is going to be an issue I am sure we will face in the chamber over the next several months, and perhaps again, as the bill comes to pass.
Today we are talking about mental disorder as the sole underlying medical condition for Canadians to access medical assistance in dying. The bill is presenting legislation for a one-year delay. Why is the government asking for a one-year delay? Certainly, this is about the concerns Canadians have across this great country with respect to the presentation of the government.
Perhaps, it will be similar to Bill C-21, when the issues Canadians had were brought forward by the Conservatives, and the Liberals had to change position on that bill. We know that there are mental health advocates who have significant concerns about the bill, such as the Association of Chairs of Psychiatry, which brought forth issues related to mental disorder as the sole underlying medical condition.
One of the things that is germane is to help people understand what it is we were studying at the joint committee on medical assistance in dying. We were talking about mature minors. We were talking about advance requests. We were talking about Canadians with disabilities. We were talking about the state of palliative care in Canada, and we were talking about Canadians who suffer with a mental disorder. When we looked at these particular topics, there were many contentious issues, and it became heated and personal at times, which was perhaps as it should be.
For comparison, I think we need to understand that, when we look at Canada and its perhaps 38 million people, we know that in the last year, 10,000 people died from medical assistance in dying. In California, which has a very similar population and perhaps similar rules, there were only 400 deaths due to medical assistance in dying.
People might ask why we would not compare with the Netherlands. It has been at this for a while, and maybe it is a better representation. They have a population of 17 million people and about 5,000 people died to medical assistance in dying.
They already have statutes that include depression, dementia and all the other things I have mentioned previously, so if we wanted to compare that directly to Canada, including depression and perhaps advance requests, they would have about 10,000 deaths at the current time. We know that in Canada, without mental disorder and without advance requests, there are already 10,000 people who have died between 2020 and 2021 due to MAID. That is a year over year increase of 32%.
That, to me, is concerning, and I think that anybody in this chamber would also know that on the world stage, sadly, in my mind anyway, Canada has been a world leader in medical assistance in dying, and many countries around the world have brought forward concerns of the slippery slope that Canada is now going down.
One of the things the government has promised to Canadians, which they have not delivered upon, is the Canada mental health transfer, and I am sure that my hon. colleague just before me spoke about this, so I am sad to have missed it. That was a $4.5 billion transfer that was promised by the government in its platform in the last election. I read a new article about this, and it says, “in August 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this brand new transfer was needed”—
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, in his speech, the member called the Prime Minister by his first name.
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- Feb/13/23 4:47:14 p.m.
- Watch
I think the hon. member may have just caught himself as well. Although the hon. member may be reading a quote, he can just mention “Prime Minister” instead of mentioning the name.
The hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester.
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Madam Speaker, I thank you for that astute advice. I really appreciate it.
This article said, “because mental health should be a priority.” That is the article I am quoting, which has the Prime Minister's name. It is important that Canadians understand that.
“But despite the sense of urgency in [the Prime Minister's] remarks last year,” and I have changed that word to satisfy the chamber, because we all know who the Liberal Prime Minister is, “no money has yet materialized for this new Canada mental health transfer”.
I am going to say that again, just to make sure that everybody has heard it. No money has yet materialized, “including an initial $875 million that was supposed to have been spent or budgeted by now, according to the Liberal party’s 2021 election platform.”
“The Liberal platform document included a line-by-line costing of all its election promises, and it outlined a promise to spend $250 million in 2021-22 on the new mental health transfer, and then $625 million in the current 2022-23 fiscal year, with additional amounts over the next three years adding up to $4.5 billion total.”
“None of the promised spending over the last two fiscal years has yet been allocated or spent.”
To me, that is important. Again, I will quote from the Liberal Prime Minister, “because mental health should be a priority.”
Where is the priority of mental health, and why is it not materializing?
We know that my hon. colleague, who spoke just before me, talked incessantly about a three-digit suicide prevention hotline, which was harder than giving birth to a baby elephant to make it happen. It is absolutely shocking to think about how the government wants to talk about being helpful to Canadians and how it has their proverbial backs, etc. I just do not see that. That is absolutely atrocious.
This article goes on to talk about the national director of public policy for the Canadian Mental Health Association, and they pointed out that the “April budget contained no money earmarked for this new transfer.”
“Let’s be clear, for it not to be in Budget 2022, at least with a timeline of ramp up to the $4.5 (billion), you know, it was really concerning to us.” That was stated by the Canadian Mental Health Association.
