Bill C-14 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) create exemptions from the offences of culpable homicide, of aiding suicide and of administering a noxious thing, in order to permit medical practitioners and nurse practitioners to provide medical assistance in dying and to permit pharmacists and other persons to assist in the process;
(b) specify the eligibility criteria and the safeguards that must be respected before medical assistance in dying may be provided to a person;
(c) require that medical practitioners and nurse practitioners who receive requests for, and pharmacists who dispense substances in connection with the provision of, medical assist­ance in dying provide information for the purpose of permitting the monitoring of medical assistance in dying, and authorize the Minister of Health to make regulations respecting that information; and
(d) create new offences for failing to comply with the safeguards, for forging or destroying documents related to medical assistance in dying, for failing to provide the required information and for contravening the regulations.
This enactment also makes related amendments to other Acts to ensure that recourse to medical assistance in dying does not result in the loss of a pension under the Pension Act or benefits under the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act. It amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to ensure that no investigation need be conducted under section 19 of that Act in the case of an inmate who receives medical assistance in dying.
This enactment provides for one or more independent reviews relating to requests by mature minors for medical assistance in dying, to advance requests and to requests where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition.
Lastly, this enactment provides for a parliamentary review of its provisions and of the state of palliative care in Canada to commence at the start of the fifth year following the day on which it receives royal assent.

Criminal Code

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Speaker, in Bill C-14 from the previous Parliament, the decision was made not to include advance directives, meaning that someone would have to give consent at the time of medically assisted death. That is why, in the previous legislation, someone would have to consent and then give a further consent at the time of medically assisted death.

The bill before us would change that. This is a major expansion of Canada's laws on assisted dying. It was done under the premise of a response to an unrelated court decision in Quebec.

There is a reason parliamentarians and the House put in place a statutory review of this regime: so that we can consider new measures and look at what is working and see what is not working. This is why the whole discussion on this aspect of consent should have been done in the course of the statutory review.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member opposite for his contribution to today's debate and I welcome him back to the House.

I will begin by correcting about five errors in the member's speech and then I will ask him a question.

The first point is with respect to the Truchon decision. It was not appealed, first because we agree with the substance of the decision and secondly because we disagree with prolonging the suffering of Mr. Truchon or Ms. Gladu or people like them.

The second point is with respect to health care providers and the potential of a chilling effect being exacted upon them. It is a valid point, and that is why we have entrenched important safeguards in the legislation, such as the requirement for advanced consent to be done in writing.

The third point is on people being pressured as medical practitioners to engage in this practice, which is patently false. Bill C-14 has conscience rights entrenched in its preamble and in the body of the bill, and the Carter decision, in its penultimate paragraph, said that the charter protections under section 2 for freedom of religion does not compel any health care practitioner in this country to provide this service.

With regard to the member's attempt at an analogy between the 90-day assessment period and the 10-day reflection period, they are different qualitative matters. Reflection is not assessment.

The member raised a very valid point about palliative care. We agree and understand that palliative care must be robust and we fully support the idea, which is why this government put $6 billion into home care, including palliative care, two budgets ago. Does the member agree that this was a useful investment?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure today to rise as the shadow minister of justice for the official opposition to speak to the government's Bill C-7. As I rise to speak on this bill, I do so with concern over some of the contents within it and even over the way it was presented to the House this week when, unfortunately, many of us read about the contents of the bill in the media, rather than seeing it first in this House.

The bill was intended to be a response to the Quebec Superior Court decision that was made on September 11, 2019. The decision stated that the law as it stood was too restrictive around the requirement for death to be reasonably foreseeable. The official opposition called on the government at the time to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada in order for Parliament to receive clarity about the parameters in which we would legislate, but the bill was introduced without that clarity.

Not only was the bill introduced without that clarity, but it goes far beyond what was required to meet the Quebec Superior Court's decision. I believe that is an affront to this Parliament, because when the previous bill, Bill C-14, was passed in the 42nd Parliament, the wisdom of this Parliament required that there be a statutory review of our assisted dying regime in Canada. That statutory review was and is to take place in June of this year.

It is in that review period that parliamentarians would be able to go more into depth on how the government's legislation has worked over the past several years and on how best to proceed. Rather than wait for that review, as it should have done, the government has decided to start making amendments to the legislation now, avoiding the in-depth review that is to take place shortly.

The reality is that when we are talking about this legislation, we are literally talking about the matter of life and death. This is an incredibly sensitive issue. Members on all sides of the house have diverse opinions on it, and it is because of this diversity of opinions and because of the sensitivity of this issue that the Quebec Superior Court decision should have been appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada for further clarity. However, as the government has now opened this legislation up, it is upon us as legislators to now highlight other matters that should be addressed and included.

My office has heard plenty from concerned Canadians about the lack of protection for conscience rights for health care professionals. This is particularly important now that the government is broadening medical assistance in dying to include individuals whose death is not reasonably foreseeable. Expanding medical assistance in dying to more patients could in fact diminish the number of medical professionals willing to take part in the process. The fact is that this expanded access could result in a heavy emotional burden on those health care providers.

None of us here can fully appreciate the burden put on those health care providers currently working in the system and providing medical assistance in dying. The fact is that there is nothing about ensuring proper support to health care professionals who provide this service and there continue to be no penalties for pressuring a medical professional into providing medical assistance in dying, nor are there penalties for punishing or penalizing a medical professional who does not participate in medical assistance in dying. This means there continues to be no real protection for conscience rights for health care professionals.

The issue of advance directives, now rebranded as a “waiver of final consent” by this government, is a complex one that poses questions of ethics and safety and issues with oversight. The fact that the legislation legalizing this is half a page of a bill shows a lack of care given to this issue. This issue rightly should have been discussed as part of the parliamentary review to take place this summer.

The process for the creation and execution of this agreement remains ambiguous. Further, there is a lack of clarity on the process for proceeding with an advance directive agreement upon the date selected. The process will only be stopped if a patient expresses a form of resistance, but we do not know what that looks like. What if they are simply confused or groggy at the time? Under the legislation, unless they resist, the process will still proceed.

The bill also removes the 10-day waiting requirement when a person's death is reasonably foreseeable. When I read in media reports before the bill was tabled that this would be included, I, like many of my colleagues and parliamentarians, questioned as to what prompted its removal. I still remain incredibly concerned as to why this was included. This is particularly true because there was already the ability to remove the 10-day waiting period if a person's death or loss of capacity to consent was imminent, so why proceed with the removal of a safeguard that Parliament saw fit to include in the previous legislation?

It is also confusing that Bill C-7 requires a 90-day waiting period when a patient's death is not reasonably foreseeable. Why add an extended wait period for one, but remove the wait period entirely for the other?

On the issue of whether a death is reasonably foreseeable or not reasonably foreseeable, there is no clarification or guidance for health care professionals. As a result, it is not up to them to make the determination as to what category to put a patient under. That determination will decide whether a patient can access medical assistance in dying immediately or if they will require a 90-day waiting period. This is an extraordinary amount of pressure that the government is putting on health care professionals across this country.

The changing of witness requirements under this legislation has also been mentioned. The law requires only one independent witness, which is down from two.

All of these changes lead to an expansion of the law in Canada far beyond what was addressed in the Quebec court decision, an expansion that should have required deeper reflection through the study that is to take place this summer.

For a moment, let us speak to a point that seems to be lost in this conversation: palliative care services in this country.

The reality is if the choice is between a lack of quality palliative care and medically assisted dying, that really is no choice at all. Unfortunately, over the past number of years there have been instances of patients feeling they were forced to choose death because of a lack of palliative care.

The story of Archie Rolland comes to mind. Archie was a Montreal landscape architect who chose to end his life rather than continue suffering at a long-term care facility that was failing to provide him adequate care.

He had ALS and had his life upended when he was forced to move from a Montreal hospital that specialized in treating patients with severe respiratory ailments to a long-term care facility for geriatric patients. Mr. Rolland did not want to go, but he was transferred against his wishes. He called the system “inhuman”. He felt he was not getting adequate care, so he chose death.

I do not think that this is any real choice at all. We must have the discussion in this country about palliative care because people must not feel forced into a decision on medically assisted death. Mr. Rolland's story makes it clear that there was a failure of the system to provide him with adequate care. We risk medically assisted death being seen as some sort of bureaucratic solution for people who require an extra level of care. In a country like Canada, that is simply not acceptable. The government risks expanding a culture of not valuing life, and we should all agree in this place that we must place value on human life.

In closing, the bill disrespects Parliament and the parliamentary process. With Bill C-14, parliamentarians did a significant amount of work in the House and committee in an attempt to build consensus. The work was challenged by the Quebec Superior Court, but rather than defending the will of elected representatives in court, the Liberals immediately backed down.

Now the Liberals are responding not just to that decision but are also undoing the work of the joint committee on Bill C-14 by adding new measures.

Many of these issues should be dealt with in the summer when we have our scheduled parliamentary review. This is a complex matter that requires proper scrutiny and debate.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Speaker, I remember that as we went through the very difficult discussions on Bill C-14, within the Catholic community in Guelph, to which I belong, there were a lot of concerns around advance directives and conscience rights and the protection of conscience rights within the Catholic community in particular. I remember that at the time I was asked a few times whether we were going down a slippery slope.

I want to be able to say to my community that we are looking to handle this legislation in a compassionate way that protects rights, but I would rather hear it from the minister so that I can take an authoritative comment on that back to my community.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I remember being in this place during the debate on Bill C-14 and reading through the Carter decision, which was very clear. There was also, of course, the important work that was done by the special joint committee of both the House and the other place.

When I was speaking to Bill C-14 in 2016, I knew the inclusion of the “reasonably foreseeable” aspect of the law was going to cause us problems, and here we are. I am sure the justice minister is feeling some closure, because he was one of four Liberals who voted against that bill. I am sure he is getting some satisfaction in revisiting this now.

