44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 13, 2024 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country.
We are confronted with a decision of profound significance: the proposed delayed expansion of medical assistance in dying to include individuals suffering solely from mental illness. The delay should be supported, and I will note at the same time that as the shadow minister for employment, future workforce development and disability inclusion, I am compelled to express my opposition to the expansion altogether.
I want to draw attention to the recent findings of the report of the committee on MAID presented on January 30, 2024. The committee's report aligns with the long-standing concerns Conservatives have been voicing. It advocates pausing the expansion of assisted suicide to include those afflicted with mental illness. MAID is an irreversible outcome. The expansion, if unchecked, could tragically lead to the loss of lives that might have been saved through treatment and support. This is why we should not even be debating a delay but looking to abandon this piece of legislation.
The Liberals continue to ignore mental health experts, advocates and opposition parties, and have not completely abandoned the concept of MAID for those with the sole underlying condition of mental illness. In 2023, the government introduced eleventh-hour legislation to put a temporary pause on expanding assisted suicide to those suffering with mental illness. This came only after significant backlash from experts across Canada who called on the government to delay the expansion of MAID. The government is not listening to people speaking out and saying they want it abandoned altogether.
If the Liberal government moves ahead with the radical expansion of MAID to include those whose sole underlying condition is mental illness, it could lead to irreversible results. In 2023, the heads of psychiatry at all of Canada’s 17 medical schools called for a delay to the federal government’s MAID legislation that would have expanded eligibility to persons suffering solely from a mental illness. Many stated that it is impossible to determine that an individual’s mental illness will never respond to treatment.
As the shadow minister responsible for persons with disabilities, I have also found widespread opposition to the expansion of MAID to persons with mental illness among advocates for persons with disabilities. More than 50 disability and human rights organizations, including several from my home province of British Columbia, wrote a joint letter to then minister of justice and to federal party leaders in December 2022, to express their total opposition to the MAID expansion. They cited discrimination, lack of supports and concerns for protecting vulnerable people.
Many people have come out again, still opposing the Liberal government's legislation and lack of empathy, adding weight to the argument against the expansion and making it permanent for anyone suffering from mental illness. Disability and human rights organizations are clear that delaying the legislation is simply not good enough; we must completely halt the expansion of MAID for mental illness.
My argument against expansion for MAID for those whose sole underlying condition is mental illness is rooted not only in expert opinion, as I have outlined. As I address the chamber today, I carry with me the voices of residents from Kelowna—Lake Country living with disabilities and mental illness who have reached out to me, having serious concerns about this. A striking example is a letter I received from a young woman in my community who fears the human impacts of this type of legislation. Her journey through the darkness of suicidal thoughts and battle with mental illness is an important reminder of what is at stake. She fears that availability of MAID might have led her down an irreversible path. This is a sobering testament to the potential dangers of this type of law. Her personal story is not just one of struggle but is also a clarion call for our society to be a source of support and hope.
Just recently, a resident of Kelowna shared a distressing experience that deeply resonates with the gravity of our current dilemma. He told me that he sat with a friend who opted for MAID recently. He expressed that if we allow the expansion to persons with the sole underlying condition of mental illness, those people might not always be capable of making such grave decisions, and we risk opening a door to irreversible consequences. This story is a stark reminder of the weighty responsibility we bear. This is a call to action, urging us to rethink and reassess, and to prioritize the well-being and dignity of Canadians in our health care and mental health policies.
When battling mental health issues for years, many people often feel on the brink of giving up. The cost of living is so bad that people cannot even afford to live, but what they need is support and understanding, not an easy exit offered by the government. A policy to expand MAID to those whose sole underlying condition is mental illness is a betrayal.
The commitment to help people was evident in Conservative private member’s bill, Bill C-314, which sought to amend the Criminal Code to provide that a mental illness is not a grievous and irremediable medical condition for which a person could receive medical assistance in dying. The bill was voted down, unfortunately, in October 2023, with 150 MPs voting in favour and 167 against. This shows that the Liberal government just wants to delay the issue until after the next election.
After eight years of the Liberal government, many people are increasingly struggling with a rapidly deteriorating quality of life. Many local residents in Kelowna—Lake Country and Canadians across the country have to deal with the immense stress of not knowing how they will pay to house themselves or put food on the table every month. This is heightened by economic stresses and escalating mental health challenges. At such a time, expanding MAID to include mental illness as the sole condition is not only ill-advised but also literally life-ending.
