Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking all my colleagues who took part in the debate, but I want to say that palliative care and my bill on the right to die with dignity are not mutually exclusive, but complementary.
I wrote something in 2005, before I learned I had cancer. I wrote this, and I still believe wholeheartedly in it:
Any lucid person facing a very difficult and painful end of life, which they consider degrading, an unfitting end to the life they have led, inconsistent with their condition as a free person, has to be able to decide how they wish to die, including if they want to be aided in that objective.
It is the individual who must choose. It is not society that must choose for the individual. The individual must have the freedom to choose at the end of their life.
The experience of doctors who look after individuals who have been allowed to be helped to die in countries that have passed legislation in this regard is enlightening. One might infer that, knowing that they will be able to get help to die with dignity when they reach the point where their life has definitely become unbearable, it will be easier for people to live fully a painful end of life or a life of extreme limitations because they feel imprisoned in their bodies. As Félix Leclerc reminded us, death is full of life.
I could quote Justice Cory, who also says that section 7 of the charter gives Canadians the constitutional right to life, liberty and security of the person. This provision emphasizes the dignity inherent in human existence. Death is an integral part of life and as such is therefore entitled to the constitutional protection provided by section 7. A person should have the right to choose their own death.
I understand why my colleague's parents made the choice they did. His father was a doctor. It was their choice. Nonetheless, sometimes the end of life comes after a period of extreme suffering and at a time when people can decide they no longer can tolerate their life, their dependence on others and their unending suffering. I have sent hon. members a text a constituent sent me on what it is to suffer and I invite hon. members to read it. People can decide their limits and ask for assistance to die and not to live for another month or two just to suffer more and become more emaciated.
I can tell you that when I wrote that, I did not know what unbearable pain was. Now I do and I have learned that medicine, with all its progress, can only provide help with side effects such as hallucinations or other terrible effects to the body. We have to have the right to choose. I am speaking on behalf of the vulnerable. They are the ones who need this type of legislation the most because only this type of legislation will allow them to be the people they choose to be. There are currently many places where people can die and with all the instruments available to doctors, it is possible to help people die without them having to ask.
A person's right to choose is what is at the heart of this bill. I am asking hon. members to vote in favour of this bill in order that it may be referred to a committee. Then members of the committee could examine what seems—
