44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 13, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, the truth of the matter is that this issue exposed something that is happening in our society, and it is happening without oversight.
When the previous minister of justice indicated in the House that the first bill on assisted suicide, or MAID, had to be studied extensively before we moved forward with any other considerations, the government just flew right by that and immediately brought in another piece of legislation that, again, has opened it up.
I am sorry, but I do not know how much closer to death on demand it can get when a veteran is told that by someone. Yes, it was illegal, doing what they did to even suggest it because it was out of their purview. To open it up to that point is to say to someone, “You know what, with all of your issues, this would be a better alternative to your life.”
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Madam Speaker, my colleague said something, a quote that I think is haunting, profound and accurate. She quoted someone who said that we spend too much time helping people to die and not enough time helping people to live. For a government member to try to diminish what happened with veterans affairs, I find that disgusting.
I was wondering if my colleague would like to take a little more time talking about some of the really good things that she mentioned that the Canadian government should be doing to help people to live, as opposed to this measure that is front of us, which should never have been contemplated.
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Madam Speaker, there is so much that is being left on the table in the back room, I do not know where, that is not being done, and it raises doubts in veterans' minds as to the true intent of the government in truly meeting their needs. I am serious.
We have a backlog that continues to grow, while the minister is talking about the billions of dollars we are throwing at this, and it is the same with mental health, yet things are not improving. They are getting worse.
We have a responsibility in the House to do everything we can to make life valuable. We should have top-notch palliative care across the entire nation. We should be taking care of our veterans from the moment they enlist until the moment they are successful in a civilian life after they are done serving. There are so many things that could be done by the government.
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Madam Speaker, notwithstanding the many leading psychiatrists who have made it very clear that this expansion cannot be implemented safely, and notwithstanding the Association of Chairs of Psychiatry calling on the government to stop this expansion, the Minister of Justice, even though he has moved this bill forward, has actually said that the government could have gone ahead with this anyhow, notwithstanding that irremediability, suicidality and other legal and clinical issues remain unresolved. Does this not speak to the degree with which this minister is blinded by ideology—
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Madam Speaker, as we have heard this evening and throughout the day, there is no question that this is a personal issue for many of the representatives in this chamber. I can speak to that as well. When the legislation for MAID first came up two parliaments ago, I held a number of open houses and town halls in my riding, and I have never had a larger turnout than I did for doctor-assisted dying.
In fact, my colleague, whom I have a great deal of respect for, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton, attended one of those open houses to help explain and walk my constituents through what this legislation meant. The biggest concern and biggest worry for my constituents at that time was the lack of strong and strict safeguards for the expansion of access to MAID. Certainly, what we are seeing now is a frightening broadening of access to MAID.
If there are any red flags for the Liberal government, it would be the fact that when MAID was first legislated in 2016, about 1,000 Canadians accessed it, and that number is now more than 36,000 in one year. If there was ever a reason for the Liberal government to stand up and take notice that this legislation has far exceeded its original intentions, that would be it. It was based on a foreseeable death, a terminal illness or someone being in unbearable pain. This is who should have been accessing MAID.
Now we are seeing those lines so blurred that they almost do not exist. The fact that the Minister of Justice has only delayed implementing access to MAID for those with mental illness is again a very stark red flag. That is why we are seeing so many Canadians stand up, and in many cases emotionally, to say that this has gone much too far. We are hearing so many anecdotes and examples, not only from our constituents but from people across the country, of people who are already accessing MAID who never should have been eligible.
A constituent of mine, Mark Meincke, who is a very well know veterans advocate, called me one afternoon and told me about a friend, a veteran, who had been on the phone with his Veterans Affairs caseworker. When he talked about his mental health issues and wanting to access mental health resources, the caseworker told him they could offer him MAID if that was something he would rather do than contemplate suicide. Actually, the caseworker's language was much starker than that.
Initially, I thought it could not be true and that Veterans Affairs could not possibly be offering MAID to the men and women in uniform who served our country and made such an incredible sacrifice that most of us could never possibly fathom it. When the heroes of our country were reaching out in their vulnerable moment, they were being offered the easy way out.
