SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 281 - Feb/13/24

Ms. Niki Ashton (Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, NDP)

Feb/13/24 12:21:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in terms of accessing MAID, we know that many people have shared their thoughts publicly, particularly through the media, about how desperate they feel and how they are not getting help from the social safety net. They need help with health care, housing and mental health therapies. Everyone knows we need to acknowledge that reality. Does my colleague think our country is making progress if it recognizes the need to shore up our social safety net and provide the right supports to people who need them? That way, they will not ask for MAID if they do not really need it.

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Context: House Hansard - 281 - Feb/13/24

Mr. Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, GP)

Feb/13/24 5:21:12 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-62 Bill C-39 Bill C-314

Mr. Speaker, tonight, I rise in strong support of Bill C-62, which would delay expanding medical assistance in dying for those in whom mental illness is the sole underlying condition by three years. My reasons for doing so are the same as they were in my speech to Bill C-39, one year ago to this day, at the time when the government was willing to delay by only one year: First of all, this delay aligns with what I have heard from so many folks in my community; second, we know that this is what experts have been calling for, for some time; and third, as Greens, we believe we should spend more time filling in our social safety net before we expand medical assistance in dying. Today, Greens also believe that we should be rushing this legislation before the March 17 deadline to ensure that MAID is not expanded for mental illness as the sole underlying condition because this is the next best thing to what Bill C-314 would have done. Bill C-314, which was proposed by the member for Abbotsford, would have avoided this expansion for good. Substantively, in the process we are in right now, this bill has been moving ahead quite quickly to this point. I expect that, as votes follow over the coming days, we will continue to move based on the motion that was approved earlier in the day. This shows that the House of Commons can move quickly when there is an urgent priority to be addressed, as is the case with the March 17 deadline in the existing legislation. Really, what this is about in terms of moving quickly is not that we do not have the legislative tools but that we need the political will to do it. When I think about this legislation in front of us, outside what I have shared so far in terms of why I am supporting it, why I have historically and why Greens have historically as well, my question is this: Where is the rush to support legislation that would substantively improve the quality of life of Canadians? Other members have reflected on and shared feedback, which I hope they have heard directly from people with disabilities across the country. Where is the rush on ending legislated poverty for people with disabilities? The fact is that, to this day, 40% of people living in poverty across the country are people with disabilities. While some will talk all about a piece of legislation that was passed in June of last year, the fact is that a person with a disability is no better off today than they were before that legislation was passed. The benefit is not yet funded, and we have not engaged in and figured out negotiations with provinces and territories. It is shameful. It is an embarrassment that, in a country as rich as ours, we are in a place where people with disabilities continue to live in legislated poverty. The House of Commons could choose to act as urgently to end legislated poverty for people with disabilities as it is moving right now to ensure that the March 17 deadline is met. The House of Commons could also push to actually address one of the core underlying issues here, which is the lack of supports to address mental health. In fact, at the time of the last electoral campaign, the Liberal Party promised a Canada mental health benefit. It was meant to be called the “Canada mental health transfer”. It was a $4.5-billion commitment, and it was not one of several bullet points in a health accord, the way we have now. One of the challenges is that, while we all want our health care to be delivered in a wholesome way, it is more helpful to have funding agreements that are specific, so we can have accountability on them. However, that is not the case when it comes to mental health. Instead, mental health is one of four bullet points in these provincial and federal agreements. As a result, it is up to the provinces, and it is unclear whether there is any accountability whatsoever on how many of the dollars in those agreements will go directly to mental health. In this year's budget, we could see the government step up, be more clear and say it is going to make sure it directly funds what was supposed to be the Canada mental health transfer. In so doing, it would substantively improve the quality of life of Canadians, of folks in my community who are waiting on unreasonable wait times and lists to get access to a mental health professional. If we were really serious about moving quickly on another core crisis in this country, we would move far more quickly on addressing the housing crisis. Again, for me, the little bit of hope I have, seeing what is happening right now, is that we know there are parliamentary tools available to do exactly that. The fact is, in my community, we just had a report come out today that continues to make calls with respect to dealing with people living rough, in encampments. In my community, the number of people living unsheltered has tripled in just the last three years. We should not be in a place where this is happening, but we know why it is the case. Right now, for every one new unit of affordable housing that gets built, we are losing 15 units to the financialization of housing. Housing has increasingly become a commodity for large institutional investors to trade, rather than a place for a person to live. This means that we continue to see large institutional investors buying up existing affordable housing, renovicting folks and increasing their rents. We wonder why that crisis is also getting worse. I do not think we would be in the place where we are right now if this Parliament, and the government in particular, were to get more serious about addressing the housing crisis. After 30 years of underinvestment, where are we now? The fact is that we are at the bottom of the G7 when it comes to the social housing stock in this country; 3.5% of our housing is social housing. This means that, even if we were to double social housing, we would only be around the middle of the pack in the G7. It means something after 30 years of underinvestment in communities across the country. I am thinking about someone I spoke with this past weekend, a nurse, who told me she cannot afford to live in our community as a result of the reality of the cost of housing. It means that, whether someone is a teacher, a nurse or a tradesperson, this is a generation that is looking at housing fundamentally differently than any one before it has. Why is that? In my community, since 2005, the cost of housing has gone up 275%, but wages have only gone up 42%. Once again, if we were to truly fill in the social safety net and move as quickly on doing that as the government has moved today on meeting this March 17 deadline, we could substantively ensure that we see the funding necessary to address the affordable housing crisis. We could also address financialization, which is the fact that institutional investors have swept in to make the biggest buck possible, as quickly as possible, on the backs of some of the lowest-income people in my community. Yes, I will be supporting Bill C-62. I think this is a really important opportunity for us all to mark that this Parliament can move quickly when it needs to on real crises that it sees. We have crises of housing, of legislated poverty for people with disabilities and of mental health, which this Parliament and the government should move a whole lot faster on.