We have already seen concerning examples of not helping people with mental anguish who reach out, such as Veterans Affairs Canada's confirming that unprompted suggestions of MAID were offered by a Veterans Affairs caseworker to several veterans as a resolution for concerns such as PTSD. In addition, there has been testimony at the human resources committee by disabled persons considering MAID due to lack of living affordability, and reports of food banks being asked by clients for details on applying for MAID. These examples highlight the risk of MAID becoming a misguided solution for individuals in desperate need of compassion and support.
With such a climate of anxiety, mental health challenges and increasing rates of addiction across the country, expanding MAID to include mental illness as the sole underlying condition could be a tragic course. I believe we should be focusing our efforts on improving affordability and quality of life, and on compassionately helping people. It should not be easier to get MAID than to access mental health and addiction supports.
I, alongside my Conservative colleagues, will continue to stand with the many experts, doctors and persons with disabilities who oppose MAID expansion where mental illness is the sole underlying condition. They are expressing inherent risks and concerns related to protecting those who may be struggling and to protecting the most vulnerable. The proposed policy expansion of MAID for those with mental illness as the sole condition sends a troubling message that the government is willing to give up on some of the most vulnerable citizens. It is an admission of defeat, suggesting that we as a society are retreating from our moral obligation to provide comprehensive and compassionate care to those battling mental health challenges.
Instead of passing legislation like my common-sense private member’s bill, Bill C-283, the end the revolving door act, which aims to provide mental health assessments and addiction treatment and recovery in federal penitentiaries, policies like the expansion of MAID to those with mental illness are really an irreversible path. We need to ensure that we support mental health systems and long-term solutions.
As members of Parliament, we should not choose the easy path over the right one. This is not the Canada we aspire to be: a nation that prides itself on compassion and support. Our duty is not just to legislate but also to protect, support and give hope to Canadians, particularly the most vulnerable among us. It is a duty we must uphold with the utmost seriousness and commitment.
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- Feb/13/24 3:19:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure for me to answer your invitation to ask a question.
During his speech, the member related an issue with the fact that he considered that, on this side, we sometimes say something that is not true. Unfortunately, that is not a fact.
An October 8, 2022, Global News report stated, and I quote:
How poverty, not pain, is driving Canadians with disabilities to consider medically-assisted death.
An article in the May 9, 2023, edition of the National Post was entitled:
Canada shouldn't deny assisted suicide if social conditions made life intolerable: bioethicists.
There is also a CBC News article from June 22, 2023, entitled “Quadriplegic Ontario woman considers medically assisted dying because of long ODSP wait times”.
This is proof, without a shadow of a doubt, that, yes, unfortunately, in this country, there are people who have had difficulties with their social life and decided to knock at the door of MAID. I am quite sure that, in the minds of everybody here in the House, MAID was not made for that purpose. That is exactly what our colleagues said during their speeches. Does the member recognize that, yes, unfortunately, sometimes MAID could be used for a purpose that was not intended?
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- Feb/13/24 6:40:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Lethbridge.
In my still, as yet, relatively short parliamentary career, it has been necessary for me to address this dark subject of legalized medically facilitated killing well over a dozen times. When I was elected eight years ago, it was not legal, under any circumstance, for a doctor to kill, or to assist in the killing of, a patient. Prior to that time, when this issue had been brought to the House of Commons, proposals for the legalization of this sort of killing had been defeated by massive margins, with a majority of Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats opposing such changes, just eight short years ago.
I recall, as a young Conservative staffer in 2009, hearing and reflecting on the wise words of former NDP MP Joe Comartin, who told the House the following on October 2 of that year. He said:
I have spoken to Carol Derbyshire, who is the head of the hospice. She said the hospice does not get requests for assisted suicide. They provide the care, not just to the patient but to the family. She was very clear on that. She has seen any number of surveys that say one of the major reasons, aside from pain, that people want assisted suicide in their regime is that they do not want to be a burden on their family, their society, their community. If we can build that system to make sure they do not have to be concerned about that, we take away any desire to terminate their lives arbitrarily and at an earlier date than would be natural.
We need to look at our system right now.... At this point, approximately 20% of our population is covered by meaningful palliative care, hospice and a home care system. That is all we have in the country. Then there is another 15% or maybe 17% who are covered by partial assistance at the end of life.