I am pleased to report that the New Democrats support the bill in principle. However, we have a number of concerns, specifically with the assessment period for those whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable but who are facing intolerable suffering. The bill sets up a period of 90 days. We have already heard from some physicians who have concerns with the fact that they have to tell patients to bear their illness and suffer for another 90 days.

Could the Minister of Justice inform the House on how the Liberals came up with that number? How did they determine that 90 days is the right amount of time?

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice]

moved that Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-7, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding medical assistance in dying.

The bill proposes a legislative response to the Superior Court of Québec's Truchon decision, as well as some other changes to the Criminal Code provisions that set out Canada's medical assistance in dying regime.

In June 2016, former Bill C-14 amended the Criminal Code to create Canada's first law on medical assistance in dying, or MAID. The legislation created exemptions to Criminal Code offences so that individuals suffering unbearably and nearing the end of their lives could die peacefully and with the help of a physician or nurse practitioner, rather than in agony or in circumstances that they considered undignified.

This significant change in our criminal law was indicative of the value that Canadians ascribed to having choices, including about the manner and timing of their deaths when suffering in the dying process was intolerable. The most recent data obtained by the federal MAID-monitoring regime indicates that over 13,000 Canadians have received MAID since it has become decriminalized.

We are now proposing another important change to our criminal law. In Truchon and Gladu, the Quebec Superior Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to limit access to medical assistance in dying to persons whose death is reasonably foreseeable.

We decided not to appeal the decision because we want to reduce the suffering of people waiting for medical assistance in dying.

When we announced our decision not to appeal the ruling, our government also committed to changing the eligibility criteria for medical assistance in dying throughout Canada to ensure that criminal law is consistent nationwide.

Application of the court's ruling, which is limited to Quebec, was suspended for six months. The deadline is March 12. Because these issues are so important and because we want to ensure that our laws are consistent all across Canada, we have asked the court for a four-month extension, which would give Parliament time to thoroughly consider and debate the amendments proposed in this bill. There was a hearing yesterday regarding this request.

Consulting Canadians about the next phase of medical assistance in dying in Canada was crucial to drafting this bill. That is why we launched a two-week public consultation on January 13. The level of participation was unprecedented. We received over 300,000 responses, an indication of how important this issue is to Canadians.

At the same time, together with the Minister of Health, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion and our parliamentary secretaries, we held 10 round-table discussions across the country between January 13 and February 3.

This included round tables in Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver. We met over 125 individuals, including doctors, nurse practitioners, legal experts, members of the disability community, indigenous peoples, and representatives of health regulatory bodies and civil organizations.

We are grateful to all who participated in the round tables. Their shared expertise and experiences were of immense value in developing this bill. I have no doubt that many will continue to engage in the parliamentary process as witnesses before committees.

The results of this consultation process will be published shortly in a “what we heard” report. We heard views on many different topics, but I would like to mention just a few.

From the public online consultations we heard that, while the majority of respondents think the current safeguards are adequate to prevent abuse, in a MAID regime that is expanded to persons who are not dying in the near term, a majority of respondents also thought it would be important to require additional safeguards in such a broader regime. Many round-table participants suggested two separate sets of safeguards in an expanded regime. Others shared their experiences with existing safeguards as they apply to those who are near the end of their lives.

Specifically, many felt that the requirement for two witnesses when a person's written request was made was too onerous and afforded little protection, and that the 10-day reflection period unnecessarily prolonged suffering.

Informed by these in-depth consultations, and by the Canadian experience with medical assistance in dying to date, along with many other sources of information, Bill C-7 proposes to respond to the Truchon decision by adjusting both the eligibility requirements and the safeguards. It also proposes to enable patients in certain circumstances to waive the requirement for final consent so that they do not lose their access to MAID.

We know there are other issues about which many Canadians still feel strongly but which are not subject to the Superior Court of Québec's deadline, such as eligibility in cases where mental illness is the sole underlying condition, advanced requests and mature minors. These will be examined in the course of the upcoming parliamentary review.

Before describing the proposed amendments, I would like to address the concerns we heard from many in the disability community following the Truchon decision and during our consultations. Disability groups were very clear that, for them, removing the end-of-life limit on MAID would create a law that holds disability as a valid reason for ending a life and reinforces the false perception that disability is equivalent to a life of suffering.

Our government is sensitive to these concerns. We strongly support the equality of all Canadians, no matter their situation, and we categorically reject the idea that living with a disability is a fate worse than death. However, we are also mindful of the need to balance these concerns, along with others that have been expressed, with other important interests and societal values, in particular the importance of individual choice.

The bill's objectives are therefore to recognize the autonomy of individuals to choose MAID as a means of relieving intolerable suffering, regardless of their proximity to natural death, while at the same time protecting vulnerable persons, recognizing that suicide is an important public health issue and affirming the inherent and equal value of every person's life. More concretely, Bill C-7 proposes to expand eligibility for medical assistance in dying beyond the end-of-life context by repealing the eligibility criteria requiring that natural death be reasonably foreseeable.

Recognizing that intolerable suffering also arises outside of the end-of-life context and that Canadians want to have choices, medical assistance in dying would be become available to all those who are intolerably suffering; who have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability; and who are in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability, without regard to whether they are dying in the short term.

At this time, the bill proposes that persons whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness not be eligible for medical assistance in dying. First, we are subject to a court-imposed deadline and this matter requires more in-depth review and debate. We have learned that the trajectory of a mental illness is more difficult to predict than that of most physical illnesses. This means that there is a greater risk of providing medical assistance in dying to people whose condition could improve.

It is also more difficult to carry out competency assessments for individuals with a mental illness. In the case of some mental illnesses, the desire to die is itself a symptom of the illness, which makes it particularly difficult to determine whether the individual's request is truly voluntary.

Like the Government of Quebec, we are of the opinion that we need to continue consultations, discussions and policy development on the issue of MAID requests based solely on mental illness.

The parliamentary review that will be launched next June will be an appropriate forum for examining these issues, without the time constraints of the court-imposed deadline.

I would now like to turn my remarks to the question of safeguards. Many experts believe there are greater risks in assessing requests for MAID from individuals who are not nearing the end of their life. We agree. While these individuals would have a choice to seek MAID, the bill proposes that these requests be treated with greater sensitivity and care.

Accordingly, the bill proposes two streams, or two sets of safeguards. To distinguish these cases the bill proposes to use the concept of reasonably foreseeable natural death. Let me be clear on this point. Not having a reasonably foreseeable death would no longer be grounds for rejecting a MAID request; however, it would be used to determine which of the two sets of safeguards are required in a given case.

As enacted by Parliament in 2016, reasonable foreseeability of natural death refers to a death that is expected in the relative near term. It means that in light of all the person's medical circumstances, his or her death is expected in a relatively short period of time. Natural death is not reasonably foreseeable just because an individual is diagnosed with a condition that will eventually cause death many years or decades into the future.

In practice we know that practitioners are more comfortable prognosticating when death is expected in shorter time frames. The standard of reasonably foreseeable natural death provides flexibility in a way that maximum fixed prognosis would not. The standard also has the advantage of using language that practitioners have become familiar with over the last four years.

Those who are dying in the short or near term would benefit from the current set of safeguards in the Criminal Code, which the bill proposes to change in two ways.

First, the 10-day reflection period would be eliminated. We heard during the consultations that most persons have already given their MAID request a lot of thought by the time they sign their written request, resulting in the reflection period unnecessarily prolonging suffering.

Second, the requirement for two independent witnesses would be amended so that only one independent witness to the written MAID request is required. Further, we have added an exception so that health care and personal care workers who are not the person's provider or assessor would now be able to act as an independent witness.

Again, we heard that it is difficult for some who live in long-term care facilities or in remote areas to locate two independent witnesses. The purpose of the independent witness is simply to verify the identity of the person signing the request. The witness is not involved in the assessment process.

For persons whose death is not reasonably foreseeable, the existing safeguards would all apply with some additional ones. Specifically, the bill proposes a minimum 90-day assessment period, which will help ensure that practitioners spend sufficient time exploring the various dimensions of the person's MAID request, which, outside the end-of-life context, could be motivated by different sources of suffering requiring greater attention.

Also, at least one of the practitioners assessing eligibility would have to have expertise in the condition that is causing the person's intolerable suffering. The safeguard aims to prevent people from obtaining MAID when something could have been done to relieve their suffering or improve their condition.

The bill would also clarify the notion of informed consent for these kinds of cases.

First, a person who is not dying would have to be informed of the means available to relieve suffering, including counselling services, mental health and disability support services, community services, and palliative care, and be offered consultations with professionals that provide these services.

Second, the practitioners and the person would also have to agree that these means of relieving their suffering were discussed and seriously considered.

The bill also proposes to allow people whose death is reasonably foreseeable and who are eligible for medical assistance in dying to give prior consent if they risk losing capacity to consent before the date set for MAID. At present, the Criminal Code requires the practitioner to ensure, immediately before MAID is provided, that the person gives express consent to receiving MAID.

The bill would enable a patient who has already been assessed and approved to enter into an advance consent arrangement with their physician that sets out all the relevant details, including the date selected for the provision of MAID and the fact that the person consents to receiving MAID in case they lose the capacity to consent by the day in question.

Although this scenario was not covered in Truchon, experts told the government that it presents relatively little complexity and risk. Doctors also told us they would be comfortable with the idea of providing MAID under such circumstances.

To our government, compassion means ensuring that people waiting for MAID do not lose their opportunity to die in the manner or on the date of their choosing just because their medical condition robs them of the capacity to make decisions in their final days.

Another narrow form of advance consent would also be allowed in the unlikely event that complications arise after a person who has been assessed and approved self-administers a substance intended to cause their death and loses the capacity to consent to MAID, but does not die.

The patient and their physician could enter into an arrangement in advance, stipulating that the physician would be present at the time the patient self-administers the substance and would administer a substance to cause the patient's death in case the patient loses their capacity but does not die.

