SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Hon. Anita Anand (President of the Treasury Board, Lib.)

Feb/15/24 10:29:13 a.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-62

moved that Bill C-62, An Act to amend An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), No. 2, be read the third time and passed.

30 words

Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Mr. Ken Hardie (Fleetwood—Port Kells, Lib.)

Feb/15/24 10:48:50 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, as the provinces and territories are not ready to implement medical assistance in dying for people with mental disorders, personally I am also not ready. I could not vote for something like it right now. I am taken by the case of a woman, E.F., who was granted the right to have her life taken with medical assistance in 2016, after reports that she suffered from severe conversion disorder. Nobody could read the media accounts of this and not understand that there are some people for whom life is clearly not worth living anymore. Would that provision, in the Court of Appeal decision in Alberta, still provide a way forward for the people who are in a terrible condition right now and who need relief?

128 words

Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

Feb/15/24 11:07:36 a.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-314

Madam Speaker, we come here to debate the most serious of issues, and we are faced with one of those issues today. I want to start by being very up front. I do not think that a pause is appropriate for the expansion of medical assistance in dying to those whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness. There must be an abolition of the expansion to those who are most vulnerable and to those who are suffering. We have heard that the Liberal government is pushing this off to avoid political consequences in the next election, and it is shameful. However, it does present an opportunity, because a Conservative government would not allow the expansion of doctor-assisted death to people for whom our country should be offering hope and help. The concrete solutions that have been put forward by Conservative members have been heard in the House, including by my hon. colleague from Cariboo—Prince George with the 988 suicide prevention hotline, which he shamed the government into taking action on. While it took that shame for the Liberals to act, it does offer some help to those who desperately need it. The hon. member for Abbotsford spoke just before I did. His Bill C-314 would have scrapped doctor-assisted death for those whose sole underlying medical condition was mental illness, but the government rejected that. With respect to the provinces and territories, which are constitutionally obligated to deliver on health care, the majority of their heads of government have had to call for the government to stop this reckless march forward. While I will vote in favour of a pause, I cannot abide anyone believing that I am okay with this continuing three years from now. This debate is following the Liberals' pulling the emergency brake on the reckless expansion of MAID just a year ago. Given the chance, there would be a wide expansion of MAID, and not just to those who are suffering from mental illness and addiction. This expansion of doctor-assisted suicide cannot be carried out safely or justly. It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the irremediability of a mental disorder in individual cases, meaning we cannot say, with the certainty that is required in a matter that truly is life or death, whether a person suffering from mental illness will get better. In appearing before the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, on which I sat as a vice-chair, Dr. Jitender Sareen, a physician in the department of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, testified, said: We strongly recommend an extended pause on expanding MAID to include mental disorders as the sole underlying medical condition in Canada, because we're simply not ready. In our experience, people recover from long periods—“long” meaning decades—of suffering with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and addictions with appropriate evidence-based treatments. We strongly believe that making MAID available for mental disorders will facilitate unnecessary deaths in Canada and negatively impact suicide prevention efforts. The clinical role is to instill hope, not to lead patients toward death. Dr. Sareen went on to say: Unlike physical conditions that drive MAID requests, we do not understand the biological basis of mental disorders and addictions, but we know that they can resolve over time. The real discrimination and lack of equity is not providing care for people with mental disorders and addictions. I could not agree more with the doctor. We have a moral obligation in our society to ensure that every person is treated with the inherent dignity and value with which they are created, everyone. They do not get that when we offer them death instead of help and hope, treatment and care. Psychiatrists and even the Prime Minister's so-called expert panel cannot know if someone is going to recover from mental illness, and this under a government where wait times for psychiatric treatment can be over half of a decade. If the government goes ahead with this, people who would have gotten better will not get the chance, because they will have been killed at the hand of the government. Further, it is difficult for a clinician to distinguish between a rational request for medical assistance in dying where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition and one motivated by suicidal ideation. On the question of suicidality, Dr. Sareen said: ...there is no clear operational definition differentiating between when someone is asking for MAID and when someone is asking for suicide when they're not dying. Internationally, this is the differentiation. If somebody is dying, then it can be considered MAID. When they're not dying, it is considered suicide. On the same question, Dr. Tarek Rajji stated, “There is no clear way to separate suicidal ideation or a suicide plan from requests for MAID.” With the line being blurred between suicidal ideation and so-called rational requests for medical assistance in dying, evidence from jurisdictions that have assisted suicide for mental disorders, both suicides and medically facilitated death go up. We cannot move forward with this dangerous game that the government is playing, the plan of moving full steam ahead no matter what the cost. The minister said that the Liberals had the moral imperative to move ahead with an assisted suicide regime. Hopelessness and misery, that is their imperative. A moral imperative? It is immoral. This is the same government that has degraded life in the country to the point where an entire generation of people is giving up hope. Two million Canadians are lined up at food banks a month and once former middle-class families are living in their cars. People are being offered MAID instead of a wheelchair, after serving our country and going to veterans affairs for help. People are being offered MAID at routine doctor appointments. People are seeking MAID because they cannot afford housing. People are seeking MAID because they cannot get the psychiatric care they need. This is blind ideology ahead of evidence. It is death on demand for any reason. Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, personality disorders and addictions will all become justifications for death under the Liberal government if this plan is allowed to be carried forward. A new generation of addicts will have been created, by normalizing and legalizing opioids that are being peddled to our children. The MAID regime seems like it will become the government's plan for addictions. Rather than offering treatment and a chance to get better to people who are suffering, they are being offered death. There is hope yet, if we pass this bill, that we could stop the expansion of MAID to people who are suffering. We can make a commitment, as the representatives of Canadians, to deliver on the health, help, hope and treatment that Canadians deserve, that every human person deserves. Dignity, respect, hope and life, that is what we are going to have to vote to protect. I am proud to stand and vote in support of life.

1177 words

Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Mr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC)

Feb/15/24 1:12:32 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for sharing his experiences. I am a big fan of the Yiddish proverbs that he says, so maybe he has one he can share in addition to the one he shared already. Getting back to the subject at hand, I worry most that there was an amendment put to the legislation that would basically allow for an expansion of medical assistance in dying to persons with mental disorders. The government had a choice where it could just simply say no to that amendment and just leave things as they are until, at the very least, the provinces which run the health care systems, and the mental health professionals could say “we are ready”. Does the member believe that the government really made a mistake and that this does have a bit of “the dog ate my homework” kind of approach to it? The government is simply relegislating over and over and making the same mistake.

167 words

Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Ms. Lisa Hepfner

Feb/15/24 1:38:55 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I would like to, first of all, say that we cannot equate suicide with medical assistance in dying. They are two completely different issues. Second, I would say that yes, we absolutely need to take the time to make sure we get this right. That is why this legislation is so important. We need these three years to get our medical system up to the level where we can make sure that everyone who is granted the MAID provision truly is someone who has gone through the medical system, has taken all of the medical treatments that are available and has still reached this conclusion. We need more time, and that is why we need this legislation.

119 words

Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Ms. Anita Vandenbeld (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, Lib.)

Feb/15/24 1:59:20 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, we know that medical assistance in dying is a deeply personal issue that is very difficult. I wonder if my hon. colleague could talk about the fact that we need to base this on principles of personal autonomy, dignity and choice.

43 words