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Context: House Hansard - 281 - Feb/13/24

Mr. Mike Morrice

Feb/13/24 6:39:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first of all, I apologize. I will reply in English to make sure I get my wording correct. In the future, I hope to do so in French. The short answer is yes. I believe very strongly that this Parliament should be working far more diligently toward closing our social safety net. Instead of the urgency it seems to have with expanding medical assistance in dying, I would rather see our Parliament close our social safety net first.

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Context: House Hansard - 281 - Feb/13/24

Ms. Bonita Zarrillo (Port Moody—Coquitlam, NDP)

Feb/13/24 9:51:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are here today because without immediate intervention by Parliament, the expansion of medical assistance in dying to individuals whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental disorder will come into force on March 17. That is only a few weeks away, at a time when this country is experiencing a mental health crisis, the isolation of seniors, toxic drugs poisoning people in communities across Canada, inadequate OAS increases and still, unfortunately, and hard to imagine, no Canada disability benefit in place for people living with disabilities who are also living in poverty. The necessary safety social nets are missing, yet we are having a debate about an extension to medical assistance in dying. Why is the fact that the social safety net not in place so important? People in Canada deserve the dignity to live healthy lives and to live lives where they are not in poverty. I want to talk about the Canada disability benefit because the budget is coming. The next budget is coming very soon, and it is the expectation of the NDP and the expectation of Canadians that the Liberal government will live up to its commitment, its promise made in 2015, that there would be a Canada disability benefit. Too many people in the disability community are waiting for this disability benefit to lift them out of poverty. When I say too many, even one is too many. I am encouraging the Liberal government, which I know is listening closely to this debate, to actually do something and to get the Canada disability benefit into the pockets of the people who need it in this country so that we can start to have serious conversations about how to advance medical assistance in dying. We certainly cannot do it in the middle of a mental health crisis, while our communities are being poisoned by toxic drugs and while people living in poverty with a disability have no social safety net and no reliable income. I also think it is a disgrace, at this point in time, that the Liberal government is not considering the impacts of these clawbacks on persons with disabilities and anyone who is living on the poverty line, who are relying on social benefits, which they are entitled to, from the federal government, which are being rolled back. I think specifically about CERB at this point in time. We know that many Canadians, in good faith, applied for the CERB and got the CERB. We now have a federal government that has decided it is a good idea to start targeting people already living in poverty to get their CERB back. They know these people are living in poverty. They know the incomes of these people and they continue to go after them. At the same time, they are giving free rides to corporate CEOs who are taking home millions of dollars a year in salaries and bonuses, and not looking at the way they took wage subsidies and gave them away to their shareholders and in their own bonus packages. I think about Air Canada specifically. The government decided to give it a bailout during the pandemic. Air Canada said that the government could have it back because the government is not allowing it to give it to its executives as bonuses. These are the choices that the federal government is making. It is giving CEOs and large corporations the regular free ride while targeting people living in poverty. Today, I was reading the report from the federal housing advocate. Human rights are being violated right now. We are talking about the expansion of MAID for mental illness as the sole condition, and I put a big blame on the Conservatives here because I have been sitting in a number of studies in HUMA, on housing. We know that the Conservatives walked away and lost 800,000 units of affordable housing in this country. Conservatives are the instigators of the problem that is manifesting on the ground right now that the Liberals did not fix when they came into power. The housing advocate said that Canadians' human rights are being violated because they do not have access to housing. It is despicable. If our country cannot use our natural resources to make sure that people are not living in tents outside the airport in Vancouver, that is totally unacceptable. I blame both the Conservatives and the Liberals because they know what has been happening, that it has been happening for decades and they have done nothing about it. The housing advocate told the government that a national encampment response plan needs to be in place by August 31. I am sorry to say that, based on the speed at which the Liberal government moves, that is highly unlikely. I hope it takes up the challenge from the federal housing advocate, because no one should have to live in an encampment without access to clean water, waste removal and garbage pickup. We would think the federal government could at least support cities with respect to garbage pickup so people have access to clean spaces when they are forced into a tent encampment. I would ask the Prime Minister and any of the Liberal MPs to walk down Wellington Street, the ByWard Market or Sparks Street. They walk by these people every single day and do nothing. We know that the health ministers across the country are concerned about this bill before us today. We also know the Liberal government is playing snail mail on pharmacare, the pharmacare that can help people with their mental health and help people take their medication properly so they can be healthy. The Liberal government has decided that is something that is going to snail along. Again, the deadline is very short on that. We are talking about these social safety net pieces the Liberal government is moving at a snail's pace on, and the Conservatives are to blame for the conditions of the housing market and housing for people in this country right now. I want to highlight that Conservatives also voted against every single social program and initiative that came out in the fall economic statement and the budget. They say that they care about people; meanwhile, they are voting against everything that would help people, including food. They have decided they do not want to support a national school food program. How do we expect to have debates that matter to people in Canada when we cannot make sure that kids are fed and people live in homes? That is what the Liberals and Conservatives have done. I want to read something that I received from a mental health worker in my riding who reached out to me. She said, “I implore the government to reconsider this expansion...and to engage in a meaningful dialogue with mental health professionals to safeguard the well-being of...Canadians, especially the most vulnerable”. I implore the Liberal government, and the Conservatives who continue to try to stall social programs and initiatives the NDP is working to advance in this House, to take this seriously. We know that, as we stand here in this House today having this debate, we have a toxic drug supply in this country that people are reaching out to because they do not have the medications they can afford as there is not a national pharmacare program in this country.

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