The data show that there have been very few cases of self-administration so far, perhaps due to fears of possible complications stemming from self-administration of a substance. Offering such an option could provide greater reassurance and allow more Canadians to choose this form of medical assistance in dying.

There are other changes in the bill that my colleagues will speak to, including changes to enhanced data collection and the monitoring regime that brings accountability and transparency to the practice of MAID in Canada.

A transitional provision would ensure that patients who have already signed their request when the bill comes into force would not be required to undergo any additional safeguards set out in the bill. At the same time, they would be able to benefit from the safeguards that would be eased, such as the elimination of the 10-day reflection period and the possibility of preparing an advance consent arrangement if it applies to that person's situation. We are committed to making the process as easy on patients as possible.

I would also like to briefly discuss the constitutionality of the bill. I have examined the bill as required by the Department of Justice Act. This involved consideration of the objectives and features of the bill. I am confident that the bill responds to the Truchon ruling in a way that respects the charter.

As is required by the Department of Justice Act, I will table a charter statement in the near future, which will lay out some of the key considerations that informed the review of the bill for inconsistency with the charter. This will serve to better inform parliamentary debate on this important piece of legislation.

I will conclude by thanking all those who participated in the consultations on medical assistance in dying and who contributed to the drafting of this bill. Bill C-7's proposed amendments to Canada's medical assistance in dying regime represent a fundamental policy shift, with the regime becoming less about end-of-life care and more about autonomy and alleviating intolerable suffering.

I look forward to working with all members of both chambers to ensure Bill C-7 is passed.

Alleged Premature Disclosure of Contents of Bill C-7

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege today concerning the premature disclosure of the contents of Bill C-7, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding medical assistance in dying, introduced yesterday.

As you know, it is a well-established practice in the House that, when a bill is on notice for introduction, the House has the first right to the contents of that legislation.

In a report circulated prior to question period, and hours before Bill C-7 was read a first time in the House, the Canadian Press published an article that detailed specific information contained in Bill C-7.

In the article it states:

The bill [would] scrap a provision in the law that allows only those already near death to receive medical assistance in dying—as ordered by a Quebec court last fall....

Sources say it will drop the requirement that a person must wait 10 days after being approved for an assisted death before receiving the procedure. And it will drop the requirement that a person must be able to give consent a second time immediately prior to receiving the procedure.

The reporter gives credence to the fact that contempt has occurred by revealing later in the article:

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal details of the bill prior to its tabling in the House of Commons this afternoon.

After the sources indicated to the reporter that they were aware of their guilty actions, they boldly and defiantly continued their affront to Parliament by providing even more detail of the bill.

I quote again from the article, which states:

Sources say today's bill will not deal with broader issues that were excluded in the new law and that must be considered as part of a parliamentary review of the law that is to begin this summer.

Those issues include whether mature minors and those suffering only from mental [illness] should be eligible and whether people who fear losing mental capacity due to conditions like dementia should be able to make advance requests for medical assistance in dying.

It will, however, propose a measure intended to deal with a situation in which a person is given consent and who has been approved for an assisted death loses the mental capacity to give consent a second time immediately prior to receiving the procedure.

After carefully reviewing the contents of Bill C-7 following its introduction in the House, when I and other members of Parliament got to see the bill for the very first time, the details reported by the Canadian Press hours earlier were indeed contained in Bill C-7.

Ironically, my first precedent to present to you is from the last Parliament, brought to the Speaker's attention on April 14, 2016. It was with respect to Bill C-14, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other acts regarding medical assistance in dying.

It would appear that the Liberal justice team just has not learned any lessons as it was pointed out on April 14, 2016, as I am pointing out today on Bill C-7, that specific and detailed information contained in Bill C-14 was reported in a newspaper article and elsewhere in the media before the bill had been introduced in the House.

On April 19, 2016, the Speaker found that there was in fact a prima facie case of privilege regarding Bill C-14. He stated:

As honourable members know, one of my most important responsibilities as Speaker is to safeguard the rights and privileges of members, individually and collectively. Central to the matter before us today is the fact that, due to its pre-eminent role in the legislative process, the House cannot allow precise legislative information to be distributed to others before it has been made accessible to all members. Previous Speakers have regularly upheld not only this fundamental right, but also expectation, of the House.

The Speaker's concluding remark on April 19, 2016, was as follows:

In this instance, the chair must conclude that the House's right of first access to legislative information was not respected. The chair appreciates the chief government whip's assertion that no one in the government was authorized to publicly release the specific details of the bill before its introduction. Still, it did happen, and these kinds of incidents cause grave concern among hon. members. I believe it is a good reason why extra care should be taken to ensure that matters that ought properly to be brought to the House first do not in any way get out in the public domain prematurely.

On October 4, 2010, on page 4711 of the House of Commons Debates, Speaker Milliken noted:

It is indisputable that it is a well-established practice and accepted convention that this House has the right of first access to the text of bills that it will consider.

Getting back to my point about the Liberal justice team not learning any lessons, there was a similar case from March 19, 2001, regarding the Department of Justice briefing the media on a bill before members of Parliament. In that reading, Speaker Milliken said, at page 1840 of the House of Commons Debates:

In preparing legislation, the government may wish to hold extensive consultations and such consultations may be held entirely at the government's discretion. However, with respect to material to be placed before parliament, the House must take precedence. Once a bill has been placed on notice, whether it has been presented in a different form to a different session of parliament has no bearing and the bill is considered a new matter. The convention of the confidentiality of bills on notice is necessary, not only so that members themselves [will] be well informed, but also because of the pre-eminent [role] which the House plays and must play in the legislative affairs of the nation.

The Speaker found another case of contempt on October 15, 2001, after the Department of Justice again briefed the media on the contents of a bill prior to the legislation being introduced in the House.

Maybe, in this minority House, members can finally take these characters in the Minister of Justice's office to task for their continuous disrespect of this Parliament. Given the facts presented and the clear precedents on this matter, I believe, Mr. Speaker, you should have no trouble in finding a prima facie case of privilege. In that event, I am prepared to move the appropriate motion.

Physician-Assisted Dying

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of many of my constituents, who are calling on the government to support the passage of Bill C-418, a bill that seeks to reaffirm our fundamental rights found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, those being the rights to conscience and religious freedom. They are calling for these changes because in the wake of the passage of Bill C-14 regarding medical assistance in dying, there is a lack of clarity on what the rights are of medical professionals and medical institutions regarding conscience rights on these very contentious social issues.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have 17 petitions to present from seven provinces, including my own province of Saskatchewan.

The petitions address the issue of Bill C-14, which prohibits compelling health care providers or institutions to provide medical assistance in dying but lacks clarity for effective enforcement.

Bill C-418 would provide that protection and make it an offence to intimidate a health care professional for the purpose of compelling him or her to take part in the provision of assisted suicide or to affect his or her employment.

The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to ensure that the conscience rights of medical personnel are protected by passing Bill C-418.

Protection of Freedom of Conscience Act

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to speak today to Bill C-418 tabled by the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands in 2018.

Bill C-418, an act to amend the Criminal Code with regard to medical assistance in dying, would amend the Criminal Code to create two new offences aimed at protecting the freedom and conscience of health care professionals who object to participating in or providing medical assistance in dying.

One proposed offence would focus on intimidating or threatening behaviour aimed at forcing a health care professional to participate in the provision of medical assistance in dying against their wishes.

The other proposed offence would prohibit an employer from punishing a health care professional because he or she objects to participating in the provision of medical assistance in dying, either by firing the individual or refusing to hire them.

This legislation proposes to build on Bill C-14 that Parliament adopted nearly three years ago. Bill C-14 amended the Criminal Code to legalize medical assistance in dying in response to the Supreme Court decision in Carter v. Canada, 2015.

These Criminal Code amendments created new exceptions for the offence of culpable homicide and aiding a person to die by suicide. The exceptions permit medical professionals to bring about a peaceful death for patients who can no longer endure the physical pain or psychological suffering they experience toward the end of their life.

We must keep in mind the seriousness of this behaviour. Health care providers are being asked to end life. This was not just prohibited by the criminal law until very recently, but also expressly prohibited by medical ethics.

These are just some of the reasons why medical assistance in dying is a deeply personal and difficult issue, implicating many values of the highest order of importance in our society. I am speaking of fundamental societal values, such as equality, individual autonomy, respect for life, protection of vulnerable persons, dignity and compassion.

Medical assistance in dying also implicates the conscience rights of medical professionals. This is the fundamental value that I understand motivates Bill C-418.

In its reports on certain types of requests for medical assistance in dying, which were tabled in the House only a few months ago by the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Health, the Council of Canadian Academies said that a person’s individual life experience, values and beliefs inform their perceptions about the question of medical assistance in dying.

While we all share certain experiences and values, each of us also has our our own unique experiences. This diversity of life experience, as the Council of Canadian Academies alludes to, gives each of us our own unique way of ordering the importance of the values in circumstances when they come into conflict.

Members of the chamber have no doubt seen firsthand this diversity of views in the letters they have received from constituents, or through conversations they have heard from coast to coast to coast. Many may have read the testimonies or written submissions that Canadians and organizations made to our justice and human rights committee while it was studying former Bill C-14.

Canadians have expressed a wide spectrum of perspectives and views on the issue. Some may resonate with our own personal beliefs and some may differ with them greatly. Many consider the question of health care providers' conscience rights and how they might be balanced against the rights of patients who are suffering unbearably and who choose medical assistance in dying.

While former Bill C-14 amended the criminal law to enable health care providers to respond to the wishes of patients who seek assistance in dying, it also made clear that it did not compel providers to provide or participate in the activity. This is stated in both the preamble of the bill and the relevant Criminal Code provisions.

Before this, the question of conscience protections was directly raised before the Supreme Court in the Carter case. In paragraph 132 of its ruling, the Supreme Court addressed several aspects of this question.

