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Michael Cooper

Member of Parliament
Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
Conservative

St. Albert—Edmonton
Alberta
Voting Attendance: 68%
Expenses Last Quarter: $119,185.60

Government Page

Feb/7/24 6:03:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Montcalm is a thoughtful member on this issue. With respect to irremediability, I am absolutely not comfortable with moving ahead with this expansion if it cannot be accurately determined. We have psychiatrists come before committee and say it is like flipping a coin, that clinicians get it wrong 50% of the time. That is not an appropriate risk. That is evidence of a policy that has not been well thought out, and that is dangerous and will negatively impact vulnerable persons on a matter of life and death. With respect to the position of the Conservative Party, yes, the position is that a common-sense Conservative government would permanently scrap this radical and dangerous expansion.

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Context: House Hansard - 277 - Feb/7/24

Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

Feb/7/24 5:35:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, at the beginning of her speech, the minister stated that irremediability is not up for debate. Respectfully, it is the core of the debate about whether MAID can be expanded in cases where mental disorders are the sole underlying condition. The overwhelming evidence from leading experts, including psychiatrists, is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine irremediability. That was the conclusion of the government's own expert panel, at page 9 of the report. The special joint committee heard evidence that clinicians could get it wrong 50% of the time. In other words, it is like flipping a coin with people's lives. Is the minister comfortable with that risk?

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Context: House Hansard - 159 - Feb/13/23

Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

Feb/13/23 9:37:15 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-39

Madam Speaker, notwithstanding the many leading psychiatrists who have made it very clear that this expansion cannot be implemented safely, and notwithstanding the Association of Chairs of Psychiatry calling on the government to stop this expansion, the Minister of Justice, even though he has moved this bill forward, has actually said that the government could have gone ahead with this anyhow, notwithstanding that irremediability, suicidality and other legal and clinical issues remain unresolved. Does this not speak to the degree with which this minister is blinded by ideology—

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Context: House Hansard - 159 - Feb/13/23

Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

Feb/13/23 6:06:07 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-39

Madam Speaker, my friend, the member for Peterborough—Kawartha, was absolutely right when she said that there is no science and no evidence to support this expansion. Indeed, the overwhelming evidence at the special joint committee, of which I am a co-vice-chair, was precisely the opposite. The hon. member for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne asked the member about whether it is appropriate to extend the deadline to essentially get it right, but evidence before the committee from a leading psychiatrist was that the medical error rate on the question of irremediability could be anywhere from 2% to 95%. In the face of that, it would seem to me that there are no safeguards to get this right. The only thing to do to get it right would be to scrap this ill-conceived—

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Context: House Hansard - 159 - Feb/13/23

Mr. Michael Cooper

Feb/13/23 12:53:36 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-39

Mr. Speaker, I am not misleading anyone. If anyone is misleading, it is the parliamentary secretary, with the greatest of respect to him. I am not having it both ways. He mis-characterized what I said with respect to the expert panel. I said that the expert panel acknowledged what other experts who appeared before the committee acknowledged, which is that irremediability is difficult if not impossible to determine. Then, the expert panel washed its hands of coming up with recommendations on how this could be implemented safely. It offered no objective criteria. It said it could be done on a case-by-case basis. My point with respect to the expert panel is how flawed of a report it was. The government's own expert panel said to go ahead with this, but if we read the fine print, it provided plenty of reasons why the government should not go ahead with it, not by not extending it, but by scrapping it altogether.

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Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council

Michael Cooper