- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Dufferin—Caledon
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $136,309.03
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, the member said they do not want to make it political, but then talked about a former prime minister, spending and other things. I am not making it political. I am reading the words from a psychiatrist who has more experience than the member, or any member of the government, will ever have on this issue. He is outlining a litany of concerns and how they went down the wrong path on this.
If their investments in health care have been so incredible, why are the premiers screaming that health care is in a terrible state of disarray? That happened under his government. If it is spending more money, it is not doing it well. That is the problem.
It is not political. I am begging the government to get it right on behalf of Canadians who suffer from mental health issues. They need the help.
148 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, that is difficult. I think the challenge with trying to come up with something at committee is the limitations of committee. Witnesses come, give a five-minute intervention, and we have a five or six-minute opportunity to question. Quite frankly, on an issue like this, I just do not think that is going to do it.
We need professors of psychiatry from well-renowned universities putting in the guardrails to protect Canadians by telling us what those are, and the government has to listen.
87 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I think that this issue is so complicated that it is incredibly difficult for members of Parliament to try to set those parameters without extensive study.
I want to go back to the figure that was cited by the professor where he said that 47% of the predictions of people's mental health issue being irremediable are wrong. We look at that stat that 50% of the time they are wrong, and if someone with an irremediable mental health issue goes for MAID, 50% of those predictions are wrong, so the possibility is that 50% of the people getting medically assisted death could have had treatment and got better. That is a statistic that every member in this chamber should be haunted by until we get this right.
130 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about this issue tonight, because for me it is deeply personal. As someone who has suffered with depression and mental health issues at various times in my life, including a severe depressive period for which I was seeking treatment, I think the expansion of medically assisted death to those with mental health conditions is incredibly troubling. The fact that this is where we are, almost a month away from when this would be available to Canadians suffering with mental health issues, is a catastrophic failure of the government to properly deal with this issue. I am so unbelievably disappointed that the Liberals are rushing through legislation now to try to delay the implementation of this because they did not do any of the hard work that was necessary in order to get this right. The problem is that there is so much evidence out there on how they could have gotten it right, yet they chose not to.
I want to talk a bit about an article that was written on December 15, 2022, by Dr. Karandeep Gaind, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and the chair of his hospital's MAID team. If anyone has not done it, they should read this article, because it outlines and summarizes the incredible challenges with this issue and how the government has failed in examining it.
I am going to start here: “[E]vidence shows it is impossible to predict that a mental illness will not improve in any individual.” He goes on to say, “Yet expansion activists mistakenly believe they can make such predictions.” Research, which he cites, “tells us their chance of being right amounts to chance or less, with precision modelling showing only 47 per cent of [irremediable medical condition] predictions end up being correct”.
This means that 47% of the time when a doctor says a person's mental health will not improve, they are wrong. This evidence was readily available to the government at any time, yet we find ourselves having to push through legislation to delay it at the last minute.
He goes on to say this: “[W]hen expanded to those seeking death for mental illness, evidence shows MAID becomes indistinguishable from suicide.” We should remember that this is a psychiatrist talking. He says, “We cannot differentiate those seeking psychiatric euthanasia from suicidal individuals who resume fulfilling lives after being provided suicide prevention, rather than facilitated death.”
Let that sink in for a minute. This is a psychiatrist who teaches at the University of Toronto and is the chair of his hospital's MAID team. These are the things he is saying. He has been saying them for a very long time, and the Liberals still could not get this right.
He then talks about the federally appointed panel:
The government-appointed federal panel...was responsible for providing safeguards, standards and guidelines for how to implement MAID for mental illness. Instead, the panel recommended that no further legislative safeguards be required before providing death for mental illness, and did not provide any specific standards for the length, type or number of treatments that should be tried before providing MAID. Its report even suggested society had made an “ethical choice” that MAID should be provided even if suicide and MAID were the same.
This psychiatrist is summarizing what the government panel found. To me, it is absolutely and truly shocking.
He goes on to say, “I am not a conscientious objector.” There are many who are. There are members in this place who conscientiously object to medically assisted death. I am not one of them. I think it can be appropriate in certain circumstances, and Dr. Gaind is in that group as well. He says, “However it is clear to me that Canada’s planned expansion of MAID to mental illness is based on ignorance—if not outright disregard—of fundamental suicide prevention principles.”
Let that sink in. Again, I go back to who is saying this. This is not me saying this, not a parliamentarian saying it who does not have experience in mental health. This is a psychiatrist at the University of Toronto and the chair of the hospital's MAID team. He finishes, “It appears to ignore what drives the most marginalized people to consider death as an alternative to life suffering.”
This again is the incredible challenge. We have heard all the reports about people thinking they should now get MAID as a result of mental health issues. I cannot believe that we let it get this far, that we do not have rules in place and that we have to go forward and put this off.
The government had so much time to get this right and it could not. It did not even come close. This to me is just a symptom of how the government does things without thinking them through, without thinking of the consequences. What is going to happen if we do not get this bill passed by March 17? Then it is open and available. How is this legislation just being introduced now to push it back? The government knew ages ago that it was not going to meet this deadline. It knew ages ago that it did not have safeguards in place, and yet here we are now. I find that breathtaking.
The doctor's final comments in the article, I think, we should all listen to. They read:
Postponing the March 2023 expansion of euthanasia for mental illness is the only responsible course. Canadians and mental health organizations recognized this and called for it, with the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention and over 200 individual psychiatrists so far signing a petition to this effect, and the academic chairs of the departments of psychiatry across Canada joining this call for delay.
That article was written in December and here we are now dealing with this legislation. It is a catastrophic failure by the government and the minister responsible for this. Let us hope it is not a catastrophic failure for Canadians.
Someone who is dealing with a mental health issue needs help. Let us be clear. I went through a period in my life where I did not want to continue to live. It was a deeply dark, terrible period of time.
The government is moving forward with this legislation with absolutely no safeguards in place to protect people who are in that terrible place. Eminent psychiatrists have been banging the clarion bell on this for ages and the government did nothing until the last minute. Now it is saying we have to put it off.
I can tell colleagues that I have absolutely no faith that the government is going to get it right. As the quotation I cited in the article stated, the panel got it wrong. I do not know if there has been any ministerial direction to make sure it gets it right. What I can say is this. On this side of the House, we are going to stand up for people with mental health issues. We are going to protect them and not let the government just throw them under the bus.
1223 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