First, it explained that nothing in its ruling would compel physicians to provide assistance in dying, because its ruling simply rendered the old criminal prohibition invalid. This is consistent with the approach Parliament adopted in former Bill C-14, namely that in permitting medical and nurse practitioners to participate in medical assistance in dying, the criminal law does not compel them to do so.

The court did acknowledge that a physician's decision to participate in assisted dying is a matter of conscience and, in some cases, of religious belief. It concluded by underlining that the charter rights of patients and physicians would need to be reconciled.

Members of Parliament should not forget that medical assistance in dying is a complex issue with many facets and for which there are complementary spheres of responsibility. While Parliament is responsible for criminal law, provincial legislatures are responsible for the delivery of health care services and medical colleges and similar bodies are responsible for the regulation of health care professionals.

Medical assistance in dying is very new in Canada. On the ground, our health care systems and institutions are still adapting to the change. Some new laws and policies in the provincial domain have been developed, while others may still be under development.

ln terms of data, former Bill C-14 required the Minister of Health to put in place regulations for monitoring medical assistance in dying based on mandatory reports from health care providers. After a period of development and public consultation, this regime came into force on November 1, 2018. The first report is expected in 2020. lt may shed light on the quantity and quality of cases where practitioners who are asked to provide assistance in dying transfer care of the patient for reasons of conscientious objection.

In the meantime, Health Canada has released interim reports based on information voluntarily shared by the provinces.

According to the most recent report, released on April 25, 2019, over 6,700 Canadians have obtained an assisted death. That is a rather amazing figure.

There has also been some independent research conducted in Canada. One study, which is entitled “Exploring Canadian Physicians' Experiences Providing Medical Assistance in Dying: A Qualitative Study”, found that, in some cases, providers who participate in medical assistance in dying reported that it negatively affected their working relationships with colleagues. This finding is just as alarming as the prospect that practitioners would be physically threatened in order to coerce them into participating.

I ask members of this chamber, and all Canadians, to be respectful of the beliefs, values and perspectives held by others, even when they differ vastly from their own opinions. There is no single right answer when values collide. Our way forward must be a journey in which we engage, listen and try to accommodate, not threaten or provoke conflict.

I am pleased that Bill C-418 again gives us an opportunity to discuss medical assistance in dying and also focus on the vital importance of respecting differences and diversity. I urge all members to approach this bill and ongoing public and policy debates on medical assistance in dying with open minds.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, right now many medical practitioners face the real threat of being discriminated against because of their deeply held ethical or moral beliefs.

Bill C-418 proposes to amend the Criminal Code to extend protection to those who choose not to provide or effectively provide medical assistance in dying by making it a punishable offence to use violence, threats of violence, coercion or any other form of intimidation to force a health care professional to participate in euthanasia.

The bill was brought forward by my colleague, the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands. I wish to commend him for his noble efforts.

Two years ago, it was against the law for a doctor to take the life of a patient. In fact, one would think it unimaginable due to the oath a doctor takes. Medical assistance in dying was considered murder and any doctor who carried it out was deemed responsible for manslaughter.

It is now two years later. Medical assistance in dying is now permitted under Canadian law. However, medical professionals and Canadians from many backgrounds do not wish to participate in any form as it goes against their conscience.

While Bill C-14, the bill that makes medical assistance in dying legal within our country, advocates for those wishing to participate in the practice, it neglects or altogether fails to protect the medical practitioners whose conscience would be violated if they had to participate. This is a big problem as the professional judgment of many doctors still affirms that good medical care does not include hastening death.

Under section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians are free to follow the religion of their choice. They are guaranteed the freedom of thought, freedom of belief and freedom of expression. These are considered fundamental freedoms in Canada. Nevertheless, Bill C-14 leaves physicians and Canadians of faith completely unprotected.

In Carter, the Supreme Court of Canada explicitly stated that the legalization of euthanasia did not entail a duty of physicians to provide it. It was not supposed to be forced upon them. To pay lip service to this ruling, this place, the House of Commons, put within Bill C-14section 241.2, which states, “nothing in this section compels an individual to provide or assist in providing medical assistance in dying.”

Despite these words, which is exactly what they are, simply words, the current government outright refused to put conscience protections within the federal legislation. This was despite the fact that many witnesses came forward to committee during this time and asked for conscience protections to be explicitly placed within Bill C-14.

I sat there during those committee meetings and listened to that testimony. I was one of the individuals who advocated for those conscience protections. There is absolutely no reason why they should not have been a part of the legislation. However, they are not, so it requires this private member's bill, Bill C-418, in order to adequately protect the conscience of our medical practitioners in the Canadian system.

Canadians should never be put in a situation where they feel they are forced to choose between their careers or beliefs. We live in Canada. We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We should be able to engage in the career of our choice and have our ethical and moral values respected. We should be able to function according to our conscience. Currently, that is not the case. Those protections are not granted to medical practitioners the way they should be. Therefore, I call on the House to make a change, as is the member who sponsored this private member's bill.

Canada is a religiously plural and multicultural society. It allows its citizens to live out their lives according to their conscience, beliefs and values. In this country, freedom is our strength. I know the Prime Minister likes to talk a lot about how diversity is our strength. Sure, it contributes to it, but only when our freedom is intact and respects that diversity that exists. As soon as that freedom is attacked, diversity fails; diversity is no more.

Bill C-418 would restore such freedom of religion and conscience. It acts to defend medical professionals who act in good conscience and within their constitutional rights to not participate in medical assistance in dying. It should be argued that this bill addresses a legislative gap that was left by the current government. It completes the work the Supreme Court asked this place to do.

This bill is about protecting the very foundation of our country, Canada's religiously, plural and multicultural society, one that we are so proud of, happy to belong to and defend in this place as elected officials.

In 2016, medical assistance in dying became legal under law in Canada. As stated, that was Bill C-14. Just prior to that, in 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that to prohibit medical assistance in dying was actually a violation of section 7 within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the right to life, liberty and security of the person who wished to die. As a result, the Criminal Code was amended by the current government, which again is Bill C-14.

This has created a significant problem for many Canadians within the medical field, but it was not supposed to be this way.

When the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the prohibition of medical assistance in dying was unconstitutional and needed to be fixed, it was stated that the legalization of medical assistance in dying did not compel or entail a duty for a physician to provide it. However, nothing was done to protect religious medical professionals from being forced to carry out this practice.

As a result, many practitioners across the country are calling on this place to make a further amendment to the Criminal Code in order to ensure their rights are respected. Their right to freedom and to act according to their conscience must be respected.

The argument often used is that medical practitioners can just refer their patients to another medical doctor, who will then provide the service. However, it should be noted that for some it is against their conscience even to refer someone to another medical practitioner. Those beliefs must also be respected.

Regional associations and regulatory bodies across the country have introduced regulations that strong-arm medical practitioners whose religious beliefs do not allow them to practise euthanasia in any capacity whatsoever.

In 2016, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario adopted a medical assistance in dying policy requiring medical professionals, who would not provide medical assistance in dying themselves, to provide an effective referral. This policy was challenged by religious groups.

A group of more than 1,500 Canadians came together and challenged this regulatory decision. They said that it violated their constitutional rights, their rights to freedom of religion and conscience. Unfortunately, on May 15, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled that religious physicians and medical professionals must provide effective referrals if they themselves would not be involved with medical assistance in dying. It went on to say that those medical practitioners who believed this violated their conscience could go and find a job within the medical profession where medical assistance in dying would not be required of them.

That is incredibly demeaning to those individuals who have gone through years of training and who, with great dedication and commitment to their patients, have served. These are the women and men who have been trained as medical professionals and it is their conscience that motivates them and compels them to function with dignity, respect and honour and to provide the utmost level of care to their patients. Now they are being punished for holding those beliefs, for holding that level of dignity, respect and honour for their patients.

Again, I would plead that it does not have to be this way, that a change can be made to the Criminal Code that would in fact protect the conscience rights of these medical practitioners who, because of their deeply-seeded beliefs, are not able to participate in any way in medical assistance in dying.

I ask that the House rightly respond to the Supreme Court's decision in the Carter v. Canada case and put this change within the Criminal Code to rightly respond to that decision.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and to the Minister of Democratic Institutions]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-418, the protection of freedom of conscience act. The bill proposes to create two new Criminal Code offences, an “intimidation offence” as well as an “employment sanctions offence”. Those offences would seek to protect health care professionals' freedom of conscience by prohibiting the use of intimidation to compel practitioners to provide medical assistance in dying and by prohibiting employers from dismissing practitioners for refusing to take part in medical assistance in dying.

Canada's medical assistance in dying legislation came into force almost three years ago, in June 2016. It allows adults who are suffering unbearably while on a trajectory towards death to seek the help of a medical practitioner or nurse practitioner in choosing a more peaceful death. Recently released data from Health Canada's fourth interim report reveals that as of October 31, 2018, more than 6,700 Canadians have received medical assistance in dying.

Addressing this issue and any matter of constitutional law in the House is always a pleasure for any lawyer in the House, and particularly for me who practised in this area for 15 years prior to entering the chamber.

Medical assistance in dying has been and continues to be a complicated and contentious issue. That is a given. It raises questions in relation to fundamental values about how we want to live and die as autonomous individuals, how vulnerable individuals must be afforded protection under the law and also about how we relate to each other as members of Canadian society.

The complexity of this issue warrants thorough reflection on the many points of view that inform it. Even within this place, different sets of values inform different positions taken when we debated former Bill C-14 at length.

For instance, as a result of the rich debate that took place, the legislation included a requirement that three independent studies be completed on topics that were particularly complex and beyond the scope of the former Bill C-14, namely, medical assistance in dying for mature minors, advance requests and requests where the sole underlying medical condition is a mental disorder.

The Council of Canadian Academies undertook the monumental task of canvassing the available evidence on these questions and produced three in-depth reports that will continue to inform the dialogue between the public and policy makers. Importantly, the reports themselves set out a variety of points of view among experts on these three issues.