It is no wonder that many of our veterans now feel they are not getting the services they need from the federal government, because it is just too costly. The government is trying to clear a backlog of files off its desk, and that is why it is offering access to doctor-assisted dying. That is not what we should be offering our veterans, those who sacrificed everything for us. We should be ensuring they have access to the mental health care and PTSD treatments they deserve, not access to doctor-assisted dying.
Of course, this is coming from a government with a Prime Minister who said to veterans that they were just asking for more than the government could give. We can see why there is frustration and why a seed of doubt has been planted among veterans and first responders across this country.
I am glad to hear that the government took action on that one caseworker. Unfortunately, even though we were told this was a one-off, we have now heard several stories of other veterans being offered similar services from other caseworkers. As someone who has been around government for a while on both sides of the House, I know these caseworkers are usually given a script that they go by. What is worrisome is that this was not just a one-off and was something Veterans Affairs was offering our men and women in uniform.
I would urge my colleagues across the floor in the Liberal caucus to see that giving this a one-year delay is not enough. If there was ever a piece of legislation in the House of Commons that we had to get right and that we could not make mistakes on, try to rush through or base the decisions on ideology or activism, it is this one. I do not know if I have ever said this standing in the House, but lives literally hang in the balance and are at risk if we get this wrong.
I would urge my Liberal colleagues across the floor to listen to the stakeholders in their communities, to listen to the community-based service groups and charities and mental health programs in their communities that are standing up and saying, “Stop; this is going way too far.” I cannot be the only one who is getting dozens of calls and emails from those groups in my riding who are asking me to meet with them and try to relay that message and those concerns to the Liberal government. They have lost hope and, instead of providing hope for life and offering the essential resources that Canadians need, the Liberal government is offering them death.
As parliamentarians and as Canadians, is that really what we want our country to be? Is that really the bar that we are setting for ourselves? Rather than invest in palliative care and mental health services and services for our veterans and those with disabilities and mental illness, are we going to take the easy way and just make doctor-assisted dying more accessible? I do not believe that is the result we want.
A constituent of mine, Pilar, called me the other day and said, “I have worked in palliative care for several years, and in several other domains of medical care, and I can tell you, it will be the most vulnerable who will suffer the most from this, and experience undue pressure and coercion to allow the state to end their lives.” That is very profound from someone in the health care system.
I have heard similar comments from groups like Inclusion Foothills, which is a group in my riding that works with folks with disabilities, including mental and emotional. I met with the group before Christmas. Its members have a profound fear with respect to this MAID expansion of access for mental illness and concerns for their clients who have disabilities. Time and time again, they said, they were hearing from families who are concerned they may lose their loved ones because they were offered MAID in a stressful time or moment of weakness and vulnerability.
All of us have had those moments of vulnerability and anxiety and we would hope that in those times of need the services that we require would be made available to us. At Inclusion Foothills, they were saying that Canadians with cognitive disabilities or depression and anxiety are easily more susceptible to offers of coercion, well-meaning or otherwise, perceived or real, of an option to end their suffering. I know, again, that I am not the only one who has families and persons with disabilities and mental health concerns and concerned residents reaching out to my office and begging for safeguards to be put in place to protect their vulnerable loved ones, their friends and certainly our neighbours.
The Government of Canada's own website acknowledges that, “Mental illness is experienced by 1 in 3 Canadians during their lifetime” and that suicide “...is a significant cause of premature death in Canada.” The website goes on to state:
Most mental illnesses can be effectively treated by health professionals and community-based services....
Unfortunately, because of the stigma of mental illness, many people avoid or delay treatment.
The most important part of that statement is “mental illnesses can be effectively treated”. That should be the focus, and not the option of doctor-assisted dying.
Finally, I want to address another community in my riding, and that is the agriculture community and rural Canadians. A survey that was done last year said that 76% of farmers who were surveyed are suffering from medium to extreme mental health concerns and stress. Worldwide, male farmers are at higher risk of dying by suicide and they are less likely to ask for help. “Cowboy up” is what we hear all the time. In fact, we had a unanimous consent motion in this House asking for the government to provide a mandate in Farm Credit Canada's mandate to support mental health programs. The Liberals voted against that.
