- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Peterborough—Kawartha
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $106,196.43
- Government Page
- Feb/12/24 1:07:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a true honour to stand in the House of Commons and represent the beautiful riding of Peterborough—Kawartha.
I believe that what we are talking about today, which we have been talking about for almost a year to the day, is actually one of the most important pieces of legislation this Parliament will ever discuss and decide on. If people do not know about it, I can promise them with certainty that it will either either impact those who are watching or someone they know.
What we are talking about is MAID, medical assistance in dying. The Liberals have put forth the notion to extend MAID to people with mental illness. Members heard me correctly. It sounds absurd because it is absurd. It is the worst message we can send to somebody who is in despair: that they are not worth saving. The worst message we, as legislators and policy makers, can send is that someone's life does not matter. I do not think I can name a member of the House who does not know somebody who has had, or who has not themself had, battles with mental health.
The government is saying it would put forward legislation that would not put more resources, money or time into better understanding mental illness, which includes substance abuse, through which 22 people a day in this country are dying from overdoses, but would offer MAID. This must disturb us. This must make us get up. This must make us speak loudly. I do not care where people sit on a political spectrum; the bill before us is the legislation people should be deciding their vote on, because it is a huge statement of what we as Canadians stand up for.
I want to read this: “To be eligible for MAID under the Criminal Code, a person must have a ‘grievous and irremediable medical condition,’ which is defined as ‘a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability’ that has led to an ‘advanced state of irreversible decline’ and intolerable suffering.” It is impossible to determine irremediability in individual cases of mental illness. Many experts have been clear that MAID for mental illness cannot be implemented safely.
Dr. John Maher, a clinical psychiatrist and medical ethicist said, “Psychiatrists don't know and can't know who will get better and live decades of good life. Brain diseases are not liver diseases.” As my colleague from Cumberland—Colchester, who is a medical doctor, has attested to multiple times, we cannot say with certainty what is going to happen to someone. We do not know what tomorrow is. I am going to read the most powerful letter into the record, because I think it is critical for everyone to hear it.
I also want to say that in February 2023, just a year ago, 30 legal experts from across Canada wrote an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister and Liberal cabinet ministers to dispute the claims that the then justice minister had repeatedly made, which were that his government was bound by the courts to expand MAID and to make it available for persons whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness.
This is hard to comprehend, and I spent hours trying to decide why they would want to do this. My 14-year-old said to me on the weekend that if someone is in a state of mental illness, like bipolar disorder, and is in an extreme low, they cannot make a decision that is right for them. That is the whole thing; they need help. With the legislation before us, someone could, in that state, ask for MAID. On what planet does that make any sense? It does not.
I am going to read a letter into the record. It is extremely powerful. Kayla has been writing to me since the issue first came aboard, and she has been very vocal in letting me share her story. I shared her original letter, and now that she knows the government wants to extend MAID yet again instead of throwing it out, she wanted me to read this letter to every member of the House of Commons:
“Hello, Michelle.
“I am thrilled to hear that MAID for people with mental health disorders as their only condition will not be put into place next month. However, it is deeply disturbing to me that the Liberals think time to get this right makes it better. What will be the difference in 2027? They will still be offering death to people who may very well live long lives with improved quality of life.
“In my own darkest moments I also thought things would never get better. I thought I would be sad and scared and hallucinating for the rest of my life, but they did get better, and offering MAID to people like me when in their worst moments is robbing them of the opportunity for things to get better. It is robbing people of the opportunity to receive help. It is robbing them of the opportunity to heal.
“It is also disgusting to me that death would be offered as a solution to people with mental health disorders when the resources for people with mental health disorders, at least where I live in Ontario, are in shambles. People are living on the streets with addictions. People are coming to myself to help them get help knowing that I have been through my own dark mental health struggles, and I am at a loss for where to send them. Wait lists are long, and while I know of some early psychosis intervention programs, people who have been struggling past early adulthood have nowhere to go but the hospital where they can't stay forever.
“I want to tell you about my dear uncle. He lives with paranoid schizophrenia. He recently hit rock bottom. He lived on the streets for over a year, and not for a lack of my family trying to help him. He almost died of pneumonia. Every time my family would take him to the hospital and try to get him help for his mental health, he would be released. Then he would get arrested and return to the hospital only to get released again. This went on for years. I understand a normal hospital doesn't have resources for him, but the point is no one knew what to do.