Many members would also know there is ongoing charter litigation right now in the courts in Canada involving the eligibility criteria set out in the medical assistance and dying amendments to the Criminal Code that were passed three years before. These are ongoing matters.

It would be inappropriate to comment on them specifically, but I mention their existence to highlight the different fundamental values that medical assistance in dying implicates and that the legislation seeks to reconcile: supporting individual autonomy, protecting society's most vulnerable individuals and protecting broader societal values that go beyond the individual desire to control their own death, such as the equality of all lives and the prevention of suicide.

We have seen in the opening comments of this debate the issue of the reconciliation of the charter rights held by the practitioners whose rights are being espoused by the member opposite from Cypress Hills—Grasslands, and also by the patients in the medical system, as was raised in the question by the member for Don Valley West and the member for Victoria.

As these complementary values underpin the particular Criminal Code exemptions that Parliament enacted to permit medical assistance in dying, they also play out on the ground. Indeed, just as Canadians in general may have different points of view about what medical assistance in dying should look like in Canada, so do the persons who are directly involved in this new practice, namely, our health care professionals, and in particular, the medical and nurse practitioners who are permitted to provide medical assistance in dying.

It is to be expected, and indeed Parliament heard, that this diverse group of professionals holds equally diverse views on medical assistance in dying. Our government firmly believes that medical and nurse practitioners, as well as other health care professionals involved in a patient’s care team, should not be forced to participate in the provision of medical assistance in dying.

Providing medical assistance in dying is a gesture with the most serious of consequences. Some health care practitioners view it as an important part of their practice that relieves a patient’s intolerable suffering when approaching death. Others view it as contrary to their conscience, religious beliefs or their professional role. Other health care practitioners might support the availability of medical assistance in dying in principle but simply not wish to be involved in the practice themselves. Our government supports and respects all of these different viewpoints.

It is crucial to note that in Canada the legal framework for medical assistance in dying is primarily one of criminal law. Parliament enacted careful exemptions to the offences of homicide and aiding suicide. This means that medical assistance in dying is permitted, but no one is compelled by the criminal law to provide it.

With the utmost clarity in this regard, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights adopted an amendment to what was then Bill C-14, adding a new subsection 241.2(9) to the Criminal Code of Canada that clearly states that nothing in the medical assistance in dying provisions compels health care professionals or practitioners to participate in medical assistance in dying.

It is also critically important, since we are debating constitutional law, to keep in mind that paragraph 2(a) of the charter protects freedom of conscience and religion and guards against unjustified government interference in one's religious beliefs and freedom of conscience. We know that. The law reflects that. The Carter decision of the Supreme Court of Canada incorporated that. I will read part of paragraph 132 of the majority decision in Carter, which says that “nothing in the declaration of invalidity which we propose to issue would compel physicians to provide assistance in dying”. Those words entered Bill C-14 and were further strengthened by the amendment proposed by the justice committee and voted on in Parliament.

Our government is mindful that the availability of medical assistance in dying in Canada may cause tensions in professional settings among medical and nurse practitioners who hold different views on this very topic. Strained relationships with colleagues were noted by the physicians who participated in a 2018 study published in the Journal of Pain Symptom Management, including physicians who are willing providers of medical assistance in dying but who work in environments that are predominantly opposed to medical assistance in dying. This example highlights the unique challenges that medical and nurse practitioners might face when they work in an environment with a majority or institutional view of medical assistance in dying that is different from their own.

In addition, eligible patient access to medical assistance in dying has to be reconciled with practitioners' conscience rights. This is the reconciliation that was raised in the context of this debate and in the Carter decision, and that has been reconciled within the framework of Bill C-14 as passed.

Importantly, provinces and territories have responsibility over the provision of health care and the regulation of professionals within their jurisdiction, and they face this complex task. In a context where we are debating constitutional law, it is important not just to look at the charter but also at the division of powers in the Constitution Act of 1867. When we are talking about regulating aspects of physicians in this country, that is germane to the jurisdiction of the various provinces mentioned in some of the responses by the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

At the federal level, the Minister of Health has recently put in place regulations establishing a permanent monitoring regime for medical assistance in dying. The regime came into effect on November 1, 2018. It will gather valuable data about written requests for medical assistance in dying and the patient making this request, but also about the reasons why a medical practitioner who received a written request referred the patient or transferred their care to another practitioner, including whether it was because providing medical assistance in dying or assessing someone for eligibility would be contrary to their conscience or religious beliefs.

National, consistent data about the number of requests for medical assistance in dying that are transferred because of a practitioner’s beliefs will inform Canadians about the breadth of this issue.

In addition, the medical assistance in dying legislation itself provided for a five-year parliamentary review of all of its provisions and the state of palliative care in this country. This review could begin as of June 2020. It will no doubt be informed by the comprehensive reports produced by the Council of Canadian Academies and any other available evidence about the Canadian experience, including that of health care practitioners involved in or affected by medical assistance in dying.

I wish to reiterate our government's respect for health care professionals' diverse points of view and beliefs about medical assistance in dying. We know that they hold their patients—

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

moved that Bill C-418, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, the first thing I would like to do is to thank the many people across Canada who have shown up to work on this bill. It has caught on across the country. It has restored my faith in the good judgment of Canadians and, hopefully, we will see that same good sense shown in the House and we can have some restored faith here as well.

I am here today to speak to Bill C-418, which is the protection of freedom of conscience act. I need to point out again that I am surprised at the way this has caught on and caught the attention of the Canadian public. We should thank many Canadians and groups for whom this is an important issue for their work on publicizing and advancing conscience rights in Canada.

To begin to understand Bill C-418, we need to back up a bit. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has a number of sections in it. Section 1, of course, guarantees our rights and freedoms. However, immediately following that is section 2, which declares the most fundamental rights, and that begins with freedom of conscience and religion. In 2015, the Carter decision in the Supreme Court said that although section 7 of the charter provides for the right to die, it also explicitly said that no one is required to participate in or be part of it.

We then came to Bill C-14, the government's assisted suicide bill. It is a bill that attracted much attention and controversy and laid out the groundwork for the first round of assisted suicide legislation in Canada. Whether they call it euthanasia, medically assisted dying or assisted suicide, they are all different names for the same thing. Medical practitioners were divided on the issue of participating in ending the lives of Canadians. Whether we supported Bill C-14 or not, it was clear that many within the medical community were very concerned. They did not and still do not want to participate in this activity.

When Bill C-14 was passed, it included subsection 241.2(9) which did say, “For greater certainty, nothing in this section compels an individual to provide or assist in providing medical assistance in dying.” That was not adequate because it did not lay out an offence, there was no framework for it and there was no penalty in Bill C-14 if someone violated that. It ended up being nothing more than a statement in Bill C-14.

While the Liberal talking points have repeated this, and the Liberals also claim that everyone has freedom of conscience and religion under section 2 of the charter, this is not the reality that medical personnel are facing across Canada. In spite of the fact that on the surface the charter, Carter and Bill C-14 supposedly agree, the reality is that physicians and medical personnel in this country are being pressured to participate in something with which they fundamentally disagree and there is no protection provided to them.

Conscience forms the basis of medical professionals' motivation to pursue their particular field. Doctors practise every day with the knowledge that it is their conscience that motivates them to test the limits of their knowledge and skill. Medical professionals know that patient care will suffer if they are deprived of the ability to live with integrity and to follow their consciences. They know the importance of these beliefs to them and their patients better than anyone else.

For a great many Canadian doctors, the core of their conscience prohibits their participation in taking a life. Indeed, many doctors remain devoted to the black and white of the ancient Hippocratic oath, a pledge that prohibits the administration of a poison to anyone. Through the availability of assisted suicide on demand across Canada, threats to conscience are no longer confined to the theoretical or to the rhetoric of the courtrooms. They are increasingly present in the examination room as well.

That is why I believe it is time to take action in defence of conscience rights that have stood the test of time for generations. Therefore, Bill C-418 seeks to amend the Criminal Code to do two things.

The first is to make it an offence to intimidate a medical practitioner, nurse practitioner, pharmacist or any other health care professional for the purpose of compelling them to take part, directly or indirectly, in the provision of physician-assisted suicide.

The second provision makes it an offence to dismiss from employment or to refuse to employ a medical practitioner, nurse practitioner, pharmacist or any other health care professional for the reason only that they refuse to take part, directly or indirectly, in the provision of physician-assisted suicide.

My bill would provide the teeth that Bill C-14 acutely lacks. The Liberals' attempt to provide protection for doctors consisted solely of a rudimentary clause, which stated, as I said earlier, that nothing compels someone to provide or assist. However, the provision lacked the teeth needed for its effective enforcement, as evidenced by the ongoing pressure that is being exerted on physicians, particularly by their regulating bodies.

I guess the question is whether these protections are really necessary, and I would say that they are. Throughout the legislative process, I have spoken to doctors who feel overt pressure to leave family medicine because of their conscientious beliefs. I have heard of palliative care doctors in Ontario who have stopped practising altogether. Nurses who feel increasingly bullied are choosing to shift their focus or retire early. I have had personal conversations with people who work in old folks' homes who explain they do not want to participate in this but are increasingly feeling pressured to do so. The pressure on these professionals exists and they are looking for relief.

What is more, regional associations such as the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario have introduced regulations compelling conscientiously objecting physicians to participate by providing what they call “effective referrals” for physician-assisted suicide. A recent court decision has upheld this directive, contravening the assurances provided in Carter v. Canada and creating an even more urgent need among physicians for protection. This is in spite of the fact that in this situation in Ontario I am told that the majority of physicians support an allowance for conscientious objections, but the college has not taken that position.

As strange as it sounds, the recent court decision refers to the college's suggestion that if physicians do not like to participate then they can find other areas of medicine to take up. This is unusual, particularly in a situation where we have such a shortage of physicians and medical services. The college suggests that if they do not like participating they can take up things like sleep medicine, hair restoration, sport and exercise medicine, skin disorders, obesity medicine, aviation examinations, travel medicine or perhaps become a medical health officer.

