44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 13, 2023 11:00AM
- Feb/13/23 2:05:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when the Liberals brought in their medical aid in dying regime, they promised to protect vulnerable people. They failed to do so.
Veterans who called Veterans Affairs to ask for help have been offered assisted suicide instead. Persons with disabilities unable to find supportive housing have been offered assisted suicide instead. In too many cases, vulnerable Canadians are being offered assisted suicide instead of the support they need and want from the system. Now the Liberals want to add those suffering from mental illness to their assisted suicide regime as well.
After months of dragging their feet, Liberals belatedly brought forward a delay to this reckless idea. However, we do not just need to delay this dangerous expansion of assisted suicide; we need to reject it entirely. Conservatives will never give up on those experiencing mental illness. We believe that recovery is possible and that we should focus on offering treatment and help, not assisted death, to those who are suffering.
This is a matter of life and death, and we must act to protect vulnerable people once and for all.
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Madam Speaker, I think that is what the article by my friend Mr. Lawton was talking about. It was the very fact that, under this new regime that comes into place a year from now, he would be eligible for assisted suicide. He is quite convinced of that. It is not clear to him in the law, and it is not clear to me in the law, that, if he were seeking help in 2023 rather than in 2010, there would be any obligation for the health care system to promote life rather than to fulfill his wishes to die. These were, in fact, his wishes at the time when he attempted suicide. That is the way I read the law. That is the way Andrew Lawton reads the law, and I have no evidence to support the opposite of that.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to join this debate.
The underlying legislation of Bill C-39 is very simple. The government is simply asking that it be given more time to introduce safeguards, guidelines and professional practices that would allow assisted deaths to be administered in such a way that mistakes are not made. However, we already know that mistakes are being made under the current regime, so that should not give Canadians any confidence. In fact, Bill C-7, which is the bill that has given rise to this request for an extension, is just another case of the Liberal government getting it so wrong by failing to consult in advance and then, after the fact, trying to fix all the mistakes and fill in all the gaps.
This is another story of failure, and what I would like to do is explain a bit of the context. Members may recall that back in 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada, for the first time, opened up the door to legalized assisted suicide, and the Liberal government then responded with Bill C-14, which restricted MAID, or medical assistance in dying, to those who were at the end of their lives and living in intolerable, grievous pain. We were assured this was not a slippery slope that was intended to include other vulnerable Canadians in Canada's assisted death regime. That is what we were told. Many of us did not take the government at its word. We did push back, but the government passed the legislation anyway.
Sure enough, here we are, some eight years down the road, and our fears were confirmed when the Quebec court, in the Truchon case, ruled that limiting MAID to those whose natural death was reasonably foreseeable was unconstitutional. The government did not appeal that case, a seminal case because it is opening up a life-and-death piece of legislation and expanding it without a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada. I believe that was an abdication of responsibility in itself. Instead, the government chose to accept the ruling and move forward with Bill C-7, which ended up extending MAID to include, among others, the mentally ill.
I want to be clear here. I do note that the original Bill C-7, which was introduced by the justice minister, did not include the mentally ill in Canada's assisted suicide regime. However, when that piece of legislation, Bill C-7, went to the Senate, the other place, the senators inserted a provision expanding and extending assisted suicide to the mentally ill in Canada. When it came back to this House, the government, instead of pushing back, the way one would expect a government to do, simply rolled over and said it would accept it the way it was, and that is now becoming the law of the land.
Bill C-7 also provided that the mentally ill provisions of Bill C-7 would come into force in two years. That is the sunset clause some people talk about. During that period of time, proper safeguards and practice standards were to be put in place to ensure that mistakes were not made. Not surprisingly, as it is a Liberal government, it got to the end of the two years, and virtually nothing has been done. The government actually struck an expert panel to review this, but it did not give that panel the right to review the merits of the underlying assisted suicide regime in Canada.
There is also a joint parliamentary committee between the Senate and the House that is still reviewing these provisions, and I am looking forward to that report. However, again, the mandate of the committee did not include any real, substantive review and investigation into the substance of medically assisted suicide. All it was allowed to do was tinker around the edges to implement a policy that has life-and-death implications for many Canadians.