“But back to MAID. This idea needs to be scrapped. Offering death as hope to people in mental health crises is despicable. Just because it is a needle does not give people more dignity. It denies the dignity that already exists in every single human life. Just because the government hands you the knife while smiling doesn't change the fact that they are handing you the knife to kill yourself.
“Our lives are not useless or lesser just because we struggle with mental health disorders and it is time the current Canadian government started to believe that.
“Thank you, Michelle.
“Kayla.”
Can we please give Kayla a round of applause for her bravery? She has spoken up so many times about this, and in genuine distress.
I heard my colleague across the way, the Liberal member for Winnipeg North, say that he struggled with this because it is so personal. He said that this was what his constituents wanted. My response to him would be: I would like to see the data. I would like to see a referendum that this is what his constituents want, that they would rather MAID be offered than support to resources in understanding how the brain works, why the brain does what it does and what is mental illness. I challenge him right here, right now, to give me that data, because I can say with certainty that the families I know, the children I know who are on wait lists over two years long, do not want to be offered death. They want hope, they want treatment and they want solutions.
It is insane that we are even having this discussion, “Well, we'll just extend it.” Do members know what the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions said in the House? She said that it is not a matter of if any longer; it is when. This is such a deep ideology that the Liberals cannot even say, “Okay, all right, we get it. We heard from the 30 experts. We have heard from the people. This does not make any sense and there is no science here. We will pull it back. This was a mistake.”
There is no shame in admitting there was a mistake. We are here to make people's lives better, not worse, absolutely, without a doubt, not this message of, “You know what? Yeah, it is not going to get better. So, here, sign this paper. We are going to give you MAID.”
For those who are watching and have voted Liberal and are loyal, I plead with them to look at this. This is the most disgusting piece of legislation that has ever been put on the floor of the House of Commons, and we must invest in mental health and treatment.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour and a great privilege to speak on behalf of my community of Peterborough—Kawartha.
Tonight, I am speaking on my colleague from Abbotsford's private member's bill, Bill C-314. I have explained this before, but I will do so again. A private member's bill is something a member puts forward for the House to decide on. This is an important private member's bill, as they all are, really, because they come from a place of passion, but this is Bill C-314, an act to amend the Criminal Code, medical assistance in dying, which many of us know as MAID.
The summary states, “This enactment amends the Criminal Code to provide that a mental disorder is not a grievous and irremediable medical condition for which a person could receive medical assistance in dying.”
The preamble states:
Whereas Parliament considers it a priority to ensure that adequate supports are in place for the mental health of Canadians;
Whereas Parliament considers that vulnerable Canadians should receive suicide prevention counselling rather than access medical assistance in dying;
Whereas Parliament considers that Canada’s medical assistance in dying regime risks normalizing assisted dying as a solution
The fact that we need a private member's bill to say this feels outrageous. I have listened to other members in the House tonight, and I want to be very mindful of my tone. This is an interesting and emotional debate, but I really urge the members opposite who have said they are not going to support the bill to consider getting it to committee. There is so much more we need to study.
My question is how this is not already in legislation. I will tell members why. In December of 2021, the Senate added an amendment to Bill C-7, without any consultation, study or discussion, to add people with mental illness as eligible for MAID. This private member's bill is currently the only way we can protect those suffering from mental illness. It is the only way for us as parliamentarians to say to those watching that we believe their lives matter and that it is our job to ensure we fight for them. Today might be awful, but none of us know what tomorrow will bring, as no one knows what is out there for them.
The MAID committee was created after the amendment was added. How backward is that? It heard testimony from many experts, and I want everyone to listen to the following quote because it is the essence of this discussion.
Dr. John Maher, clinical psychiatrist and medical ethicist, stated, “Psychiatrists don't know and can't know who will get better and live decades of good life. Brain diseases are not liver diseases.” Anyone who has dealt with somebody who has a mental illness or disorder knows that we have not even scratched the surface of what we know. We do not know.
I want to read this letter from a constituent who has been following the slippery slope of the Liberal government's extension of MAID into the record. I have her permission.
She writes:
“Dear Michelle...,
My name is Kayla...I am going to be sending this letter to several MPs, but as you are [my] MP...I thought I should send this to you first. I am very troubled by something that is going to be happening very soon in this country, and I hope you will listen to what I have to say.
“Overall, I am a very healthy individual. I have a mental health condition, but it is my sole medical condition. However, I was mortified to discover last month, that Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD...) will be available to people whose sole health condition is a mental health condition as of March 17, 2023.”