For many of us across this country, particularly those of us in rural areas, we know there is an increasing lack of physicians in an increasingly challenged medical system. I find it passing strange that the college would be the one suggesting such a thing for its physicians. The answer does not have to be to do it, find someone else to do it or get out of medicine. Medical personnel and resources are scarce. Why would one try to force people into doing what they believe to be wrong? The example of the province of Manitoba and its conscientious objection legislation shows there does not need to be compulsion in the medical system when it comes to this issue.

My bill does not address the social acceptability of euthanasia and assisted suicide; that is not the point of it. Protecting physicians' conscience rights is not at all a physicians versus patients scenario. By protecting physicians' conscience rights, patients' rights are enhanced. Bill C-418 is about protecting the fundamental freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed to all Canadians in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Parliamentarians from all parties cannot ignore the groundswell of support this bill has received from average Canadians who believe it is time to stand up for doctors and health care providers who are not willing to leave their core ethics behind when they are at a patient's bedside. This is not theoretical. I have had photos sent to me of the revolving TV screens that we see in hospital wards, with pictures of what seems to be a physician's hand gently resting on the arm of a senior citizen, touting assisted suicide as a medical service whereby physicians or nurse practitioners help patients fulfill their wish to end their suffering and a phone number is provided. Interestingly, it makes no mention of palliative care or other ways to reduce pain and suffering. It makes no mention of access to counselling.

With government, the courts and health care facilities promoting access as a right, should not those who object be allowed to have that fundamental freedom of conscience that is so important?

I want to close with a quote from “The Imperative of Conscience Rights” by the CRFI. They write:

The outcomes of the current controversies that engage freedom of conscience will not only signal the extent to which Canadians can conscientiously participate in public life—in other words, whether they can live in alignment with who they are and what they stand for in matters of morality. These outcomes will also speak volumes about who we are and what we stand for—as a society. Suppressing beliefs with which we disagree or that we find offensive in the name of tolerance and liberalism is a contradiction in terms. The fact that the state has deemed something legal does not remove a person’s freedom to express her moral opposition to it. This freedom is not absolute, but its roots—integrity, identity, and dignity—are necessary for human flourishing. These roots must therefore be top of mind whenever limitations on freedom of conscience are proposed. We believe that governments should only limit this human right if there is a compelling justification.

Accessible Canada Act

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise in the House today to address Bill C-81, an important piece of legislation that recognizes and affirms the inherent dignity of all people regardless of disability. It seeks to create the kind of policy environment and framework that facilitate full participation in every aspect of Canadian life for Canadians who have disabilities.

Those watching can be assured of the support of all parties in this House for this legislation. Today we will discuss some missed opportunities and some related issues on which we have not agreed with the government's actions. Specifically, for instance, we will discuss some of the issues around employment. We had a private member's bill from my friend, the member for Carleton, that dealt with facilitating the full involvement of Canadians with disabilities in terms of employment. There are areas of disagreement among the parties in terms of the best way to move forward and the best way to affirm these principles.

Nonetheless, those watching should know that we in the opposition, and all parties, are supportive of moving forward with this legislation. Whether the bill passes today or tomorrow, I am not sure of the exact timeline. However, I think we will certainly see this bill pass into law before the election. It will be good news and a positive step.

Before getting into some of the substance of the legislation, I want to pick up on something said by my colleague, the member for Foothills. He has done a lot of great work on this bill on our side, as have the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin and other members who have been part of the process. The member for Foothills pointed out that amendments for this bill that were put forward at the committee level by Conservatives, as well as by other opposition parties, were not supported by government MPs at the time of the initial study by the House of Commons committee. That is an important point, that they were not supported at that stage.

Notwithstanding disagreements about some of the particulars around amendments, we have supported this bill at every stage. After the bill passed third reading, it went to the Senate. The Senate made a number of amendments that reflected the same concerns that Conservative members of the House had been hearing from the stakeholder community, those representing Canadians with disabilities. Those same concerns that we heard were also heard by the Senate, and they were part of the discussion that happened in the context of that Senate committee.

The bill was amended somewhat at the Senate, and then it was brought back to the House. Now we are debating whether to agree to and support those Senate amendments. I think members will find, generally speaking, support across the parties for the Senate amendments, which make improvements on the text of the bill as it was.

Those who are watching should note how this legislative process works through the details, and how senators were able to be more influential over the legislative outcome than members of the House were. The government would not accept amendments that came from members of the House, but then accepted those same amendments that came from members of the Senate.

We have seen this in a number of cases. I recall Bill C-14, to which an amendment around palliative care was proposed. Actually it was not even just proposed at committee; it was voted on by all members in the chamber at that time. It was voted down. Then, in similar form, it was proposed by Senator Plett, and it passed in the Senate. It was then accepted as part of a subsequent message from the House of Commons.

We see this process happening, in general, in this Parliament, because of the relative lack of independence that we sometimes see in committees and the way committees are unfortunately quite controlled, and the relative independence of the Senate, certainly relative to the House of Commons. It is not as independent as maybe some like to claim, but it is relatively independent compared to the actions of members, especially government members, in the House of Commons. Senate action actually has a greater practical impact on the legislative process.

Again, although I am happy to see the incorporation of these amendments, I think we should be concerned about that, just as a matter of legislative process. We want this House and its elected members of Parliament to be strong in the exercise of their responsibilities.

Nonetheless, although we raise questions and highlight some of the means by which some of these issues have come forward, we are pleased to see these amendments. They reflect issues that have been raised by the stakeholder community and by members of Parliament from our party and, I believe, other parties as well.

With that said about matters of process, let me turn now to the particulars of the legislation, Bill C-81, that is before us. To summarize the content of the bill, in a nutshell, it is essentially about requiring regulated entities, that is, the public service and federally regulated workplaces, to develop accessibility plans. It also requires that the content of those plans be regulated and enforced.

As the minister and others have pointed out in some of the remarks they have made during this process, very often our human rights processes are complaints based. That is, complaints issues are considered when there is a violation or a potential violation of somebody's rights. A complaint is then made, and an adjudication happens around that complaint.

A point that the minister has made, and she is quite right in making it, is that this approach is not the full realization. It is important that people have those avenues available to them, but it is not the full extent of what we would like to see in this context. Rather, we would prefer to see a proactive approach, where we are ensuring the protection of rights from the beginning and not merely putting in place a system that allows complaints to be adjudicated after people's rights have been violated.

Seeking to have regulated entities develop plans, prepare and publish those plans, implement them and facilitate their enforcement creates the conditions for a more proactive approach to these issues, rather than simply a reactive approach. That is wise, worthwhile and something that all parties support. It would establish proactive compliance and enforcement mechanisms. These plans must be multi-year and involve the setting of goals, reporting requirements, mechanisms for investigation and a variety of processes that seek to ensure the realization of those plans to the fullest possible extent.

This legislation would also create an organization called CASDO, the Canadian accessibility standards development organization, and allocate $290 million over the next six years for its creation. This organization would work within the government to create regulations related to various aspects of the legislation around the built environment, employment, service delivery, information and communications technology, transportation and procurement, and always with the goal of the full integration of people with disabilities, facilitating their full participation within society, without barriers.

Failure to meet standards set by CASDO would lead to fines. It should be noted that the action of CASDO would be within federally regulated entities and directly within the federal government only. Nonetheless, the hope is that this legislation would involve the setting of standards that would then be adopted and become useful across all facets of Canadian society, including those outside the federally regulated workforce. There would also be 5,000 Canadians with disabilities hired for the public service, which is also encouraging to see. Our party, as people have seen, has been vocal on the issue of ensuring that those who have disabilities are not arbitrarily excluded from the public service.

This is the broad framework of the bill. It puts in place some mechanisms and processes to ensure there are no barriers to participation in society for people with disabilities.

Today we are in the process of debating issues related to proposed Senate amendments. The minister has spoken, and I would like to highlight the various Senate amendments that we are considering. Although the Senate did not incorporate all the changes that had been proposed at committee, in the House or that had been suggested by the broader disability community, all the changes that were made were reflective of those particular concerns.

First is the issue of including in this legislation a timeline for the realization of a barrier-free Canada; that timeline is 2040. The goal is that this work would be completed, taken fully to fruition, by 2040. The amendments also seek to clarify, though, that the setting of that deadline is not an excuse to wait until the proverbial night before to get the homework done. Rather, the amendments are to ensure the work is done by that point. They create that timeline or deadline but do not seek to permit any kind of delay or preservation of barriers in the name of it not being 2040 yet. That is an important element as well.

Growing up, I was always taught that deadlines are the mother of invention and that more gets done when there is the focusing effect of an upcoming deadline, so the work of the community and the Senate to ensure that there is a timeline in place for the implementation of these measures is quite commendable and important.

Another area of amendment from the Senate was that it asked that intersectionality be taken into consideration in this account. Amendments were put forward to recognize the multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination, the fact that people with disabilities may face discrimination as a result of an intersectional reality. Therefore, the planned response to barriers needs to be a response that takes that circumstance into consideration. We recognize that reality. We recognize the importance of the various plans that are put forward by regulated entities to recognize that intersectionality is part of the dynamic.

Further, the amendments put forward by the Senate seek to address the issue of preserving the existing human rights of people with disabilities. This was really more of a clarification, but the testimony heard in the House, as well as by the Senate committee, emphasized the importance of this clarification, recognizing that there are already obligations under various human rights codes, in particular in the case of federal entities under the Canadian Human Rights Act and other federal laws. Various groups highlighted the importance of clarifying that the new framework put forward with this bill does not in any way derogate from the existing recognized rights and obligations that are enumerated as part of those existing human rights codes. We recognize that aspect as important as well.

Through other amendments, the Senate sought to protect existing rights in the context of passengers with disabilities through the Canadian Transportation Agency.

