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.

Opposition Motion — Decriminalization of Marijuana Possession

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel.

The member is definitely the best dressed member in this chamber.

Given that this is the first time I have risen today, I want to express my condolences to the victims, their families, and their friends for the horrible murder, terrorist act, hate crime, which occurred in Orlando. We were all very touched by what happened and very disconcerted. It is hard for many of us today to concentrate on the motion when we think of the crimes that ISIS is perpetuating, and now we are talking about marijuana.

Let me be blunt. I was not one of the cool kids in high school. I never tried marijuana. To be honest, I am glad that I did not. It is not my style to smoke, drink, or to use drugs, but I also understand that it is not my right to impose my own views and my own values on all Canadians. I respect and accept the fact that our party has proposed making marijuana use legal. As part of that, we also said that we were going to regulate and restrict.

While I appreciate the motion put forward by my hon. friend and colleague from Victoria, and I highly value his intellect and love working with him, I disagree with the perspective that we are going to simply decriminalize without looking at the other two very important facts: regulation and restriction.

The motion makes no distinction between 14-year-olds and 40-year-olds. It does not say that decriminalization is going to occur only for adults. It is saying decriminalization is going to occur for everyone. One of the things that is incredibly important to me is keeping marijuana out of the hands of children. Marijuana use is not without its effects.

As we all know, it can make people slightly loopy for a certain period of time, but there are also ties to breathing disorders, mental health issues, and particularly for young people whose brains are still developing, marijuana is a dangerous substance. It is not something we want to be widely distributed to our children. However, if we are going to decriminalize without dealing with how marijuana is distributed, without dealing with how we are going to keep it out of the hands of kids, we are going to enter into problems that are not anticipated by the motion.

I do understand, with a competent adult who is looking at a government that says we are going to make this legal, that we would have a certain sympathy for the fact that they are going to be prosecuted and get a criminal record. However, at the same time in my view, the law is the law is the law. Whether we agree with the law or do not agree with the law, whether we believe that a law is going to be rescinded or not, it does not mean we do not have a duty to respect the law as it is. As such, my sympathy for the people we have been talking about today is slightly muted, because they should be, just like the rest of us, respecting the law. That is what we are supposed to do until such time as the law is changed.

The NDP has raised Bill C-14 and I also want to raise Bill C-14 because one of the things this government was criticized for was the quick process that led to Bill C-14. However, in the case of Bill C-14, there was a very good reason. There was a Supreme Court deadline of June 6. In the case of marijuana, there is no deadline.

The key studies and the commentaries that we have had from the states in the United States that have legalized marijuana use, in particular Colorado, among others, has been that we should take the correct time frame to put in place the right measures to go along with legalization. We should not be rushing this.

Not only do we need to have the regulatory rules in place, but we need to have the infrastructure in place. We need to have those people who are ready to legally distribute marijuana. We need to have the police forces and judiciary prepared for the way we are going to treat this. We need to have the educational resources available for how we are going to go into the schools and explain to our young people why they should not be using marijuana and try to disincentivize them from doing so.

One of the things that is also troubling to me around the idea of accepting the motion is the question of regulation of the product itself.

We have heard from many Canadians, including the hon. member for Outremont in 2012, who talked about the fact that there was marijuana in our country that was very hard marijuana and was dangerous to health. If we are going to legalize marijuana, or even decriminalize it, we need to have standards in place to talk about how it is grown and how to prevent contaminants from getting into it to ensure the marijuana used is safe to consume, to the extent possible.

We need to talk about packaging, distribution, and how we get this out of the hands of organized crime. My fear is that, if the motion is adopted as is, who will everyone buy from? The producers of medical marijuana are not authorized to sell it to those without a prescription. There is nothing in the motion to talk about how the distribution channels would work. As such, my concern is that those people who are currently illegally distributing marijuana across Canada, basically organized crime, are going to have freer licence to go into our schools and talk to our young people about how it is not criminal to possess small amounts and encourage them to buy from them. Once that happens, what other drugs are these people in organized crime selling? How will this stop someone who starts with marijuana from moving toward harder drugs that are also sold by the same distributor, if we are going to call the Mafia that?

This is of enormous concern for me because right now in Canada we have the highest rate of minors using marijuana of 29 countries. Therefore, whatever we do in terms of the legalization process, an important part has to be how we are going to keep it out of the hands of our young people.

