Bill C-7 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) repeal the provision that requires a person’s natural death be reasonably foreseeable in order for them to be eligible for medical assistance in dying;
(b) specify that persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness are not eligible for medical assistance in dying;
(c) create two sets of safeguards that must be respected before medical assistance in dying may be provided to a person, the application of which depends on whether the person’s natural death is reasonably foreseeable;
(d) permit medical assistance in dying to be provided to a person who has been found eligible to receive it, whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable and who has lost the capacity to consent before medical assistance in dying is provided, on the basis of a prior agreement they entered into with the medical practitioner or nurse practitioner; and
(e) permit medical assistance in dying to be provided to a person who has lost the capacity to consent to it as a result of the self-administration of a substance that was provided to them under the provisions governing medical assistance in dying in order to cause their own death.

Criminal Code

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

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to have this opportunity to ask my friend a question following his excellent speech.

In terms of this question raised, rightly, by the NDP of full inclusion for people living with disabilities, it is not just about benefit programs, although those have an important role to play. It is also about access to employment, and I think we are going to get to hear at some point from the member for Carleton about his work on this issue.

Does the member have a comment about the important work of ensuring that we remove barriers to employment, volunteering and community involvement for people living with disabilities, rather than the approach of this bill, which is to create a special track toward death.

Finally, I wonder if my colleague could follow up on the comments from the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River that this will be a free vote for members of the Liberal caucus. It is exciting to hear this, and I hope that other members of the Liberal caucus will actually be willing to take advantage of it.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am excited to hear that free votes are becoming contagious and are spreading across this place. I look forward to hearing if the NDP, the Green Party and the Bloc will also be having free votes on this.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will not be voting in favour of Bill C-7. It is poor legislation that will negatively impact many of the most vulnerable Canadians. If passed, there certainly will be more court challenges that will only dilute the few protections that are currently in place.

I know the disability community, as has been mentioned in previous speeches, has been very upset about the bill. It feels that it will make it even more vulnerable than it currently is.

I was reading a report this morning of one of the witnesses at the Senate committee. I would like to read a few of the comments from Neil Belanger, the executive director of the British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society, an indigenous cross-cultural disability organization that has provided a variety of disability programs and services across Canada for the past nearly 30 years. This is what he said:

Our organization stands with all disabled persons’ organizations in Canada in the call for MAID to be limited to end of life.

The Indigenous peoples of Canada experience a higher rate of disabilities than that of the non-Indigenous population, higher rates of suicide, lower health status and life expectancy, higher unemployment and poverty rates, overcrowding in homes and they are overrepresented in the justice system....

Despite these conditions, the individuals our organization serve do not describe themselves as “suffering with a disability,” ... Persons living with disabilities may become more isolated, demoralized, experience a loss of hope and the desire to escape, and in their vulnerable state they can be more susceptible to the option of MAID.

He goes on to say, “Logically the first response would be to change those systems, increase health and disability resources and services, ensure adequate financial support for Indigenous and non-Indigenous persons.”

Finally, he says:

Bill C-7 isn’t about providing adequate supports for persons living with disabilities. With the proposed removal of the end-of-life criteria, it perpetuates the continued negative portrayal of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples living with disabilities as having lives not worth living because of that disability....[It] perpetuates the idea that these people are of less value and therefore worthy of a state-assisted death.

Those are very harsh words. As a Métis, I am concerned about the very negative impact the legislation will have upon the indigenous people who are likely the most vulnerable population in Canada in every respect, whether it is addictions, suicide, incarceration, the list goes on.

In British Columbia, we see it in Vancouver in the Downtown Eastside and all throughout. I have met with parents who have children with disabilities and they are also very concerned about the message that is being sent, which is stated in the legislation, that life is not worth living, that it is unbearable.

A couple of weeks ago I watched a video of a fellow who I had never heard of before. His name is Nicholas James Vujicic. He was born in 1982 with a rare disorder called phocomelia. He was born without legs or arms. He does have about a six inch foot coming out of his torso. I listened to him speak to a large group of prisoners. He was inspiring hope. He founded an organization called “Life without Limbs” and also “Attitude is Altitude”. He has spoken to hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people. His message is that no matter what our circumstances we have something to give and to help other people. We need to be promoting this message about overcoming challenges. In Canada, we have some great examples.