We have since voted in the House and that date has been extended one year to March 17, 2024. However, this is still in place, and this letter is very pertinent. She goes on to say:
“Persons who suffer from mental health conditions suffer horribly. I know that. I have suffered with mine for nearly 12 years. Perhaps the most appalling things of all are that 'The law no longer requires a person's natural death to be reasonably foreseeable as an eligibility criterion for MAID,' (Government of Canada, 2021) and 'There is no obligation for a person or their healthcare practitioners to inform family members if that person has requested or received MAiD.' (CAMH, 2022)...
“I think you see this for what it is...I will be eligible to end my own life on the basis that I have an incurable mental illness.”
“Let me give you a bit more background: I have 2 university degrees in Biology and Environmental Science. I have a job that I love and have held since a little while after I graduated. I have NEVER failed to pay taxes, nor have I ever taken extended leave or gone on El due to my mental illness, no matter how hard it gets. I have a family and friends that I love dearly, and they love me too. And yet now my own government has deemed my life not worth living. This isn't just unfair. This is monstrous.
“But it gets worse. What about those people who are in the same boat that I am medically, but are much, much worse off. They cannot pay their taxes because they cannot work. They have a substance addiction. They are veterans with PTSD. They are homeless because they cannot seem to fight off their demons. These are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. To say nothing of the 'mature minors' (whatever on Earth that means) that will be able to access MAiD in the future if this doesn't stop. Make no mistake. This thing, that we dress up with the nice name MAiD, is euthanasia of our most vulnerable people because they cannot 'contribute to society' like others can. The fact that the government would offer to 'get them out of the way'...in this way, just because the systems that the government put in place are failing them is an unspeakable evil.”
She put in brackets, “convince them that they should die”. These are her words.
She continues, “I hope, Michelle, that you will do everything in your power as an MP as I will do everything in my power as a citizen, to abolish this law. I understand the federal government is seeking to push back the timing”, which it did, as I said. She says this is “likely because it has received so much criticism. I understand that it likely wasn't you that made any of the decisions for this law to go ahead. But I also understand that you are in more of a position to do something about it than many people are. I hope you will respond after reading this letter.
“Sincerely,
“Kayla.”
I did respond to Kayla and we had a very powerful conversation. She gave me permission to share this letter.
I think one letter like this is enough reasonable doubt that we need to take this private member's bill very seriously. It is everything we need to know to consider and urge everyone in the House. I have heard people say, on the Bloc side, that people should have the right to choose. The reality is that people who are in such a state of mental disorder do not have that capacity. We have to help them.
I want to leave us with this. This woman's name is Elyse. She is a young university student. She said that she is so worried about this legislation to extend MAID to those with mental illness. She has struggled with mental illness, and she knows with certainty that, if someone had offered that to her during her times of illness, she would not be here today. She would not be getting her university degree. She would not be in a happy, healthy relationship, and she would not know that her life was worth living.
If one is watching at home, if one has a loved one suffering, if one is suffering, one's life matters and it is worth living. It is our job to study this to the depths to determine whether we can do this. This private member's bill is the only thing that would protect those with mental illness and mental disorder from accessing MAID. I urge every member in the House to at least pass it to committee.
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Madam Speaker, as always, it is a true honour and privilege to stand here in the House of Commons to represent my beautiful community of Peterborough—Kawartha.
Today we are debating Bill C-39, an act to amend the Criminal Code in terms of medical assistance in dying, which I will refer to as MAID for the remainder of this speech, and extend the exclusion of persons living with mental illness from being eligible to receive MAID beyond March 17, 2023.
We are going to need to rewind a bit to paint a picture of how disturbing this legislation, conversation and ideology are. In December of 2021, without any consultation, study or discussion, the Senate added an amendment to Bill C-7 to make people with mental illness eligible for MAID. This is gravely concerning and indicative of the Liberal government's recklessness to add such a serious amendment, which targets the most vulnerable, without due diligence of study and consultation with experts.
Instead of recognizing the undemocratic and dangerous way the amendment was added and scrapping the entire thing, which should have been what happened, the Liberals' proposal is simply to extend the deadline with an arbitrary date.
The MAID special joint committee was created after the amendment was added. How backward is that? The committee heard testimony from many experts, including Dr. John Maher, clinical psychiatrist and medical ethicist, who said, “Psychiatrists don't know and can't know who will get better and live decades of good life. Brain diseases are not liver diseases.”
