- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $170,231.20
- Government Page
- Feb/13/24 9:30:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what the parliamentary secretary fails to acknowledge is the many ways in which the government's policies on euthanasia have been a profound failure.
In fact, it has been repeatedly called out, not only by those who are concerned about the impact on those struggling with mental health challenges, but also by those within the disability community, which has been nearly unanimous in their criticism of the government's approach. The disability community has identified how the approach the government is taking is undermining the services that they wish to access, and it is in fact devaluing the lives and contributions of people living with disabilities. The Liberal government and the parliamentary secretary need to acknowledge that.
I want to ask the member a question. There were some very specific constructive proposals around this in the last Conservative election platform, things such as how a doctor should not be bringing up and proposing MAID to someone who has not asked for it. At a minimum, if there is going to be a conversation about euthanasia, it should be initiated by the patient. It should not be something a doctor, someone in the health care system or someone who works for a government department, such as veterans affairs, is suggesting to them.
Does the member agree that one reasonable reform would be to say that it should be the patient bringing up the conversation, if it is a conversation they want to have, not somebody else bringing it up and suggesting death to them?
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- Feb/13/24 6:53:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, respectfully to my colleague, I have journeyed with close family members who have suffered significantly at the time of their death. I think one of the biggest challenges we see in this country, and members of the NDP have pointed this out in previous Parliaments, is a significant lack of proper training in pain management and proper available palliative care, as well as instances of people being actively pushed towards death by the system.
I am not worried about MAID being offered to everyone; euthanasia is not being offered to everyone. Euthanasia is being offered to certain people in certain situations, reflecting a social and political view of the value of their life. This is what the disability community has pushed Parliament to hear. When we offer suicide facilitation for people with disabilities and prevention for people without disabilities, that clearly sends the wrong message about valuing the universal value and dignity of all human life.
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- Feb/13/24 6:37:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one striking thing about this debate, for me, is that no advocate of legalized or expanded euthanasia says that everybody should be able to access this thing because they want it. Rather, what advocates say is that people in certain situations should be able to access it. For instance, they say that if an able-bodied person comes to a doctor and says, “I want you to help me end my life”, they are offered some kind of suicide prevention. However, if a person with a disability says, “In the context of my situation, I want to end my life”, they might be offered suicide facilitation.
This is not about a general policy of choice or autonomy, rather this is about saying that certain people who present with an apparent desire for death are treated one way and others are treated a different way. That raises a big problem in terms of how we value the lives of people with disabilities. I am curious to hear my colleague's response.
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Madam Speaker, there was a proposal from the Quebec medical association to allow children to be euthanized. In particular, that proposal was for infants born with disabilities. It is horrifying to see that somebody, purportedly a doctor, would come before a parliamentary committee and actually advocate the killing of children on the basis of their having a disability, and that the same association would double down on it. If someone had told me 10 years ago that this would actually be happening in the Canadian Parliament, of all places, it is unbelievable just how far we have slid so quickly.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today. I have a number of petitions to present to the House.
The first petition comes from Canadians living with disabilities who have a number of asks regarding policies within the ambit of the federal government and Parliament that relate to Canadians with disabilities.
The petitioners note that inflation has increased the cost of living and is having the greatest impact on Canadians with fixed incomes, including Canadians living with disabilities. They note disturbing reports of people accessing euthanasia in Canada due to a lack of access to care and support. They also note that Canada's leading disability advocacy organizations had warned that Bill C-7 would threaten the lives and security of Canadians living with disabilities and that a choice to access euthanasia can never be truly free if those who suffer do not have access to the support they require.
The petitioners urge the House of Commons to pass Bill C-22, ensuring that the new Canada disability benefit is accessible to all Canadians who live with disabilities and does not take away existing benefits. They also ask for us to repeal Bill C-7 so that Canadians who live with disabilities are not coerced into accepting euthanasia because they do not have access to adequate support.
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Madam Speaker, the member raises many important points, in particular recognizing the diversity of disabilities that exist. When we talk about disabilities, they could include many different kinds of things that in a particular social context make it harder for people to do a job that they could otherwise do. We need to recognize that not all forms of disability fit with what our expectations might be and not all forms of disability are visible.