I have heard the argument, and respect it, that police forces going after adult possessors of small amounts of marijuana takes police away from more important things they could be doing. I completely agree with this. I do not agree that decriminalization would have the same effect, because it still means these people should be ticketed. It still means prosecutions and the officers would be going to court. The answer is not decriminalization. It is legalization, but legalization with strict enforcement mechanisms, proper surveillance, and supervision.

I am very happy that we have an expert in our government in the area of marijuana use. The hon. parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Justice is going to be leading us in this effort with his incredible former experience as the police chief of Toronto.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that, since debate on this topic began today, the discussion has been all over the map, which is probably normal with such a delicate topic.

Despite the fact that we are talking about marijuana, which is commonly known as a soft drug, some people are worried about abuse. I would like to come back to the key aspect of the motion so that we know what we are talking about. I would particularly like to draw members' attention to point (a), which is the heart of the NDP's proposal. It reads:

That the House: (a) recognize the contradiction of continuing to give Canadian criminal records for simple possession of marijuana after the government has stated that it should not be a crime;

We are talking about simple possession of marijuana. That is the situation we have been put in since the most recent election campaign. During that campaign, I often told the people who asked my opinion on the dreams, promises, and commitments of the Liberal Party to be careful because everyone knows that the Liberals tend to signal left during the election campaign and then turn right when they take office. As a result, we are now in a situation where Canadians' dreams have been shattered. There are many examples of that.

For example, we could talk about all those people who were thrilled at the prospect of a tax cut that would give them more money and help them make ends meet. Once the Liberals came to power, very few people actually benefited from a tax cut, and those who received the largest tax cuts were already among the wealthiest Canadians.

Seniors in my riding were especially attracted by the idea of investments in home care. There was nothing in the budget about that. On the environment, people were saying that they could finally see light at the end of the tunnel. The Liberal government made the same commitments as the previous government in Paris. We can clearly see that on all counts, there is a gap, actually it is an abyss, between the vision presented during the campaign and what the government is currently doing.

In the case of marijuana, I would say that there is an even greater gap, if that is possible. The Liberals told everyone that they would quickly legalize marijuana. However, that is not the case. What people continue to believe, especially adolescents, whom I really understand, is that they are invincible. In fact, I have spent most of my life in touch with adolescence, first as an adolescent myself and then as a teacher of adolescents for 25 years. When we think about our adolescence, which for most people in the House was not as long ago as mine, we can remember often having the feeling of being invincible. When we are adolescents, the things we do are not risky, and we believe everything will be fine. If we try smoking a joint, we are not going to be arrested, because that only happens to other people.

The reality is quite different, and thousands of Quebeckers and Canadians who want to try smoking a joint or consuming an edible, such as a muffin or what have you, run the risk of ending up with a criminal record. They could end up with a criminal record, even though the Liberals made a promise and said that no one in our society should end up with a criminal record for simple possession of marijuana. Therein lies the contradiction and the confusion surrounding this issue we are trying to resolve with the very simple approach of decriminalizing marijuana. The majority agrees on this measure, and we are not talking about 50% plus 1 of Canadians. We are talking about 68% of Canadians who agree with decriminalizing simple possession of marijuana. I would remind members that we are talking about simple possession.

I must admit that the issues are diametrically opposed, but I have a hard time understanding the Liberals' inconsistent approach.

In recent weeks, we have talked a lot about Bill C-14 on medical assistance in dying. We heard that even though the Supreme Court issued a clear unanimous ruling, society was not ready and we needed to move forward slowly. As a result, the Liberals proposed the criterion of reasonably foreseeable natural death, which has been challenged in both the House and the Senate.

Small steps are necessary in the case of medical assistance in dying, but in the case of simple possession of marijuana, small steps are apparently not needed. In that case, the government wants to go full bore. Legalization needs to happen immediately, which is completely impossible. We need to forget about that. All we have been promised is that a bill will be introduced in 2017. Some Liberal members are saying that it could be introduced later, and, rarely, someone says that it could be introduced earlier. We hear nothing about consistency.

We need a bill to deal with the drug issue once and for all, but the first step is to implement a simple, easy-to-understand measure for everyone. Say a teenager is influenced by a group of friends or just wants to try this once. We need to make sure our measure eliminates the possibility of ruining that teenager's life with a record that will make finding a job or travelling much more difficult. We know that teenagers are tempted to try new things. There is a disconnect there.