After eight years, why does the government continue to fail Canadians? That would be a great question to know the answer to.
We also heard in the health committee last week that counsellors and psychotherapists are required to charge GST on their services. We know that, sadly, many Canadians do not have private coverage for those services, but to add insult to injury, to pour salt in a wound, what we are now requiring is for Canadians to pay GST on those services. How does that make any sense?
It goes on to say that, “psychiatrists across the country [are] 'incredibly concerned' about patients needing better access to care, including addiction services”. These are addiction services that the government would tout are a whole other kettle of fish and are quite shocking.
There is still controversy around providing medical assistance in dying for people with mental disorders among providers. Obviously, one of the other things that I think is very important is the fact that the government has not transferred any, zero, nada, zilch, of the $4.5 billion. Think of my riding of Cumberland—Colchester and the difficulties that rural Canadians are suffering.
Because of their geography, rural Canadians are struggling not only to get access to mental health, but also to put gas in their cars to get them to the actual appointments. The punishing carbon tax that the government wants to put on everything in this country is really affecting their ability to have the money to pay the extra GST required for counselling and psychotherapy.
We all know that if people are struggling to put food on the table, and if Canadians have to choose between eating and looking after their mental health, they are likely going to choose eating. This is a sad commentary on life in Canada where it appears that everything is broken. The sad commentary will continue in this country because of the punishing taxes the government wants to continue levying on Canadians, which is making life unaffordable.
We know the crisis in mental health is going to continue. It would appear that approximately one in three Canadians is struggling with their mental health. We know that the government has put out its own projections to say, if we read the report on departmental results, it would expect that 22% of Canadians would not be able to access mental health care, and the actual result is 25% of Canadians cannot access mental health care. This is unacceptable. Zero percent of Canadians should have this issue, and we have a government that thinks 25% is acceptable.
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Madam Speaker, we have been hearing a lot of very disturbing news items about people who are living in poverty. A lot of them are people with disabilities. A lot of those people have mental health issues, and they are considering MAID because they cannot afford to live in dignity.
I am wondering if the member would join the NDP in saying that those people should have the resources to live in dignity, whether they are living with disabilities or not. They would need the resources to buy food. They would need affordable housing.
Would the hon. member comment on that side of the problem?
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Madam Speaker, first and foremost, I will not join the NDP. That certainly is something I would not entertain.
What we do know is that Canadians are suffering significantly in this country. How we go about solving that problem is certainly an issue that would be a matter of debate for many years here in the chamber.
We know that Canadians around the country are looking at the Conservatives and saying they need a change in the government. They know that the Conservatives have ideas that are going to allow Canadians to make their own money, to spend their own money in the way Canadians think is desirable and to be a part of the greatest country in the world. That is how Conservatives would do that.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to three or four speeches, and members seem to be talking a lot about the idea that we need good mental health care, that we need psychologists and psychiatrists, that we need to help people before considering the option of medical assistance in dying for people with mental illness. For all that to happen, we need more money in the health care system. There was a meeting about improving health care last week, but the offer that the federal government put on the table was shameful. The leader of the official opposition said that he would honour that offer. It seems to me that everyone agrees that better mental health care is needed, but that means that the government needs to increase funding for the health care system.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that. I think his party should be calling for more health care funding.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for that great question.
We know, very clearly, there are multiple ways to fix the health care system. Certainly those would be rolled out, as we come closer to election time, in the platform of the Conservative Party. What we also know is that people who want to immigrate to this country to be a part of the health care system are being disrespected in terms of how their credentials may or may not be recognized in this country.
As everybody in the chamber knows, if we were going to create another psychiatrist from inception, at the time of going to university, there is a four-year undergraduate degree, four years of medical school and at least four years of residency. We cannot wait for that.
On this side of the House, when the Conservatives form the government, we would be very respectful of immigrants and the talents they bring to this country, and how they could help the ailing health care system.
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Madam Speaker, I have been sitting on the special MAID committee with the member for some time, and I appreciate his contribution.
I take issue when he said that the conversations have been heated and personal. I do not remember it being that way. There were passionate discussions, but it was certainly never personal. I hope he did not find that I ever contributed to that impression.
We can disagree all day long on whether the government has been making mental health funding a priority. He has made a point of talking about the mental health transfer. If the mental health transfer had happened yesterday, is there any scenario in which the member would agree that mental health is appropriate grounds for MAID, or is it just full stop for him?
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