My constituents are unequivocal: MAID was never meant as an emotional decision; it was never meant to be outside the bounds of those as an exceptional reason. I would encourage the Liberal government not to just delay this for a year and not to put a timeline on it. Let us do this right. Let us make sure that we stand up for all Canadians with disabilities and mental illness. Let us do it right.
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Madam Speaker, as someone who has actually served in the Canadian Forces, walked with World War II veterans and World War I veterans and sat in the legions and listened to the horror stories they had to endure, I find it exceptionally offensive to try to imply that the government would, in any way, in any form, or any member of the House—
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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Madam Speaker, I do not believe it is appropriate for any member of the House to try to imply, in any way or any form, that there is any member of the House of Commons who would actually suggest that it is okay for a veterans service agent to recommend MAID to a veteran.
Would the hon. member not agree with that assertion?
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Madam Speaker, I would agree that it is inappropriate for a case worker from Veterans Affairs to offer a veteran access to medical assistance in dying rather than the mental health resources that they need. However, Veterans Affairs, under the current government, did exactly that. For that member to just try to say that this never happened is a complete fallacy. It did not happen just once; it happened numerous times.
It is absolutely inappropriate but, unfortunately, the government did exactly that.
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Madam Speaker, I think my hon. colleague touched on the crux of the issue. That review should have occurred. We would have had better insight into what we are dealing with right now.
The issue he is talking about, that balance, is when someone is suffering with mental illness or a disability and how difficult it is to understand if they are making that decision in the right state of mind, let us say. The Liberal government opened this door so wide, when there is no question that Canadians, at their most vulnerable moment, will be making an irreconcilable decision that they may not be making in the best position of their mental health and, certainly, the position they are in economically and financially. Most importantly, are they in the right state of mind to make such an important decision?
That is what we have to take the time to decide.
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Madam Speaker, certainly as the debate has continued through this evening, I think there is a remarkable amount of non-partisan agreement, with areas of difference. I think one of the areas of difference, and I am hoping the hon. member for Foothills will agree, is that it is better not to try to suggest that people have a motivation in this place.
We all agree, I think, that the pace at which MAID extended from irremediable medical conditions to mental health conditions took a lot of us by surprise. I voted for Bill C-7 because I wanted to see the advance directives being made available to people who were suffering with a terminal medical illness. The mental health conditions were suddenly before us.
We welcome the chance to have an additional year's delay, but what could we do in that time? I ask the hon. member for Foothills what he would recommend in this next year to make a difference and have the precautions and protocols in place.
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Madam Speaker, we are here tonight, at nearly 10 o'clock in Ottawa, discussing a difficult topic, but one that every Canadian should be concerned about. I would like to outline what we are talking about tonight so I can give my argument in that context.
In 2020, a bill was tabled to discuss and put forward proposals to expand medically assisted dying, and then in the other place, the Senate, there was an amendment made after committee study, and after due diligence, which the government rammed through. Without scrutiny, the government rammed through an amendment that was put forward by an unelected and unaccountable body to expand medically assisted dying to persons with mental health issues.
That bill ended up passing, and now we are here today debating an initiative that the government now wants to undertake to extend the date that service would become available to Canadians from this year and month, to a year from now.
I want to be very clear. I am going to vote in favour of extending this timeline, but under no circumstances in this country right now should medically assisted dying be extended to persons with mental health issues. For colleagues who are in the Liberal caucus who have the ability to speak to their leaders behind closed doors, our country is suffering. There are so many people who are hurting who may have had some mental health issues before the pandemic due to job loss, lack of access to services, issues that happened in relationships or so many things.
We are a country that is in the middle of a mental health crisis, yet today the most amount of time we have spent debating how we, as Parliament, and the government are going to support Canadians with mental health issues is to offer medically assisted dying. I just find it reprehensible and an abdication of responsibility of every person in here of every political stripe to allow medically assisted dying to be extended to Canadians, given the abject and miserable state of mental health supports for Canadians across this country.