This former NDP MP foresaw how requests for premature death would emerge not primarily from some fixed and deeply held desire to die, but from a social, cultural and political context in which people in pain are either invited to stay or invited to leave and in which people are offered the support to stay or not. We are all social beings, and our exercise of autonomy happens in a social context. The current context is one of increasing atomization and division, economic failures leading to immense affordability challenges and a kind of moral chaos resulting from the common lack of constructive frameworks for finding meaning and purpose in life.
The touchstones of connection, happiness and meaning are eroding. This leads to an increasing demand for government services that will, it is hoped, fill the gap left by declining community and family and that will provide people with support in finding connection, happiness and meaning when they are lacking. As these supports are never available from the state in ways that truly fulfill the desire for connection and community that we all have, the pain increases and leads more people to want to give up.
This has been the trajectory of our society recently, with the additional reality that COVID-era restrictions and polarization accelerated the breakdown of connection and community among many people. As more and more people want to give up, the legalization of medically facilitated death is presented as a solution at the end of the road. Over the last eight years, as more and more people have come to the end of that road, the numbers continue to go up exponentially. This is the social context driving the mental health crisis we have, to which euthanasia is now being offered as a solution.
In the speech from MP Comartin that I referred to, he also observed how a lack of proper training and emphasis on effective pain management meant that existing tools and technologies were not being deployed to relieve pain, even in the many cases where such relief was possible. He predicted, again correctly, that the legalization of euthanasia would lead to less attention to pain relief and thus further tilting the decision-making playing field away from life and toward death. That is exactly what we are seeing.
John Paul II posited in the 1990s:
[The] reality is characterized by the emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases takes the form of a veritable “culture of death”. This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency. Looking at the situation from this point of view, it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favoured tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of “conspiracy against life” is unleashed. This conspiracy involves not only individuals in their personal, family or group relationships, but goes far beyond, to the point of damaging and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and States.
Eight years on, we are sadly seeing the flower of this predicted culture of death. We hear proposals for the killing of children, even babies, and for the killing of those with depression and other mental health challenges. We have heard many testimonies of people who have been called selfish for wanting to remain alive in a situation where they require the care and support of others.
We are seeing the lives of those with disabilities, those facing homelessness and others facing pain and suffering devalued at the social, institutional and political levels. We see the manifesting of this war of the powerful against the weak, insofar as suicide prevention is offered to some, while suicide facilitation is offered to others, depending on pre-existing power and privilege.
Proponents of euthanasia have never said that all people who want to die should be able to choose to die. Rather, they have said that certain kinds of people should be helped to die, while other kinds of people should be helped to live. This differential treatment of different people necessarily informs the social context in which people feel loved, included and happy, or not.
Eight years on, Canada’s experiment with medically facilitated killing has failed. I will leave it to another time to consider whether it could have succeeded. Some will argue that it would have been possible to legalize euthanasia without unleashing the kind of ever-expanding culture of death that we see proposed. However, what is clear, at least in the context of our own experience, is that medically-facilitated killing has a taken on a kind of self-reinforcing logic that leads to constant expansion, a devaluing of the lives of the most vulnerable and eroding public and community support for the things that would actually improve the quality of life of those who suffer.
One effect of this culture of death is that people in vulnerable situations actually fear interactions with the medical system because they do not want to be pressured toward suicide in a moment of weakness or vulnerability. I have specifically heard this concern, even now from people facing acute mental pain, that they do not want to seek help in many contexts because they are looking for life and dignity-affirming help, and they are afraid the so-called care they might receive would take the form of pressuring them toward an early exit.
This is part of the reason Conservatives support the protection of conscience for individual medical practitioners and institutions. It is not just for the sake of the provider, but also for the sake of the patient, who should at least have the freedom to opt to access health care in a life and dignity-affirming environment, where they can be confident that they will not be pressured or even offered premature death. Understandably, many of those who are in a vulnerable state do not wish to even be offered such things, since the affirmation of life and meaning is an essential part of the proper course of treatment for those facing mental health challenges.
After eight years, it is important that we stop and take stock of how much has changed, lest we forget that political choices have profound consequences and also that political choices, once made, can still be at least partially unmade. I am reminded of this every time I talk to a legislator in another country about Canada’s euthanasia regime. Legislators in other western democratic countries, including many from the left, are for the most part horrified by the present reality of euthanasia in Canada.