I would like to talk about my own transition from childhood to adolescence. In my day, things might have seemed simpler because becoming a man or daring to do the forbidden meant trying to smoke. Cigarettes could be had for a penny, back when we still had pennies.

Obviously, that has changed. Each generation is better educated than the last, and we now have very clear evidence about the dangers of cigarettes. Cigarette consumption has decreased markedly, but the battle is not yet won. Some young people still choose to smoke, and they need to be shown the negative health effects of that choice.

Right now, the legal system spends $4 million on cases that may result in records for teenagers. If we used that money to educate young people about this, we could make tremendous progress. Contrary to what my dearly departed mother believed, one toke does not a hard-drug addict make. It is a long way from the former to the latter, and we can easily interrupt that progression with health education.

Since time is running out, I will close by painting a picture of the situation using some statistics. We invest $4 million in our justice system every year, and 80% of the offences that have to be processed involve simple possession of cannabis. If members want to talk about organized crime and everything else, so be it. However, 80% of offences are related to simple possession of marijuana. That amounts to 66,000 arrests a year and 22,000 people who risk getting a criminal record.

As I said earlier, 68% of Canadians are calling on us to take this first step, go ahead with decriminalization, and work on education so that experimentation remains just that, experimentation.

What is even clearer is that all of the parties are slowly coming around to the NDP's approach, which we first proposed a number of years ago.

I see I am out of time. I will end there, as I will have an opportunity to continue through questions.

Canadian Organ Donor Registry Act

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, thanks to the member for Calgary Confederation's contributions at the provincial legislature in Alberta, the province has an electronic organ and tissue donor registry of which I am a donor. I subscribed myself thanks to that new system that he introduced. He is also one of the very few members of the legislative assembly when he served there who actually passed two private members' bills. I hope that fortune and that ability passes on to the member for Edmonton Manning who is pushing for a very wise bill on organ and tissue donor registry.

I have a Yiddish proverb to share with the House: “He who looks for light work goes very tired to bed.” I view the government's response to this private member's bill as a search for that light work. Personal stories on organ donor registries and about specific issues of public policy seem to have a higher impact on the backbench members of the government who might be allowed a free vote on this.

Let me share my personal story. I have three kids. My two oldest kids, Maximilian and Jolie, will both need some day the donation of a kidney to continue living. It is inevitable. There is no cure for the condition that they have called Alport syndrome and they were born with it. For a parent who has to experience that, it is profound and changes one's outlook on life. That is why I became a donor. That is why I became involved in the Kidney Foundation of Canada as a board member for the southern Alberta chapter as well.

Through that involvement I met lots of people on the Kidney March, a three-day 100-kilometre walk through beautiful Kananaskis country. I shared tents with organ donors and experienced people doing dialysis in the camp at night. They would do a 25-kilometre walk and then do dialysis in the camp, and then start completely fresh the next day because the dialysis cleaned out all the by-products in the body that come from exercise. They literally could walk another 30 kilometres the next day and they were not as tired.

I met incredible people with incredible stories of perseverance and strength. They want something like this bill. They need something like this. I met a gentleman who lost both of his kidneys on a trip to Morocco with his friends. He had an emergency flight back to Canada and they were able to save his life, but he is on a second kidney donation now. He does marathons across North America. He is literally the first one to finish the 100-kilometre walk. I tried to keep up with him and I am able-bodied and younger, but I had a tough time keeping up with him. On the second day it is a 38-kilometre walk and he finished first. It is incredible what people can achieve.

I am thinking of my kids and what they went through from the moment of diagnosis and the doctors explaining what would happen to them. An organ and tissue donor registry is the first step. We are not talking about creating an entirely new registry, we are talking about coordinating the actions being done in the different provinces. I know we already have three of these and they coordinate different facets of this. That is why I think this private member's bill goes beyond that and talks about an actual strategy on organ donation and lays out nine further points for a national strategy.

Most strategists talk about simply ideas, a principle, a thought that, although important, does not have what the member for Edmonton Manning has included here, which is nine specific areas that we could look at. I have met with specialists in this field across Canada. They are surgeons responsible for explaining to family members that their loved one is deceased or they are the ones doing the organ donation procedures. All of them say that these nine areas are an improvement that we can lend to the system, so why not legislate on it because that is what we are here to do, to pass good laws and make sure bad ones do not pass.

When I read the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health's argument, I found three excuses I want to highlight and explain why they are not good excuses.