Nobody can access mental health services in this country. Even privileged people have difficult times accessing mental health supports. Everybody in this country will need somebody to talk to or will go through crises, and every once in a while we get something from a corporation, such as Bell Let's Talk day, but when the rubber hits the road and somebody needs someone to talk to, those services are not adequately there, or they are too expensive. For the government to even contemplate allowing this for such people, where one of the symptoms of mental health issues is to express, in certain circumstances, wishes to die, is so irresponsible. My opinion is that we should not only delay this from coming into force for a year, but also not do it at all.
The government promised $4.5 billion for mental health services, and that is nowhere to be found. The NDP is in a supply coalition with the government. This should be number one on its list of demands. There should be no support of medically assisted dying without some sort of plan to address the lack of staff in mental health support services, the burnout in mental health services and the lack of funding. In my province of Alberta, the amount of funding the government just offered the Province of Alberta, $500 million, in this last round of talks was about the same it spent on airport COVID testing after it had lifted restrictions for airport COVID tests.
The government has its priorities all wrong. This is not just about spending or waste. This is people's lives. It is suggesting that we should be extending medically assisted dying at a time when we have not even begun talking about destigmatizing mental health issues. There are a lot of people who would never talk about it. They feel like it is a shame to struggle. They do not have someone to talk to or have a support network. As parliamentarians, we are contemplating normalizing offering medically assisted dying. How did we get to this point? How did the government even think this was appropriate? It even snuck it in on a Senate amendment. No. We should be pushing this deadline off.
My colleague from British Columbia tabled a bill to remove this provision and I support his legislation 100%. It is smart, it is compassionate and it should receive cross-party support. There is nobody in here who can argue, with a straight face, that the mental health support services for Canadians are anywhere close to adequate at all. It is our duty, as parliamentarians, to give people hope to live. That is our first goal.
That is what we should be doing, not sitting in some academic chamber listening to people argue legal technicalities around maybe something means medically assisted dying. We have to have a moral compass sometimes in this place. There is no way this should proceed in Canada. Even my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands talked about the explosive use of MAID and the slippery slope that actually happened. It was not a logical fallacy in debate. We have evidence of it. There are no safeguards and there are no supports to help Canadians make the choice to live.
I am begging everybody in this place, first and foremost, help Canadians live. We need to help Canadians live by pushing this off and by supporting my colleague from B.C.'s bill. We should not even need this private member's bill. We should not be wasting time in the House of Commons pushing this decision off for a year. We should not even be talking about it at all. We should be debating late in the night about how we give Canadians the support they need.
In a CBC article from February 2, the justice minister was quoted talking about why he wanted to extend it for a year. It was not for any of the reasons that I gave or colleagues of other political stripes have talked about. He said, “We want, in particular, those health practitioners, those faculties of medicine, colleges who had some concerns to have the time to internalize what is happening.”
His concern and motive for delaying this was not to protect Canadians. It was to foist this ideology upon our top medical practitioners at a time when they are burnt out, suffering and underfunded after two years of a pandemic and a woefully broken health care system. There is no way we should be extending medically assisted dying to mental health in Canada given how broken our health care system is and the lack of hope Canadians have right now. It is our job to be offering them hope and to be doing everything possible for Canadians who have mental health issues to have that hope.
For anybody who is listening to this tonight, there are so many lines out there. If someone is struggling with mental health issues, they can reach out and know that there are people in this place who understand that everyone has a right to live. They have a right to live with dignity, with hope and with compassion, and that is what we are fighting for. That is why there are people of differing ideologies in this place who will fight tooth and nail to get the government to focus on what is good, just and beautiful.
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Madam Speaker, I would concur that there are many ways in which people can access the types of supports that are out there, and it would be good to see more support going into mental illness, health and well-being. We hope that is what we will seeing with our provincial and territorial governments, and work with our different communities, rural or urban. The issue I have is when we take a look at the legislation, the legislation is proposing a pause. There will be some time for members to continue to reflect on and hear what health care professionals and experts have to say.