That is why this program needs to be well constructed. It needs to be versatile and it needs to encourage accommodations for people that respond to their particular circumstances. It is why we would have liked to see more details on this from the government in terms of the legislation. These are important questions we need to be asking at committee.
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Madam Speaker, I was with the member for most of the way. I agree that all the things she spoke about in terms of accommodations are important. The House of Commons has within its Standing Orders provisions that allow any standing order to be abrogated in order to accommodate a member with a disability, and that is important and positive.
I believe there are ways to achieve that accommodation without virtual Parliament. My sense is that many members are keen on taking advantage of virtual Parliament and are Zooming in from their own offices, even on Parliament Hill. The institution can accommodate and has accommodated elected officials with disabilities outside of a virtual context.
I certainly agree that accommodation is very important. Cardus's research identifies that for employers, the costs of accommodation are actually much lower than are often initially expected. That research is very important and is hopefully encouraging to employers that are considering doing more in this area.
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Madam Speaker, it is very clear that members of the government, like members of the Bloc, do not want to hear about the subject that is a pressing priority for Canadians living with disabilities. They would prefer to talk about how they are introducing generic framework legislation with no particulars. They do not want to talk about the fact that they have been called out by every disability rights organization in this country for the fact that they have put in place a framework that is denying vital supports to Canadians with disabilities while widening the push, for Canadians facing disabilities, toward facilitated death.
People living with disabilities have a great deal to contribute to society, and they need to be offered workplace supports alongside income supports. We also need to recognize that a person's dignity is not dependent on their circumstances, their context, their perceived productivity or their ability to contribute. Human dignity is inherent in all human beings.
I will vote for Bill C-22 while maintaining extreme concern about the way the government views and treats Canadians living with disabilities, and about its apparent lack of desire to hear from parliamentarians and to hear the legitimate concerns that organizations are repeatedly raising.
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Madam Speaker, I will continue to exercise the rights I am given by the House to speak about this pertinent issue, which fundamentally relates to this legislation.
The government does not want to hear the many concerns raised by Canadians living with disabilities. This is critically linked to their quality of life. The structures the government has put in place are denying vital supports to Canadians who need them and pushing them toward this widening door the government has offered when it comes to facilitated suicide.
Again, the minister said, “I regularly hear from families who are appalled by the fact that they take their child, potentially their older child and are offered unprovoked MAID. I think that has to stop.”
Of course, the government wants to go even further. Next year in March, euthanasia for those with depression or other mental health challenges will become explicitly legal and the government is now studying euthanasia for children. In a world imagined by the current trajectory, a parent could bring a teenager suffering from depression to a counsellor and find that the teenager is being offered suicide facilitation instead of suicide prevention support.
Recently, Dr. Louis Roy from the Quebec College of Physicians recommended that euthanasia be legalized for infants with certain disabilities. Imagine that someone would actually come to a parliamentary committee in Canada and recommend the killing of young children because of their disability. So much for autonomy. I hope the government would have denounced the vile views expressed by Mr. Roy, but it has not so far.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-22 and, more broadly, to the situation confronting Canadians living with disabilities.
Bill C-22 proposes a new federal financial benefit for Canadians living with disabilities, however, it does not actually define many aspects of the structure of this benefit. I will be voting in favour of the legislation, because I agree with the principle of providing the support, but I am concerned about some of the lacking substance with respect to how this benefit would actually work.
Increasingly, we see from the government a desire to limit the actual work of Parliament in defining the nature and scope of programs. Instead, the government wants a blank cheque from Parliament, legislation that authorizes ministers to shape and define a program independently, according to their discretion.
In general, this is not a good way for governments to operate in a democracy and, in particular, I do not think the Liberal government has shown itself trustworthy when it comes to working out the details of critical programs.
When it comes to the structure of this benefit, the government's message is “just trust us.” From a government that cannot figure out how to deliver passports in a timely manner, cannot address the affordability crisis in Canada and cannot secure our borders, the message of “just trust us” seems rather hollow.
I have two specific concerns about the prospective structure of this program that I do want to highlight.
First, I share the concern of many about how this program would interact with other existing programs, including those provided at the provincial level. If a new federal benefit leads to a loss of eligibility for other existing benefits, then it would leave people worse off overall. It is not inevitable that this would be the case, but this is a matter that will require careful and respectful dialogue with other levels of government and hard work at every stage, hard work that the government has not always been prepared to do.