The expectation is that many of the complaints would come through the Canadian Transportation Agency. This was put forward by people in the disability community. It is therefore important for the legislation to create enforceable standards around the action that this body must take in the removal of barriers. This is an important piece as well.

On the specific issue of transportation, I want to read briefly from a briefing from ARCH Disability Law Centre. It said the following:

However, subsection 172(2), a provision that is currently in the Canada Transportation Act, effectively means that once the CTA make these regulations and transportation providers, like airlines, comply with these regulations, they do not need to do anything more.

This is problematic because the regulations that the CTA sets may not meet the duty to accommodate protections that people with disabilities have under human rights law.

Under subsection 172(2), if a passenger with a disability complains to the CTA that an airline or other transportation provider should have accommodated his or her disability, the case would fail if the airline complied with CTA regulations. A more detailed analysis of this is available in the final legal report.

The committee did not repeal subsection 172(2), but adopted an amendment which would change it. The proposed amendment allows the CTA to find that there is a barrier to accessibility even if the transportation provider has complied with the CTA regulations. For passengers with disabilities, this means they can file a complaint with the CTA that they face an undue barrier in the federal transportation system and insist the transportation provider do more than what the CTA regulation requires.

The passenger with a disability could win his or her case even if the transportation provider complied with all CTA regulations. However, the CTA could only order the transportation provider to take corrective measures. The CTA could not order the transportation provider to pay the person damages or money compensation. This is different from other complaints to the CTA about inaccessibility of the federal transportation system. Generally, for these other complaints, the CTA can order the transportation provider to take corrective measures and to pay damages to the person.

Essentially, the argument that is being made is that although the amendment would improve the section, there still would be a gap. People in the community expect transportation companies, airlines, rail lines etc. to accommodate those with disabilities. The concern is that these entities might be able to say that they have met the standards of the regulations so they do not have to do anything more if in fact the case may be that they could and should do more to accommodate the full participation of a person with a disability.

The Senate amendment says that the CTA could well find that the transportation provider should have done more even if it attained the minimum standards set by the regulation, but it could not award damages in this case. That is an improvement made through the work of the Senate, but as the discussion around this illustrates, there is still a gap in what was asked for and what was expected.

The next amendment is around the issue of sign language. The legislation recognizes specific forms of sign language: American sign language, Quebec sign language and indigenous sign languages. It recognizes these as primary languages used by deaf persons in Canada. This has been an issue that the deaf community in particular has been long advocating on, and it has the support of all other stakeholders as well.

We have had many discussions in the House about the importance of language. We recently had a debate on indigenous languages, a legislative framework around indigenous languages, the importance of our two official languages and the experience and culture that are tied to the use of language in that context.

As well, I think we all recognize that the recognition of sign language is part of that picture as well as part of a broader, deeper appreciation of the way in which language is tied to culture and experience. Of course, for people who are limited in their ability to communicate in other ways, it is particularly necessary. It does have significance and meaning beyond the necessity of communicating in that form.

These are some of the amendments the Senate has adopted to the bill. They do not address all the issues that people in the stakeholder community and the wider community have been looking for, but they are steps forward and are things that are well supported by all members of Parliament. We are hopeful this will go forward and we will be able to see movement to get these amendments through.

In my remarks today I want to frame a little of the discussion around who the bill is for. In other words, why are the technical elements I have explained important and who do they matter to specifically.

In that context, I want to make a few remarks about Jean Vanier, about his vision of inclusion, but of something much bigger and greater than inclusion. As we talk about these issues, he is a figure on whom all of us should reflect. He is certainly the greatest known champion of people with disabilities.

He passed away earlier this month. His death was met with recognition and tributes from all aspects of our politics and many different aspects of Canadian society. He was a revolutionary figure practically in how he sought to facilitate the inclusion in society of people with disabilities. However, he was also a revolutionary figure intellectually. His experience as a philosopher and his way of thinking informed and contributed to his work. He was described in biographies as a philosopher and a humanitarian, which is an optimal and necessary combination. It is dangerous to be a philosopher without being a humanitarian and it is dangerous to think of oneself as a humanitarian without some attention to the philosophical roots of humanitarian work. We see that intimate connection between the ideas Jean Vanier sought to advance and the practices he championed.

Jean Vanier came from a privileged family. His parents were well known as well. He was born when his father was part of a diplomatic mission. He had a military career as well, but then he pursued a doctorate in philosophy. His dissertation would position much of the work he would do later. His dissertation was on happiness as principle and the end of Aristotelian ethics.

I feel a connection to that because I did my Masters dissertation on happiness measurement, which was also significantly influenced by Aristotle. The question of happiness is under-discussed in politics. It is important for a lot of the legislation. He was someone who brought in a philosophical framework to the work he did that was rooted in Aristotelian concepts of happiness. In the meantime, he drew on Aristotle's conception of happiness, which is different from a contemporary concept of happiness. This influenced his work with Canadians with disabilities.

Jean Vanier's desire for disabled people was not merely that they experience formal, structural inclusion or be able to get into the same spaces as everyone else. Rather, his desire was for them to experience love and happiness through community and friendship. Therefore, he sought to build communities of disabled and non-disabled people living together in meaningful friendship.

Vanier wrote this:

The cry of people with disabilities was a very simple cry: Do you love me? That's what they were asking. And that awoke something deep within me because that was also my fundamental cry.

He noted that the pursuit of recognition of their humanity, happiness and love was what people with disabilities were seeking, which was often denied to them by a structure that did not affirm their dignity. The thing they were seeking was the same thing that all people were seeking and that in fact they could and they would seek that together. That was Vanier's wisdom and vision.

He developed into his work, and would write subsequently about them, concepts of happiness informed by his work with people with disabilities. He drew very much on Aristotle's concept of happiness. Aristotle, writing in Greek, obviously uses the word “eudemonia”, which more directly is translated “the life well lived”. He argued in that context against notions of happiness that were more pleasure-based, more rooted in happenstance, the random benefit of good fortune generally in material terms. He had a richer understanding and appreciation of what happiness was.

Aristotle argues, and Vanier follows him in this sense, for the connection between virtue and happiness, that virtues are the qualities of character that allow life to be lived well.

We know as members of Parliament and as human beings that so much of human striving is in pursuit of happiness. We do not always agree on what that is or on how we strive for it, but so much of life is about striving for happiness.

More recently, our side has been very much influenced by the utilitarian school of thought, which argues that happiness is about pleasure over pain. This was the core of Bentham's concept of utilitarianism. Mill formerly follows it, but he reinserts aspects of Aristotle's definition of happiness with arguments that the cultivation of higher levels of happiness requires the development of a certain nobleness of character.

Vanier's passion for philosophy and the idea of happiness continued throughout his life. In 2001, he wrote “Made for Happiness: Discovering the Meaning of Life with Aristotle”. In it he talks about three utilitarian virtues: love, wisdom and justice. I want to read a quote from the book in which he talks about the importance of friendship and love as part of friendship.

He states:

Through friendship I communicated in the consciousness that my friend has of his own existence. For in the same way that we feel that we are alive and exist through activity and derive pleasure from it, so, through friendship, we feel our friend live and exist. And the union is so profound that the goodness of the life of our friend extends to us and gives us pleasure. In friendship there is almost a communion, a merging of two beings and their rightful good. The friend is an other self. Everything that I experience, he experiences.... In this friendship we continue to be two, but we are one in a great and noble activity that we accomplish together. Consciousness of the goodness of my friend fills me with just as much joy as if it were my own. My friend's happiness becomes my happiness.

This was his philosophical concept of friendship that was essential for happiness, facilitated by the virtue of love. It informed his practical vision for building communities that would include disabled and non-disabled people. We could call that inclusion, but it is a much richer and deeper concept of inclusion than a formal one. It is that we live in communities of love, good will and solidarity for each other with real friendship. We see others as another self and we identify with that kind of love for others. It is part of his concept of happiness, which entails friendship and living together while in community.

Jean Vanier, as I said, brought a rich concept of happiness, love and friendship into his work with disabled people. He saw people in institutions when he was living in Paris at the time of the founding of the L'Arche movement, who were being maintained poorly in the worst instance. He saw that very often the attitude towards the disabled resulted, in the worst instance, in people being maintained poorly, and in the best instance people being treated a little bit better in terms of their material condition. However, the real need was for the humanity of all people to be affirmed through communities of meaningful friendship and love, through which people were pursuing happiness together. That was his vision.

The radical practical idea started with Vanier personally getting a house and moving in with people who had disabilities. He saw that this was not merely an act of service done by him for other people; rather, it was about the development of shared community. He saw how through this reality of shared community he could learn from those people he was living with. He wanted other people who did not have disabilities to be able to learn and grow through these communities and friendships, which were meaningful and pursuing happiness together.

Jean Vanier said that “L'Arche and Faith and Light have been part of a real revolution.” So often in the past, people with intellectual disabilities were seen as a source of shame for their parents, or even in some situations as a punishment from God. Their parents and carers have often been seen as wonderful people, even holy, for looking after people “like them”. Today, it is becoming clear that it is people with intellectual disabilities who humanize us and heal us if we enter into real friendship with them. They are in no way a punishment from God, but rather a path toward God.

He understood that people with disabilities are in their fullest and most complete sense people. They are human beings with the same dignity and value as anyone else. They have both needs and things to contribute, which is obviously the situation of us all. Those needs and contributions are realized through meaningful community. He also understood that the value of social structures replicating insights and benefits of family-like structures.

I was recently in Bogotá, where I had a chance to visit SOS Children's Village to see some of the work they were doing. They made a very interesting point to me about the way we care for children who cannot be cared for by their families. I think it is a similar insight to Jean Vanier, which is that institutions' formal structures do not work nearly as well as, let us say, family-like structures. The way SOS works, at least in Columbia where I was, is that children are put into environments designed to be family-like. They are in homes. They have parents looking after them. Although they are not able to be with their own families, they experience a support structure that is meaningfully similar to that of a family and that leverages the kind of love, connection and friendship that is important in family structures. That was understood by Jean Vanier when he sought to do the same thing in how he structured the L'Arche movement with meaningful family-like communities where people would live together in communities of love and friendship.