To what degree should health care experts and other stakeholders play a role in this debate?
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg just said that he would hope that we would have more resources for mental health. He is part of the government. He has a government appointment. He sits around the table.
We do not have those supports because the government has not provided them to Canadians. Honestly, he is listening, and he should think about this. This is not a talking point. His government has not got the job done, and that is why we are here. This should not be a pause. We should not be talking about this. This should not happen.
When it comes to his question about medical professionals, we have medical professionals. We have got all sorts of groups from disability experts to indigenous leaders saying there is no way this should be offered in Canada. What we should be focusing on is helping people to live with hope and dignity, something that the government has not yet done. That is why the government should not be proposing this at all. Based on science, based on morality and based on any outcome right now, we should not be offering medically assisted dying to Canadians with mental health issues.
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Madam Speaker, earlier the member from Winnipeg talked about how we all agree that it was wrong that a staffer at Veterans Affairs Canada was talking about euthanasia with a veteran who called looking for help. He asked if we do not all agree on that.
I think what confuses me about the government's position is that apparently it objects to the fact that over and over again, when a veteran called in for help at Veterans Affairs Canada, they were told to consider euthanasia or medical assistance in dying, yet if that same veteran had gone to see a psychiatrist or visited a nurse practitioner, the government would be totally fine with that person being given that advice. The government is fine with people being told by the medical system that they should consider or pursue this option, just apparently not when it comes from Veterans Affairs.
Does the member think there is an inconsistency in the government's position that we should be supporting people in all cases, regardless?
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Madam Speaker, that cuts a little close to home for me. My husband is a combat veteran. I know what it is like when he casually tells me that one of his colleagues that he served with has taken their own life.
This is not a joke. We should not be offering medically assisted dying as the first intervention of Parliament, which is what the government would be doing, instead of telling Canadians they are worthy, they have value and our government is here to help them with their needs, be it a veteran, be it somebody who has lost their job or somebody going through divorce. We should be offering hope, value and dignity, not medically assisted dying for people with mental health issues.
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Madam Speaker, would my hon. friend from Calgary Nose Hill support one of the things that many of us in opposition are calling for, which is a guaranteed livable income, so that no one would be in such a desperate state that they would actually think of taking their own life because of economic pressures.
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Madam Speaker, the government has spent us into oblivion. Our government has put us into a situation where we are broke. Talking about all the things that could help Canadians is so much farther away because of the waste, the corruption and the lack of priorities on Canadians.
There are so many things we could be talking about and should be talking about to help Canadians, but the first thing we need to do is get the government out of the way. I cannot even believe that this proposal is on the floor.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in this place to talk about this important issue facing Canadians, being signalled last week and coming into debate today, and to understand the gravity of the conversation that is Bill C-39. We have before us a bill that presses pause, a one-year pause, on the implementation of the state being able to, through a medical assistance in dying regime, see individuals take their own life for the sole underlying cause of having a mental illness. It is moments like this where one has no option but to pause and think about the gravity of the issues that we discuss here.
Certainly, when it comes to this delay, I support it. I think that a year is not nearly long enough, and like many other colleagues, I believe that a delay simply does not go far enough regarding something that should never be on the table.
When it comes to mental health, we have heard today something that has been mentioned a lot, the idea of hope, the fact that we need hope, and offering death to someone who feels hopeless is not hope. I find it very troubling and a tragic irony that over the course of the time that I have had the honour and responsibility of serving the people of Battle River—Crowfoot we have talked a lot about suicide prevention and mental health. I think back to one of the debates that took place during my nomination campaign. I made a simple statement that I did not realize would have the effect it does today. It was when I and the other nomination contestants in Wainwright, which is home to a military base, were asked a general question about what was required for mental health. It was a productive discussion, but one of the statements I made in response to that was that I believed mental health is health. A young man came up to me afterward, the child of a veteran, and said he was so encouraged by the fact that somebody finally was willing to say that mental health was health.