At this point, the government is passing broad framework legislation without ensuring that it will actually leave Canadians with disabilities better off in every case. The government does not have to wait for this legislation to pass to begin those discussions and I would encourage it to actually engage those discussions now about protecting existing benefits, because aspects of those dialogues may inform suggested amendments.
The second concern I have is that it is critically important that the structure of this benefit program protects access for Canadians with disabilities who are working or are trying to get into work. Even with existing benefit programs at other levels, certain Canadians with disabilities may find themselves in a position where entering the workforce actually leaves them worse off. It is critically important that work always leaves people better off financially.
Supporting Canadians, including Canadians living with disabilities, in being able to access meaningful work has long been a key priority for Conservatives.
Why is this important? Overwhelmingly, Canadians of all backgrounds and circumstances want to be able to work and are happier and more fulfilled if they are able to work. In this context, by work, I do not just mean commodified work, but work of any sort, where individuals exert themselves in order to contribute positively to the world around them.
The science of happiness and fulfillment measurement shows us that work generally makes people happier by providing them with meaning and with a workplace-based community, and with a greater level of power and agency. Quite apart from the notably important income-earning properties of work, work also provides meaning and happiness, totally independent of whether it generates income.
Think tank Cardus has done excellent work on this question of work and disability. It has found that most Canadians living with disabilities want to work or want to work more, but it has also found that the vast majority of public policy, focus and money has been toward income support as opposed to supports that help people get into work.
The critical point about work support and income support is that they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, often, they are necessarily complementary. Some people require income support in order to afford the resources and transportation required to find and get a job in the first place. If income supports are withdrawn immediately once people work or start work, they may not be able to afford vital necessities, as well as the things they need to sustain them in their new job.
Having both fulfilling work and steady income are vital for human happiness and fulfillment. Having income without work or work without income are both, in a sense, problematic.
Of course, having income is not just about fulfillment and happiness; it is about basic survival. Canadians with disabilities need income to take care of their own needs and the needs of those they love.
For most of us, work comes with earning income. However, when benefit programs are poorly structured, people may actually be forced to choose between work and income, because benefits are cut off or income is lost as a result of working. In such cases, given how essential income is for survival, people will understandably choose income over work if they are forced to choose between these things. It is cruel and pointless to force people to make this choice, to choose between the happiness associated with work and receiving the financial support that they need.
Income supports for Canadians with disabilities can and should go hand in hand with workplace support, only peeling those income supports back gradually when it is clear that income support is not required because of the level that an individual is able to work.
We saw an example of this terrible choice between work and income during the pandemic with the poorly constructed CERB program. Unemployed Canadians who were accessing CERB, and who were then offered part-time work, were in many cases actually worse off financially if they took that work because part-time work would push them over the threshold for CERB eligibility, even if they were not earning close to what they would have been entitled to receive under CERB. Thus people were forced to remain out of work in order to access the resources they needed to support their families.
Not only does it make zero financial or economic sense to create a financial disincentive to work, but it also puts people in the painful position of needing to choose between the happiness and dignity that come from work on the one hand and from financial security on the other hand. That is why we feel it is very important that this new federal program be structured in such a way that Canadians with disabilities, many of whom can and do work, or want to work, are not rendered worse off by entering the work force.
There is nothing in the text of the bill that would suggest it could not be structured in a way to ensure that work always pays, but the past record of the government gives us significant cause for concern. In the 42nd Parliament, the member for Carleton, now the leader of the Conservative Party, proposed Bill C-395, a bill specifically designed to address this problem of work sometimes bringing about a loss in benefits for Canadians living with disabilities.
Bill C-395 would have amended the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to ensure that, in negotiations around transfers and the construction of benefits for Canadians living with disabilities, people with disabilities would not lose more through taxation and the reduction of benefits than they gain as a result of working. It would have protected Canadians with disabilities from these kinds of perverse situations where they would have to choose between the happiness that comes from work or the financial security that comes from government benefits.
If Bill C-395 were the law of the land, we could then pass this bill, even as written, with the confidence that the benefits constructed would leave people better off, but when it came to a vote on Bill C-395, Liberals actually opposed it. Liberals opposed the common-sense proposal from our leader to ensure that Canadians who work are better off as a result of the money they earn.