One British legislator told their House of Commons the following:
...turning to the example of Canada across the pond, Living and Dying Well also found that clinicians reported five specific issues surrounding legalisation, including that it complicates the management of pre-existing symptoms; adversely impacts the important doctor-patient relationship; causes tension for families during what is often an already deeply challenging period; diverts resources away from crucial palliative care services; and confuses patients as to the nature and purpose of palliative care. When considered as a whole, those issues reported by practising clinicians in Canada are not something that we as lawmakers can or should overlook, and I believe that the highlighted impacts on palliative care provision are of particular concern.
Why are concerns about Canada’s emergent culture of death not as well known or discussed in the Canadian House of Commons or in Canadian society as they are in the British House of Commons or in other countries? Here, I do want to point the finger specifically at our state-funded media, the CBC.
I am most enthusiastic about our Conservative commitment to defund the CBC because of the shameless way that this organization uses its funded and privileged position to push stories that glorify euthanasia, while ignoring the pain and suffering of those whose experiences the CBC does not want to share. Good ideas win fair debates, and my constituents should not be forced to give over a billion dollars every year to an organization that desperately hunts for stories aimed at masking the dark realities of medically facilitated killing and suicide.
Canada was not this way eight years ago, and fortunately, Canada will not be this way forever. The end of this fanatically pro-euthanasia pro-death government is now more than reasonably foreseeable. A Conservative government would forever dispense with this lingering proposed legalization of medically facilitated suicide for those with mental health challenges. We would turn hurt into hope. We would stand with the most vulnerable and work to revive the structures of family and community that advance connection, happiness and meaning. We would celebrate life instead of death for all, not just for the privileged.
For nations and for people there is always hope. “For the wretched of the earth, there is a flame that never dies. Even the darkest nights will end and the sun will rise.”
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Mr. Speaker, for a lot of us in the House, this feels like a case of déjà vu. It was pretty much a year ago that we were dealing with the exact same issue, and the government is doing the same thing, making the play to just punt the ball down the field yet again. Of course, it is talking about the issue of expanding assisted suicide to make it available for people suffering from mental illness. However, after the Liberals decided to open the door to that, they took a tiny step back and said, “We should wait for a year to go by before it can really begin.”
At that time, we Conservatives said, during the debate, that there was no possible way for one year to ever be enough time. For one thing, the Liberals rushed to expand MAID without carefully and thoroughly reviewing the concerns that already existed under the original program. That turned out to be another empty promise, and they recklessly pushed ahead with making assisted suicide more widely available. It became clearer than ever that they were not going to make any serious effort to protect vulnerable Canadians from all the harm that this new government decision will inflict.
One year is a very short amount of time, especially when the slow speed of bureaucracy is involved. At least now, the Liberals seem to finally realize that it was ridiculous for them to act as though this could just be delayed for a year and then everything would be fine. That year flew by quickly, and now we are back where we started. This time, they want to postpone it for three years instead of one.
When we hear the Liberals talk about this new bill, it is clear that they still have not learned the more important lesson from their terrible mistake. After the bill before us passes, the sad reality is that the Liberals have not closed the door that they opened a few years ago. They never should have opened it. In fact, it is quite the opposite: They are choosing to leave it open, despite all the red flags and the public outcry. It is the same game they were playing last year, except for one major difference: The Liberal plan to offer MAID for mental illness will come into effect after the next election. They have already indicated that this is what they want to happen eventually, if they get their way. However, they also know that they have pushed things way too far and that they cannot get away with it anymore. Enough is enough.
Canadians do not support the Liberals' out-of-touch agenda. This decision, like so many others, will make it harder for them to win another election. An Angus Reid poll discovered that three in 10 Canadians, fewer than the number who voted for the current government, support expanding MAID to those suffering exclusively with mental illness. Therefore, once again, the government will try to cover up its failure. While it tries to do that, Conservatives proudly stand on the side of common sense for the common people. We will reverse the government's terrible decision to expand assisted suicide. As the official opposition, we have already started to work on it.