I cannot emphasize enough how vitally important that context is to the discussions we are having around Bill C-39, and specifically the honour I have of representing a military base. The fact that there are veterans who have called Veterans Affairs asking for help yet were offered death defies what I thought was possible. The reality is that in this country we need to make sure we prioritize hope. When we look at the context of where we got to, this bill is happening a whole lot faster than the three-digit suicide hotline that this Parliament unanimously called for more than a year ago. Where political will exists things can move quickly, but unfortunately when it comes to the idea of help, health care for those struggling with suicidal thoughts, and ensuring that those who have mental health challenges are given the care they need, we have before us a bill that simply delays for one year the offer of death.
I have reflected much on this issue, although being elected in 2019. In much of the debate that took place over medical assistance in dying, we were told that the concerns raised by many members, both those who sit in the Conservative caucus today and others, including but not limited to the former attorney general and I believe representatives from all parties represented in this place, were simply considered a slippery slope, a logical fallacy, yet here we are.
In fact, in the context of this discussion, a story was sent to me, which I would like to read in this place: “Recently, my friend's mother, Carmen, was a victim of a physician attempting to coerce her into MAID. She was quite insistent on it, to the point of causing severe distress. His main point of sale was that it would save the hospital a lot of money, and it was her duty to do the right thing for the hospital and her family to just do it.”
I could not think of a circumstance where somebody would be more vulnerable, dealing with the challenges associated with mental health and some of the challenges associated with underlying health conditions, as was the case with this individual. Instead of being given that opportunity for life, it was presented as a duty to save the state a few dollars and to save her family from having to journey beside her through an illness.
The folks from Battle River—Crowfoot will know very well my faith background. I often think of some of the Bible verses that I was taught as a child and remember here today. I would like to read one here today, which is certainly one that has offered me hope during challenging times. It is Jeremiah 29:11. I think that many in the House will have heard this verse before. It goes, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
As we enter into the discussion around the idea of whether or not somebody who is facing a challenging circumstance in their life and facing the challenges of mental health distress, to the point where they would be led to or, heaven forbid, coerced into making an irreversible decision such as medically assisted death, let us remember, as others in this place have mentioned, that as members of Parliament, as leaders in this country, and certainly as members of the government across the way, we should always endeavour to be catalysts for hope. We should ensure that, whether it be in partisan discussions, which members in the House will know well I love to participate in, or whether it be in coming to the assistance of those who walk through my office door in Battle River—Crowfoot, we do everything we can to extend the hope that is so desperately needed.
As we have this discussion, as we have this now one-year pause on the implementation of mental health being the sole underlying factor for medically assisted death, let us pause and think very carefully, not only as parliamentarians but as a country, as a society, as those who are called to look out for the most vulnerable among us, whether that be indigenous people, immigrants, women and the list goes on, to ensure that we respond not with the extension of a mechanism that would allow somebody to take their own life, but for those who are facing the most severe mental health challenges, let us ensure that our automatic response would be to offer that olive branch of hope.
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Madam Speaker, since the Supreme Court decision in 2015 and going into 2016, the government has been working very closely with members on all sides of the House, even today, in passing legislation. It takes more than just government members to pass legislation.
I suspect that virtually all members will be supporting and voting in favour of this legislation because they see the value in what the government is proposing, which is to put off and ultimately delay things for a year so we can feel more comfortable in making sure we are getting things right.
Does the member acknowledge that the Government of Canada has appointed a task group of experts to develop MAID practice standards in collaboration with provincial and territorial governments, regulatory bodies and clinicians across Canada? Does the member feel that those organizations and stakeholders should have any say in the future of MAID legislation?
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Madam Speaker, given the very bureaucratic explanation the parliamentary secretary just read, what bears mentioning is the tragic irony that exists here.
We are debating the extension of medical assistance in dying to those with mental illness as the sole underlying condition, yet this House unanimously, only a number of years ago, passed a motion to bring about a 988 suicide prevention hotline, which certainly seems to be progressing at a snail's pace. Canadians do not need more bureaucratic language, more task forces and more excuses from a government that is refusing to acknowledge that instead of the expansion of medically assisted death by the state to those with mental illness, we should be talking about ensuring that all Canadians have hope to live for the future.
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