44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2023 02:00PM
Madam Speaker, we are talking about mental illness, mental distress and depression as being reasons why it may be permissible to ask for assistance in dying. I look at this and say that we have come a long way. Our laws were based on some court rulings surrounding people who wanted to die because they had lost their ability to control their bodies. They had ALS; they had no control over their bodies at all. They could not actually go through the act of committing suicide, but they maintained razor-sharp consciousness and a strong will. Sue Rodriguez is one example.
We should not go from that to somebody who is essentially having a failure of will. That is what depression is, being unable to formulate plans to carry on and instead saying there is an easy way out. This seems to me to be fundamentally dangerous, to be almost leading people on. It seems to me this is an obvious underlying problem.
I am glad to have a year to slow down this progress in the wrong direction. Quite frankly, I think we should be very much looking at some entirely different direction. The idea that the courts are somehow going to impose on Canada in the situation of depressed people, people who are struggling because of circumstances that are hard in their lives, is that “life is hard; death is easy”. It is absolutely outrageous to say, “This is it. The kingdom of death is upon us; that is just dandy".
I guess I am asking my colleague to offer some commentary on this national abdication of will that seems to be, at best, coming a year from the present.
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Madam Speaker, the member's question will give me an opportunity to once again underline what the member is trying to get at, which is that this is wrong. Leadership is not just putting something to the courts and following a ruling. On this one, the courts were not even asking for mental health to be a factor in MAID.
Maybe this is the point where backbenchers and other parties, cabinet ministers or MPs can take these 12 months to consider all the arguments, for and against. I have a very tough time with including mental health. I do not think there is a single honest, good reason why someone should access MAID because of depression or other serious mental health issues.
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Madam Speaker, I did not expect to get a second chance to do this, so I will just make the observation that, with regard to mental health and mental issues, the definition of most illnesses and diseases have not changed over time. The definitions surrounding ALS, for example, have not changed substantially over time.
However, the definitions of various mental illnesses under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM, have changed constantly. DSM-4 was dramatically different in many respects from DSM-3, DSM-2 and DSM-1. These are, to some degree, arbitrarily defined illnesses, and to say that we can make a firm and meaningful, as opposed to subjective, medical determination that someone is in a position where they are sufficiently mentally ill that they qualify for medical assistance in dying seems to me to be very strange indeed and very subjective.
I talked, perhaps with too much rhetorical flourish, about the triumph of the kingdom of death over life. However, the triumph of subjectivity over objectivity, while wearing objectivity's clothes, seems to me to be profoundly unwise and, once again, a very good reason to say that we ought not to be going down this path. I will leave it there and ask again for the member's commentary.
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Madam Speaker, my understanding of mental health, the DSM, a lot of the mental health disorders and how they are diagnosed or rated is that there is a system where we ask the patient how they feel, on a scale of 1 to 10, in different categories. We kind of gauge where they are, and we have an understanding of the disorder or the mental health issue that they are facing. It is very subjective and difficult. It is not like they can do a blood test to find out if someone is positive or negative, or that there are other physical ailments that can actually be measured to understand that the person is not going to recover from them.
Mental health is different. There are also advances. This is the thing that should give hope. There are medical advancements that are treating people whom we never thought we could treat before, and a lot of that has to do with mental health. There are chances now that we can revisit some of these diseases and disorders with modern pharmaceutical solutions or therapies that have not been tried before in the western world. That is where we have to spend our energy.
We also have to put those extra resources into health care. That means a larger transfer. That means the Liberals' coming through on their $4.5-billion promise for health care in the last election. They have yet to deliver a single penny on it.
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We will resume debate.
There being no further members rising for debate, pursuant to order made on Monday, February 13, the motion is deemed adopted and Bill C-39, An Act to amend An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), is deemed read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes): It being 8:41 p.m., the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 8:41 p.m.)
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