The duplicating of existing initiatives was one excuse. This does not duplicate. We can simply repurpose current work to meet the demands of this legislation. To say they would duplicate would indicate that work is already being done, but national organ and tissue donation rates are nothing to be proud of. They have barely improved over time. Real improvements would be to go after the structural issues and bottlenecks in the system.

Furthermore, this is probably the absolute weakest argument that can be made, because if we are already doing the work, then why not seek the path of least resistance, agree with the legislation, and simply pass it so it can be studied at committee. To say that there are existing initiatives basically says this legislation simply encapsulates what already exists, which is fine, but let us move on to the next point.

The other one the parliamentary secretary mentioned was the shift in responsibilities. She mentioned consent, confidentiality, health policies, and procedures that they are, indeed, mostly within provincial jurisdictions. My issue with that is this. Is there not a better way to coordinate it, perhaps by doing it formally, maybe in a voluntary system, which the member for Edmonton Manning included in his private member's bill? Section 5 of the law creates a voluntary opt-in, so it is optional for the provinces to participate in this. Success will breed a willingness to participate as well, so that as these different parts begin to do their work, as donation rates improve and there is success, more provinces will want to participate. Although it is within their jurisdiction, there is a voluntary component.

Provinces can voluntarily coordinate with the federal government and other provinces in order to improve the system. I will give the example of pensions. Pensions are a provincial jurisdiction, not federal. The Canada pension plan is coordinated across all provinces in Canada. Why can we not do the same thing? The same principle applies. It is not a shifting of responsibility to the federal government, saying we want a national pension plan that is transferrable from province to province; it is simply the coordination of work.

When I worked at the provincial legislature and orders in council were passed, it was basically with the consent of the different provinces and consultation with the federal government about the coordination of the pension plan, to make sure that the provincial laws and regulations that were passed were consistent across the board so that Canadians who moved across the country would have the same pension plan system, wherever they went. Why can we not have that for organ and tissue donation systems? It makes sense and I do not understand where the problem is. I do not understand why this would have been brought up as an issue.

The third point that the parliamentary secretary made was about the privacy of persons due to the collection of related personal health information. I have run into this a few times now. This was probably the most bizarre reasoning at committee. In clause by clause on Bill C-14, I wanted to introduce an amendment on written consent before the procedure, and I was told that this would impede the privacy of the person involved.

Privacy should never be used as a bottleneck or a pit trap for public policy improvements, especially when people can voluntarily surrender their privacy for the sake of a public policy goal that they agree with. We are not going after people who do not want to donate, we are trying to make it easier for people who do want to donate, to be connected with individuals who need organ or tissue donations because their lives are in danger or they have medical conditions that require organ donations.

Of course, this is voluntary and privacy should not be used in this way as an excuse not to do something, especially when the individuals involved want to help. I meet countless living donors who are so happy to have contributed to and extended someone else's life. The connection between donors and the people they have donated to is very deep. I have seen this countless times. I saw this at the Kidney March as well.

Those in need of organ or tissue donations will not stand for this type of bureaucratic logjamming. I find it is straight out of Yes, Minister. It is like we have seen this all before. It is worthy of Sir Humphrey Appleby saying that policy administration is different from the administration of the policy, and we cannot encapsulate this in the legislation. If it is being done already, let us put in the legislation. If we can coordinate better, let us do it through legislation.

Again, I do not see a reason why we cannot do this. None of the parliamentary secretary's objections, to me, stand up to scrutiny. I would urge the backbench government MPs, where I sometimes find kindred spirits, to support this bill. Let us take it to committee. If there are amendments to be made, we can do it there.

Physician-Assisted Dying

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-14 violates Canadians' rights, and it is truly appalling to see this government making excuses.

The Prime Minister promised to do things differently, to make decisions based on facts, and to listen to experts. Instead, he chose to play politics, limit debate in the House, and refuse to work with the opposition on an issue as important as medical assistance in dying.

Does the Prime Minister realize that he is doing the exact same thing as the former Conservative government?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, we believe that this bill is the best approach to guarantee that dying patients' rights are respected and to ensure that vulnerable people and the conscience rights of health care professionals are protected.

An amendment that removes the reasonably foreseeable criterion will jeopardize the delicate careful balance we have struck in Bill C-14.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government needs to get things straight and brave the storm. The amendment passed in the Senate would bring the bill in line with the Supreme Court's decision.