Conservatives introduced Bill C-314 to repeal the Liberal plan to offer assisted suicide for mental illness once and for all. However, as expected, last fall, the Liberal government broke ranks with its coalition partner and voted it down. Even though it did not pass, it called the government's bluff. Liberals showed their true colours that day and made it absolutely clear where they stood. They are not interested in doing what it takes to protect the lives of Canadians who struggle with their mental health. The real reason for their delay is to use it as a stalling tactic for a government that is clearly in decline; despite that, we are glad to see that the bill will prevent tragic deaths from occurring before a Conservative government can bring in permanent protection for Canadians. We know that it needs to happen. There have been many troubling stories, which the government apparently chooses to ignore.
Last summer, a woman in Vancouver went to a hospital looking for support. She was experiencing suicidal thoughts and did not feel safe at home. During assessment, a clinician told her that there were not enough hospital beds and that the system was overwhelmed. Then she was asked: “Have you considered MAID?” She felt shocked and told her story, and I will read something she said in the Global News article. It reads: “No matter how much you struggle with mental illness or disability or chronic illness, no one should make a judgment about the value of your life or if it’s worth living.” That should not be a controversial thing to say, but the Prime Minister and his government have brought us to a dark place.
Only a couple of months ago, a 52-year-old grandfather who had cancer was waiting for chemotherapy and treatment. He was told there was a backlog, and the wait was taking longer than it should have. With worsening health complications, he applied for MAID and it went through. As members can imagine, the family was devastated by their experience.
There was also Corporal Christine Gauthier, a veteran and Paralympian, who called Veterans Affairs Canada to get a ramp installed. She was also asked to consider MAID. How did we get to the point where a veteran who served our country was told to consider ending her life instead of receiving the help she was seeking, something as simple as adding a ramp, for her own personal mobility? This is not the only time such a thing happened.
When something like that happens, it creates a situation that makes it more difficult for people to trust government services. When someone has these experiences or hears about them, it erodes their trust. Actually, it destroys their trust. During a personal crisis or a moment of weakness, they cannot help but worry that they will die because they simply spoke with the wrong person at the wrong time. That is a serious problem, and we should be working to fix it instead of making things worse.
We are heading down the wrong path, because the government's approach to this issue sends people a message of despair: that they should give up because their life is not worth living. With respect to that point, I hope everyone here will take heart in the story of Tyler Dunlop from Orillia, Ontario. At 37 years old, he had been homeless for years. He felt suicidal and planned to apply for MAID, but then he received some help in his life. Over time, he had a major shift in his thinking and experienced a spiritual transformation. After changing his mind to no longer seek assisted suicide, he released a new book, called Therefore Choose Life: My Journey from Hopelessness to Hope. We should all be glad that he is still here with us and can tell his story.
I want to share some of what he says in his book. He writes, “Though I had resigned myself to the fact that I'd be dead soon, my conscience—what has been called the voice of God—began to trouble me, the more I thought about MAID.” He goes on, “Around this time, much to my chagrin, I learned that the Liberal Party decided to postpone for one year the expansion of medically assisted death to Canadians with mental illness, so, like it or not, my appointment with death would have to wait.”
If not for the previous postponement, then, there is a good chance that Tyler would not be alive today. What if he had died so young, instead of simply receiving the help he needed and the compassion he was looking for? He has found a renewed sense of purpose and a new life through his Christian faith, thankfully escaping being yet another victim to a culture of death in which some people are considered more worthy of life than others. Now, he is able to share his story and his conviction that government can never replace God as the moral authority over right and wrong.
This is an encouraging story of survival, but there are more people out there who need our support. According to Statistics Canada, 4,500 Canadians die by suicide each year. That is 12 per day. That means 4,000 people struggling with mental disorders. What message will we send to those people who are at risk?
Then, there is the ongoing epidemic of addiction and substance abuse, which can officially be considered mental disorders. Will we allow assisted suicide to expand to the point that addiction makes somebody eligible? Where will it end? Life is precious and something that must be defended, especially when it is vulnerable Canadians who think that the only way out of the situation that they are in is death.
However, we are losing sight of that. The Liberals and their ideological allies blatantly ignored alarm after alarm raised by witnesses and community members at the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, which is why Conservatives on the committee had to publish their dissenting reports. Despite attempts by the expert panel, which the government selected, to block key stakeholders or ignore committee testimony, we are working as hard as we can to represent these voices. Expert after expert and story after story have raised alarms, but the Liberals remain committed to their agenda, no matter what.
Canadians cannot trust them to fix what they have broken, but they can count on Conservatives to continue bringing hope and provide real help for those who are suffering. That is what our country needs right now. Our country needs hope.
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