Very shortly before he died, Jean Vanier received the Templeton Prize, which is a great international honour. He spoke about the work he did and the ideas and vision behind it. It showed us the kinds of sensibilities that should animate our work in this area. I want to read from part of his acceptance speech for the Templeton prize. He said:

L’Arche and Faith and Light have been part of a real revolution; so often in the past people with intellectual disabilities were seen as a source of shame for their parents, or even in some situations, as a punishment from God. Their parents and carers have often been seen as wonderful people, even holy, for looking after people “like them”. Today it is becoming clear that it is people with intellectual disabilities who can humanise us, and heal us, if we enter into a real friendship with them. They are in no way a punishment of God but rather a path towards God....

To be with is to live side by side, it is enter into mutual relationships of friendship and concern. It is to laugh and to cry together, it is to mutually transform each other. Each person becomes a gift for the other, revealing to each other that we are all part of a huge and wonderful family, the family of God. We are all profoundly the same as human beings, but also profoundly different, we all have our special gifts and unique mission in our lives.

This wonderful family, from its earliest origins and since then with all those who have been spread over this planet from generation to generation, is composed of people of different cultures and abilities, each of whom have their strength and their weakness, and each of whom is precious.

The evolution of this family from the earliest days until today certainly has entailed wars, violence, and the endless seeking of domination and more possessions. It is also an evolution wherein prophets of peace have continued to cry out for “peace, peace”, calling people together to meet each other as beautiful and precious.

Many of us in our world continue to yearn for peace, and for unity. However so many of us remain stuck in our cultures where we are caught up fighting to win and to have more. How can we become free of the culture that incites people, not to responsibilities to the human family and to the common good, but to individual success and to domination over others? How can we get rid of the tentacles and the shackles of this culture, to become free to be ourselves, free of our oversized egos and compulsions, free to love others as they are, different yet the same?

To be with is also to eat together, as Jesus invited us: “When you give a meal don’t invite your family, friends or rich neighbour, but invite the poor and the lame, the disabled and the blind, and you shall be blessed.” To become blessed, says Jesus, is to invite the poor to our table (Luke 14).

Let us be very clear that it is not the guests who are blessed because they enjoy good food at a party, but rather the host is blessed by his encounter with the poor. Why is the host called blessed? Isn’t it because his heart will be transformed as he is touched by the wonderful gifts of the spirit hidden in the hearts of the poor? This has been the gift of my own personal journey and those of many others. We have been led by those who are weak onto the road of the blessedness of love, of humility and of peacemaking.

To be transformed, first we must meet people who are different, not our family, friends and neighbours who are like us. Let us meet across differences—intellectual, cultural, national, racial, religious and other differences. Then from this initial meeting we can begin to build community and places of belonging together.

Community is never called to be a closed group, where people are hiding behind barriers of group identity, interested only in their own welfare or their own vision, as if it is the only one or the best. It cannot be a prison or a fortress. Unfortunately, for a long time this was the rather closed vision of different churches and religions. Each one thought itself the best, with all knowledge and truth. Hence, there was no communication or dialogue between them.

Isn’t there a danger that we close ourselves up in our own professional, religious or family groups where we never meet those who are different?

Community, on the other hand, is a place of togetherness in spite of differences, of people united in love and open to all other people. A community then is like a fountain or a shining light, where a way of life is being lived and revealed, open to others and attractive to them. It is a place of peace, revealing a way to peace and to unity for the human family.

Community is a place of belonging where each person can grow to become fully him or herself. It is belonging for becoming.

We belong to each other so that each member can become more human, more loving, more free, more open to others, particularly to those who are different. When each member can develop their unique gifts and help others to develop theirs, members are no longer in competition but in collaboration, in cooperation and in mutual support.

To become is not to prove I am better than you, but rather supporting together each other in opening up our hearts. Thus community is a place of transformation. Community is a place of belonging where each one may be transformed and find human fulfilment.

What alternatives do we have for human growth? Belonging which is too rigid stifles becoming; on the other hand too much individual growth or becoming without belonging can become fighting to get to the top, or else it can become loneliness and anguish. To win is always to be lonely, and of course nobody wins for long.

Community then is not a closed group but a way of life that helps each person to grow to human fulfillment. The two key elements of community are mission and mutual caring for each one. We come together for a purpose that is the mission, and also to be a sign of love or rather to grow in love for each another. It is a mission that defines why we are together, and being together we learn to love one another.

At L’Arche and Faith and Light our mission is to provide community where the most fragile person is the heart of the community, and can grow in their humanity and in their capacity to love.

Community then becomes a place where we learn how to love each other. To grow in love is a long and difficult journey, and it takes time. L’Arche and Faith and Light are not just places where we do good to people with intellectual disabilities. They are places of relationship, where we grow in love together.

But what is love? This word has been flung around for all sorts of emotional experiences as well as acts of bravery of solders, fighting out of love for their country. For me, love is to recognize that the other person is a person, is precious, is important and has value. Each one has a gift to bring to others. Each one has his or her mission in the larger family of humanity. Each one reveals the secret face of God.

We need each other, to grow in this sacred love, which implies love of those who are different, of those who get my goat and drive me up the wall, because of difference of ideas, temperament, culture, approach and so on. Community is a place where we rub up against each other’s sore spots.

Hopefully we can in this way rub off some of the tiresome and sour traits of our characters, so that we can become our real selves. To love then is to see in the other, the heart of the person hidden under all that annoys us. That is why to love, in the words of St Paul, is to be patient, which is to wait, and to hold on. It is to believe and to trust that under all the mess in the other person is their secret being, their heart.

In L’Arche some of the people we welcome have deep anguish and even violence. They are difficult to live with in community. We have to be patient and to believe that their true self will gradually emerge. We also have to be patient with ourselves as well, and believe that if we try to love and become open to a spirituality of love, our own true selves will also gradually emerge. If we love, if we truly love other people and believe in them, then they are transformed, and we also will be transformed.

Community then is a place of healing, of transformation, and of humanising people. It’s a place where we are commissioned to grow in love, and in forgiveness, and this is real work. If you don’t want to be transformed and to grow in love, then don’t partake in community! When we find the strength to accept people as they are and to meet them in their secret being, they open us up to love.

These remarks by Jean Vanier are so profound and so critical, not just to this particular debate but to all of the debates we have in this place, because they talk about the way in which we can and do live in community with each other. That is, we understand the balance, if you will, or the necessary combination for belonging and becoming and the importance of having open-ended communities where we invite other people in and seek to learn from them.

The relationship we have with people who come from different backgrounds, people who are disabled or people who may have been historically disadvantaged for a variety of reasons is not to feel that they are in need of somebody else's charity, but, rather, to include each other in full community and recognize the way in which we become in community, we belong in community and we learn from each other.

This is something I have observed in my own interactions with members of my family. I have a beautiful cousin who has Down's syndrome. She was one of the flower girls at my wedding. I will always remember a story that my uncle told. It was a story about how he had learned from her, and sharing the story was a way in which we all learned from her. It was about a time when he and his children were at a hospital, where there was a lady, whatever her circumstances were or whatever bad news she had just heard, standing outside a hospital room crying. My uncle told his children that they should mind their own business, make sure they do not stare, walk past and move on. While he was giving these instructions, it was too late. His daughter Anastasia had already wrapped her arms around the woman who was crying, hugging her and crying with her.

This is an example of the kind of response by somebody who may not have the same socially programmed inhibitions that tell us not to interfere in each other's lives, but, rather, had an unbridled openness and empathy that led her to immediately show love in this way for this total stranger. It was her capacity for unlimited love and pursuit of community that opened my uncle's eyes and my eyes through that story to things that maybe I needed to learn, things that maybe we all need to learn, through greater community with people who have developmental differences and different kinds of experiences, but have so much to contribute.

That is the idea and philosophy of Jean Vanier. That is what the objectives of this bill are all about.

We need to remember that putting in place a framework that seeks to create a country that is free from barriers—

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Ehsassi.

Let's continue on this theme.

I'll confess to you that I found a bit puzzling, Mr. Rosenblood, your opening submissions about paragraph 319(3)(b), first because the preamble of the Constitution talks about the supremacy of God and the rule of law, and second because it's well known in law that we carve out accommodation or exemptions for religious or conscience beliefs, most recently in the one issue that I think all of us will remember for our entire parliamentary careers—medical assistance in dying—wherein you had a direct conflict within people who felt, pursuant to their conscience, that they didn't want to be compelled to perform a certain type of medical procedure. That was enunciated in the penultimate paragraph of the Carter decision, since you're citing Supreme Court case law. It's also entrenched in Bill C-14.

I just put that forth as a talking point.

You also mentioned, Mr. Rosenblood, that you're cautioning us not to act quickly. I would actually say to you, if you were listening to the people earlier, that there's a real need to act quickly. I think the need to act quickly is that people are being radicalized towards violence online in Canada—that's part of the court record in the Bissonnette sentencing hearing—and around the planet. I think it is incumbent upon us to act quickly.

I was also a bit puzzled by your citation of a dissenting decision in Keegstra, rather than the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in more recent jurisprudence, which is Whatcott, in which Rothstein, writing for the entire court, upheld section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act as striking the appropriate balance.

There's no doubt that balance needs to be struck. The question I have for you, then, is this: Is section 13 of the CHRA, whose analogue was upheld in Whatcott in a unanimous 6-0 decision by the Supreme Court, the right balance? If it isn't, what's needed? Is what is needed what would effectively be a redundant but perhaps necessary political paragraph that simply says, “Nothing in the aforementioned passages derogates from the constitutionally held right to freedom of expression held by all individuals within Canada under section 2(b)”?