As experts and the Alberta Court of Appeal have said, without this amendment, Bill C-14 does not pass the charter test and will once again be challenged in court. We need to do things right with a bill that is so important to Canadians.

Will the government act responsibly and amend Bill C-14?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, we believe that we have struck the right balance in Bill C-14 between protecting the vulnerable and the conscience rights of health care professionals, and also providing access to medical assistance in dying and protecting personal autonomy.

There is a diversity of opinion as to whether the bill goes too far or not far enough. There is not unanimity with respect to its constitutionality. There is a delicate careful balance that has been struck. We believe it is the best solution for Canada at this time.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, indigenous women deserve answers, not reading from a website.

The Prime Minister promised to do politics differently, and on Bill C-14 he said that he would accept good faith amendments. Instead, the Prime Minister has disrespected Canada's top legal experts, flouted court rulings in Alberta and Ontario, and rejected good faith amendments every step of the way.

Given the seriousness of the situation, Canadians deserve better. Will the Liberals finally stop putting politics ahead of policy, stop trying to ram through an unconstitutional bill, and work with us to fix Bill C-14 so that it will be a charter-compliant bill that respects the rights of Canadians and respects the Supreme Court of this country?

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the amendment that the Senate voted on last night reflects and puts forward a substantive amendment to Bill C-14. We sought to thoughtfully consider this complex matter to ensure we respected the rights of all Canadians and balanced those rights, balanced personal autonomy with respect for the vulnerable.

This is a momentous change in our country in what we are doing with respect to medical assistance in dying. We need to take a responsible approach that is reasonable, and this is what we have found in Bill C-14.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Senate amended Bill C-14 by deleting the criterion of reasonably foreseeable death in order to allow the most vulnerable to have access to medical assistance in dying. That is what the Barreau du Québec, the lawyers for the Carter family, the eminent constitutional law expert Peter Hogg, the Bloc Québécois, and the NDP were calling for all along.

Why is the Minister of Justice intent on withdrawing the right to self-determination from the most vulnerable people in society, the people suffering from a grievous and irremediable illness, disease, or disability that causes intolerable suffering?

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the government needs to stop providing false information.

We can protect vulnerable people and respect the rights of Canadians. The government rejected all of the opposition's proposals to make Bill C-14 consistent with the charter and Carter. As a result, the Senate is making the same proposals. If the bill is not amended, it will be challenged.

How can the Liberals justify forcing people who are sick and vulnerable to go to court to protect their rights?

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the premise of the question. The reality is, with respect to the court decisions from Alberta and otherwise, that those court decisions were with respect to specific amendments that were in place prior to June 6. They were not decisions with respect to Bill C-14, the legislation we have put forward.

The Supreme Court of Canada provided great deference to Parliament to put in place the necessary and balanced approach to medical assistance in dying, and that is exactly what we have done in Bill C-14.

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand up and speak to medical assistance in dying, Bill C-14, the legislation we put forward to provide a national framework for medical assistance in dying in this country. This national framework would provide and strike the right balance between personal autonomy and protection of the vulnerable. This is a significant step forward for us as a country. It certainly respects rights, balances rights, and is justifiable and responsible in terms of the time frame we had to put it in place.

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I certainly wouldn't impart on this honourable committee what the next steps would be, but what I would like to do, given that the time is running out, is assure this committee that breaches of privilege are taken and should be taken incredibly seriously, and all individuals who had access to Bill C-14 and its developmental documents have the necessary security clearances. We have the substantial policies of the Privy Council Office that ensure we abide by the security provisions to ensure that confidential documents remain in the confidence of the Queen's Privy Council. I'm confident that those were followed across the board.

[Jody Wilson-Raybould, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

There may be comparisons. Reflecting on this particular circumstance with respect to this proposed piece of legislation, the conversation of physician- assisted dying, medical assistance in dying in the context of the proposed legislation, Bill C-14 , has been a conversation that we've been having in an expansive way at least for the last seven months.

The special joint committee has been having that conversation and I as the minister who has been tasked to work on this legislation has been involved as much as I can in the development of the legislation, sharing information with Canadians about the thoughts that were being put into the legislation, ensuring that we do our part, hearing as many voices as we can to find balance in personal autonomy and the protection of the vulnerable.

These are words that I have used in advance of the tabling of the legislation and continue to use today, although now that the legislation has been tabled, I can go into detail about how we found and sought to find that balance in Bill C-14. I have been speaking to that balance all along.