Here we are. We have no safeguards and there are no guidelines for our practitioners, but we support the bill because we are trying to push this down the road as far we can. I will mention why in a moment.
The woefully inadequate rollout of the government's MAID regime is a manifestation of a Liberal government that appears to be in disarray and whose ideology is moving Canada from a culture of life to a culture of death rather than providing the necessary resources to our most vulnerable. Many in the House have raised that issue and have asked this: Why is it even necessary to apply assisted suicide to the marginalized in Canada, the vulnerable? They ask because right now we are not providing them with the resources and supports they need to live a satisfying and joy-filled life.
What is really of concern is that numerous stakeholders have said they oppose Bill C-7. By the way, there is no broad consensus in Canada that we move forward with assisted suicide for the mentally ill. There is some consensus for MAID to be in place for other cases where there is extreme pain involved, but Canadians do not support extending it to the mentally ill.
What is also of concern is that the government has now signalled that it will go beyond the mentally ill and would like to include mature minor children in this regime. The government is charging ahead with a life-and-death policy that has increased Canada's momentum down the slippery slope that we had warned of.
Is death now seen as a more cost-effective way of managing the most vulnerable in our society? Many have posited that this is the case now. Canadians have a right to question whether their government can be trusted on issues of life and death. If this is being extended to the mentally ill and to mature minors, what about the indigent? What about the homeless? What about the drug addicted? What about veterans? We know that veterans have already been counselled by the government to consider MAID as an option to serve their needs and provide them with support. We know that people who are arriving at the food banks are asking where they can access MAID, because they do not want to live in poverty anymore. That is a reflection on us as parliamentarians. It is a reflection on our country, and we can do better.
There is, however, some good news, and I will end with it.
I recently tabled a private member's bill in the House, Bill C-314, the mental health protection act. It would reverse the Liberal government's reckless acceptance of the unelected Senate's assisted death amendments. It would arrest the dangerous momentum that the expansion of medically assisted death has triggered on the slippery slope. Under my bill, Canadians whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental disorder would not qualify for MAID. At the same time, the preamble to my bill calls upon the government to finally deliver the mental health supports that have repeatedly been promised in federal budget after federal budget but have never been delivered. This is the least we owe to those who struggle with mental illnesses such as depression.
In closing, to ensure that we do not implement the mental health provisions of Bill C-7 before the House has an opportunity to revisit my piece of legislation, we on this side are very supportive of moving forward and passing the bill expeditiously. It will buy another year and push the whole issue of the mentally ill down the road, and we will make sure that we implement private member's legislation that actually protects the most vulnerable.
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Madam Speaker, when I look at the plight of our veterans, I know many of them suffer from PTSD. Can anyone imagine a veteran walking into an office and asking for help? They say they need mental health supports and are asking for help. They are begging the government and the response is, “I am sorry. Why not consider medically assisted dying?” That is not acceptable.
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Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. If it were not such a serious issue, it would be laughable to suggest that those who are suicidal would not be eligible for assisted suicide. It makes no sense.
The medical assistance in dying expansion to include those who are suffering mental illness makes Canada an international outlier. Liberal members understand that, and that is why, internally, they are having such great discomfort.
Conservatives have to continue, and all parliamentarians should continue, the fight to support those who are suffering with mental illness to make sure that Canadians have the supports they need, and to ensure that no government is offering medical assistance in dying to someone suffering with mental illness.
My hon. colleague is quite right in pointing out how ludicrous the position is that the Liberals are putting forward.
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Madam Speaker, the member is quite right. In such a void that exists right now in the supports that people need, the last thing that a government should be offering by way of help is medical assistance in dying.
In my speech, I shared a couple of stories, but these stories are repeated across the country and in many of our ridings. I think we should all be shocked by them. Someone who cannot afford housing is now seeking MAID. We have heard of people going to food banks looking for food and also asking about MAID. We hear of government employees, bureaucrats within the Department of Veterans Affairs offering individuals who are suffering with PTSD the opportunity for MAID.
We have to ensure that we are supporting our fellow Canadians, not offering them assisted dying.
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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, 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, 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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