Of course, today I will support this bill, but let us call it what it is, which is window dressing for a much bigger ideological problem. We do not need to extend the timeline of this bill; we need to get rid of making those with mental illness eligible for MAID. We need to call out the Liberals for not providing a dime of their promised $4.5 billion to the Canada mental health transfer. We need to ensure people at home watching know we are working diligently to give them timely access to treatment and recovery when they are willing to get it. That is what we need to be doing.
I urge every member in this House to listen to their constituents and recognize how dangerous the message is that we are sending to those struggling. I encourage every member in this House to support Bill C-314, which was introduced last Friday by my colleague from Abbotsford and would solve this problem instead of prolonging and dragging out an amendment that should never have been put there in the first place.
It is difficult, if not impossible, in the case of mental illness to determine whether someone can recover, get better or get healthy. Therefore, one can appreciate how dangerous a bill like this is.
I am going to read into the record a letter that was recently sent to me.
It reads:
“Dear Michelle Ferreri,
“My name is Kayla. I am going to be sending this letter to several MPs, but as you are the MP presiding over the constituency where I reside, I thought I should send this to you first. I am very troubled by something that is going to be happening very soon in this country, and I hope you will listen to what I have to say.
“Overall, I am a very healthy individual. I have a mental health condition, but it is my sole medical condition. However, I was mortified to discover last month, that medical assistance in dying (MAID for short) will be available to people whose sole health condition is a mental health condition as of March 17, 2023.
“Persons who suffer from mental health conditions suffer horribly. I know that. I have suffered with mine for nearly 12 years. Perhaps the most appalling things of all are that ‘The law no longer requires a person's natural death to be reasonably foreseeable as an eligibility criterion for MAID,’ (Government of Canada, 2021) and ‘There is no obligation for a person or their health care practitioners to inform family members if that person has requested or received MAiD.’ (CAMH, 2022).
“I think you are an intelligent person, Michelle. I think you see this for what it is. As of March 17, 2023, I will be eligible to end my own life on the basis that I have an incurable mental illness. Let me give you a bit more background: I have two university degrees, in biology and environmental science. I have a job that I love and have held since a little while after I graduated. I have never failed to pay taxes, nor have I ever taken extended leave or gone on EI due to my mental illness, no matter how hard it gets. I have family and friends that I love dearly, and they love me too. And yet now my own government has deemed my life not worth living. This just isn't unfair. This is monstrous.
“But it gets worse. What about those people who are in the same boat that I am medically, but are much, much worse off. They cannot pay their taxes because they cannot work. They have a substance addiction. They are veterans with PTSD. They are homeless because they cannot seem to fight off their demons. These are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. To say nothing of the nature of the 'mature minors' (whatever on Earth that means) that will be able to access MAiD in the future if this doesn't stop.
“Make no mistake. This thing that we dress up with a nice name 'MAiD' is euthanasia of our most vulnerable people because they cannot 'contribute to society' like others can. The fact that the government would offer to get them out of the way (read: convince them that they should die) in this way, just because the systems that the government put in place are failing them is an unspeakable evil.
“I hope, Michelle, that you will do everything in your power as an MP, as I will do everything in my power as a citizen, to abolish this law. I understand the federal government is seeking to push back the timing of this law, likely because it has received so much criticism. I understand that it likely wasn't you that made any of the decisions for this law to go ahead. But I also understand that you are in more of a position to do something about it than many other people are. I hope you will respond after reading this letter.
“Sincerely,
“Kayla.”
I did talk to Kayla, and it was a heartbreaking conversation. She is living very well, and I would like to give Kayla a round of applause for being so brave as to share that. This letter says everything Canadians need to hear. We need to be sending a message of hope and recovery, not a message that their life does not matter.
I leave members with one final story. Elyse is a young university student and she chatted with me during the Christmas break. She said she needed to tell me something. She said she was so worried about this legislation to extend MAID to those with mental illness. She said that she had struggled with mental illness and knew with certainty that if someone had offered that to her during her times of illness, she would not be here today. She told me that she would not be getting her university degree; would not be in a happy, healthy relationship; and would not know that her life is worth living.
We have a duty in the House to bring hope and create legislation that provides a better life for Canadians. A better life means access to help when they need it. I urge every MP in the House to listen to the experts and Canadians, and not just extend an arbitrary deadline, but drop this dangerous and reckless legislation. To everyone at home watching, including families who are supporting those with mental illness and those who are living with mental illness, we see them. They are worth fighting for, and their lives are worth it.
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