Senator Miville-Dechêne: Like you, Senator Gold, I believe that the issue of medical assistance in dying is a delicate and difficult one. There are currently some serious doubts about the legislation’s implementation.

Shouldn’t there be a pause on expanding medical assistance in dying to those with mental illness as the sole underlying medical condition? There’s no consensus on the issue. Quebec has rejected the idea.

Why doesn’t the federal government apply the precautionary principle in this specific case in order to slow the momentum and prevent things from getting out of hand?

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Last Thursday, Quebec experienced a media disaster when TVA Group announced that it was laying off 547 employees, which is roughly a third of its workforce. TVA is the most popular channel back home, even more popular than Radio-Canada.

This is a hardship for all those who are losing their jobs, but it also means the loss of a lot of regional news in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, the Eastern Townships, the Mauricie region, the Lower St. Lawrence area, the Gaspé and the North Shore.

TVA says that it wants to protect regional news and will do so by keeping three or four journalists in Saguenay, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke and Rimouski. That will also enable TVA to meet the CRTC’s minimum requirements concerning regional news.

The TVA stations in each of these four cities, which had at least 30 employees each, will disappear. The evening news for these regions will be produced in Quebec City, and will thus become a watered down broadcast without any local colour. It is hard to imagine how three journalists will be able to cover an area as big as the North Shore, the Lower St. Lawrence and the Gaspé combined.

This is a direct affront to democracy because many people watched these news broadcasts. The first to complain were elected officials themselves. Municipal councillors, mayors and reeves may not always like journalists, but they recognize that journalists do essential work and that city councils work better when their decisions are scrutinized by the press.

These elected representatives also underscore that each of their regions is facing economic or social issues that get little or no exposure on national news broadcasts out of Montreal. How will this information get out and reach the public if the necessary means no longer exist?

We know that traditional news media are facing a crisis in all regions of the country. For TVA, it is too late. The group was counting on Bill C-18 to come into force quickly so that it could replenish its coffers, but Meta has already jumped ship and Google offered no guarantees. It is a major loss.

[English]

Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne: Senator Gold, in 2022, the number of Canadians who were authorized to receive medical assistance in dying, or MAID, increased by 31%. In Quebec, there was a 46% increase. In a Globe and Mail editorial published last week, we learned that Quebec, sadly, is the MAID world champion. Unsurprisingly, the chair of Quebec’s commission on end-of-life care is worried about borderline or non-compliant cases.

In that context, expanding MAID to include mental illness raises many questions. In its editorial, The Globe and Mail wondered if, considering the statistics and justifications, some requests for MAID were granted only because the applicants were old.

Senator Gold, is the government aware of the problem? Will it tighten some of the criteria, which are much too vague?