Sadly, Liberals do not seem to appreciate the value, dignity and happiness that comes from hard work. I am not sure if it can be found in the scope of this legislation as written, but I would welcome amendments that would capture the spirit of our leader's past work to protect Canadians with disabilities from being punished for working.
Parenthetically, I want to say something directly to employers about hiring Canadians with disabilities. Research done by Cardus shows that many employers have an exaggerated perception of the cost associated with accommodation. Cardus' work shows that including and accommodating employees with disabilities is often much cheaper than employers initially expect and that funding may be available from different levels of government for businesses, including small businesses, seeking to accommodate customers and employees living with disabilities.
Further, as our leader has previously shared in the context of speaking to Bill C-395, there are many cases of Canadians with disabilities who make incredible, committed and loyal employees who bring unique competencies for the workplace. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that poorly structured benefit programs do not undermine the ability of Canadians to access work, but employers also need to lead in pushing aside stereotypes and recognizing the contributions that Canadians with disabilities can make to their workplace. Many employers are already doing this, and I congratulate those who are doing this already.
Those were the main points I wanted to make on Bill C-22, but it is also very important to speak to the context of the legislation, which is the significant negative impacts on the lives of Canadians living with disabilities that flow from the government's radical ableist approach to euthanasia, the so-called MAID regime. We simply cannot have a conversation about financial benefits separate from a recognition that the biggest threat to the lives of Canadians living with disabilities is that those without disabilities are much more likely to be offered suicide prevention and recovery support, while our brothers and sisters, cousins and friends who are living with disabilities are being denied those supports and actively pushed towards death, even if they are saying they do not want it.
Among those who support legal euthanasia around the world, Canada is still increasingly seen as a cautionary tale, a warning of what not to do. In this vein, I want to start with a bit of history. Euthanasia in Canada started with Bill C-14, which was passed in the 42nd Parliament. This legislation affixed the name “medical assistance in dying” to what had previously been called euthanasia, the process of doctors killing a consenting patient. That legislation sought to define a regime whereby people could choose hastened death if their death was deemed reasonably foreseeable.
I criticized the legislation at the time for, among other things, not being sufficiently clear about what was actually meant by “reasonably foreseeable”. Indeed, there were significant abuses, even in the immediate aftermath of the passage of the legislation, whereby doctors determined someone's death to be reasonably foreseeable based on a string of hypotheticals when a person had nothing approaching a terminal condition.
For example, back in 2016, I highlighted a case in Vancouver where a physician declared a depressed person eligible for euthanasia without examining the individual because that patient “could easily get bed sores and then die of infection”. A person's death was, prior to examination, declared reasonably foreseeable because the person could theoretically die from an as yet uncontracted bed sore infection if they were bed bound as a result of the depression. These were the kinds of perverse outcomes that were possible even in 2016 as a result of a lack of safeguards and the ambiguity around what was meant by “reasonably foreseeable”.
The current rules allow someone also to consult many different physicians before finding two who will approve. Therefore, if 20 or 200 doctors say no, the criteria are not met, but then two say yes, the criteria are met, then the killing of the patient can proceed. The ambiguity and the opportunity to consult multiple doctors before getting the desired result means that, indeed, the holes were, and still are, large enough to drive a truck through. These were the pre-existing problems that were already, in particular, raising concerns of the disability community. The lack of clarity around what were and were not circumstances where death was reasonably foreseeable opened the door for people who were living with disabilities to be encouraged to pursue MAID, even if they did not want to, and even if they were actually not eligible.
Members do not have to take my word for it because the minister responsible for this legislation, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion of Canada, during a subsequent discussion of Bill C-7, said, “I regularly hear from families who are appalled by the fact that they take their child, potentially their older child and are offered unprovoked MAID. I think that has to stop.” That is from a minister in the government. This was already the context following the passage of Bill C-14 and prior to the passage of Bill C-7.
The road to Bill C-7 was much more contrived than the road to bill C-14. The already nebulous reasonable foreseeability clause was challenged and a lower court in one province proposed to overturn this restriction. The federal government could have appealed that lower court decision and, indeed, had a strong basis for doing so. An appeal would, at the very least, have given parliamentarians more time to consider a broad range of legislative options. Instead, the government made a political choice to embrace the lower court ruling and the artificial timeline it created, pushing medical assistance in dying for Canadians with disabilities. This was not about following a court ruling. This was about something the government could have appealed, but wanted to use the court ruling to advocate for a long-standing objective.
Following this contrived process, the government put forward Bill C-7, which was rightly opposed by all of the leading organizations representing Canadians living with disabilities, as well as by domestic and international human rights authorities.
Krista Carr from Inclusion Canada said, “Inclusion Canada has advocated for safeguards in MAID since we intervened in the Carter case. Our biggest fear has always been that having a disability would become an acceptable reason for state-provided suicide. Bill C-7 is our worst nightmare.” She continued, “By having a disability itself under Bill C-7 as the justification for the termination of life, the very essence of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would be shattered. Discrimination on the basis of disability would once again be entrenched in Canadian law.”
She said further that the “singling out of one particular...group” of people based on their personal characteristics, which happen to be protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and to use those as grounds to justify the termination of the lives of the people who have those characteristics is just wrong, and that we would never consider doing this for any other group of people, including those who are indigenous, racialized or LGBTQ.
Dr. Heidi Janz from the Council of Canadians with Disabilities said:
People with disabilities are at a higher risk of suicide due to systemic and internalized ableism, yet they face substantial barriers when trying to access suicide prevention services. Medical professionals overlook typical sources of stress. Problems arising from relationship breakdowns, depression and isolation are wrongly attributed to disability. The removal of “reasonably foreseeable” natural death as a limiting eligibility criterion for the provision of MAID will result in people with disabilities seeking MAID as an ultimate capitulation to a lifetime of ableist oppression.
Finally, Bonnie Brayton from the DisAbled Women's Network of Canada pointed out, “Bill C-7, is sadly lacking in any meaningful public consultation with any people with disabilities despite how much more profoundly it could affect anyone who lives with a disability.” The disability community overwhelmingly opposed Bill C-7 and has repeatedly raised concerns about negative pressure and coercion impacting Canadians living with disabilities.
What about autonomy? The government would argue that Bill C-7 provides people with disabilities the option of medically facilitated death, but they do not have to chose that option. It is just another option that people have. To this, I would note that autonomy is always expressed in a social, legal and economic context. The context is that many Canadians living with disabilities struggle to access the key supports and services they need.
We do not have sufficient workplace supports in place and there are gaps in terms of community and income supports. In that context, the law and the medical system say to a person living with a disability that they have a simple way out and they can choose to die. If someone is at a point of existential agony and they have a disability, then the system will offer them death as a supposed solution.
In effect, if a person like me, without a disability, is experiencing existential distress and suicidal ideation, and if I were to discuss that distress with a doctor, I would be offered suicide prevention. However, if a person with a disability, the same as me in every other respect, is experiencing the same existential distress and suicidal ideations, and they discuss their distress with a doctor, they will be offered suicide facilitation by that same medical system.
That difference in the way the law and the health system treat those living with and without disabilities obviously sends a message to everyone involved in those interactions about whose life the law and the health system deem to be more or less worth living. The Liberal government has built a staircase to suicide prevention and a ramp to suicide facilitation.
As much as members opposite would like to say that this is about autonomy, the social and legal context that the government has created is not neutral and it is, in fact, discriminatory. Disability rights groups overwhelmingly see this reality, which is why they have been diametrically opposed to the approach of the government, and so much for “nothing about us without us”.
Canadians with disabilities feel devalued by a system that offers them easy death and does not offer them critical supports to live. Sadly, the mentality of the medical system is changing as well in response to these legal changes. The House has heard from many witnesses at different times and in different communities where patients were repeatedly pushed toward death and even called selfish for rejecting that option.
I will quote the minister again who said herself, “I regularly hear from families who are appalled by the fact that they take their child, potentially their older child and are offered unprovoked MAID. I think that has to stop.”
In response to the testimony we heard, Conservatives sought to amend Bill C-7 to guarantee that a physician or other health care worker would not raise euthanasia or MAID with a patient, unless the patient raises it first. This amendment would have ensured that, for instance, a person with a disability who goes to the doctor for something unrelated would not be offered facilitated death out of the blue. This would have solved the problem the minister identified, but the government opposed this—
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