I think of Rick Hansen, who is in a wheelchair. Years ago he did an around-the-world tour. The best example we have and who is known world-wide would be Terry Fox. I am a teacher by profession and every year we go with students on these walks in support of beating cancer.

I am also concerned that it is just a matter of time before MAID will be offered to people struggling with mental health challenges. Why would I not believe that? The 10-day wait period is being removed. Reasonably foreseeable death is being removed. Approval of two medical practitioners is being removed. Disability is being added as one of the conditions, and so forth.

I mentioned last week that one of my assistants in Ottawa told me about her grandmother, who was 100 years old, a vibrant, social woman and in good health for her age. As we faced COVID-19 this year, with the lockdowns and necessary safety precautions, she became isolated, depressed and no longer wanted to live. She requested MAID and it was granted to her. I suppose that being 100 years old is reasonably foreseeable, but for all of us we will die.

I know people are struggling this year with depression and loneliness. The Canadian Association for Mental Health has released information showing that four times more people this year are having suicidal thoughts than previous due to COVID.

On Monday, I met with Dr. Taylor Bean and Maple Ridge councillor Chelsa Meadus to discuss the impact of regulations on the mental well-being of many of her patients and the big increase of anti-anxiety medication. This is what we are facing right now as we are coping with COVID.

In the summertime, I talked with the director of one of our local funeral homes. He told me of the concerning increase he saw of people who had died of suicide and in demographics he had not seen before, 30 and 40 year olds who had lost work or maybe lost their business. I have no doubt that as time moves on, mental anguish will be added to the list as we continue to broaden the legislation, which we seeing right now.

Mental anguish unfortunately is a very human condition. It can be caused by the loss of a loved one, bankruptcy or news of a terminal illness. Dr. Frank Ervin is a doctor at Ridge Meadows Hospital. He posted this on Facebook recently. He said, “Physicians now have the power to end your life even if you are not dying....I personally have had a patient undergo MAiD who would have had a very good chance of living 5 or more years. The quality of care and the decision to administer MAiD was very questionable in my view and when I contacted the coroner to request a review was told that these cases are not reviewable by the coroner's service. Where is the oversight?“

I think of my wife Marlene. She was diagnosed with cancer and went through a very difficult time. She had five operations. It has been five years and she is cancer-free—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

On that very positive note, I must interrupt the hon. member for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Kenora.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his tremendous insight and thoughts on this topic. One of the things he mentioned was some of the challenges and vulnerabilities facing indigenous communities. As a member representing a northern Ontario riding with 42 first nations, three distinct treaty territories and the Métis homelands, it is something I and our region understand quite closely.

I wonder if the member can speak to some of the opinions he has heard from indigenous communities as they pertain to this legislation.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am the member of Parliament for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge. The largest ethnic population, surprisingly, in this area is indigenous people and Métis. What I am hearing, at least from my perspective, is very pervasive right across as far as dealing with mental health and these challenges. The representative of the disability organization for indigenous people stated well his perspective of indigenous people with disabilities.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business]

Madam Speaker, I have enormous respect for my colleague opposite and for his views even if we disagree.

As a point of clarification, I would like to ask if the member disagrees with the very idea of medically assisted dying or with this bill. The bill we have put forward is to respond the Quebec Superior Court's decision. It is in order to improve the legislation based on the experience of patients.

We are not talking about the very principle of medical assistance in dying; we are talking about improving the existing law. I wonder if he could just clarify. Is he against medical assistance in dying all together?

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, my concern is that we are not putting the emphasis on palliative care. We have put MAID, which is legislated through the Supreme Court, into the Canada Health Act and so it is required to be accessible and funded right across Canada. We do not have that for the general population for palliative care. Only about one-third of Canadians have access to that.

I previously mentioned a lady with whom I had a conversation. She was in hospice dying of cancer. She has now passed. I asked her how much pain she was going through and she said that she was going through no pain whatsoever. Pain can be totally controlled under palliative care as well as mental anguish.

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

Madam Speaker, my colleague has raised many important issues on how we defend the rights of people with disabilities. I wonder if he can pick up on the issue of giving people alternatives. I was quite struck by the comment from one of his colleagues from B.C., another member of our caucus, who said that people had a right to hope

We have to give people access to that right, that ability to hope, to see they have alternatives in front of them. Members who talk about the importance of choice should consider the range of options people have, such as wanting to really have that option of choosing to live and how we can make that option real and meaningful for people who want that available to them.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is really important that people who are facing end of life be given those options. Counselling and supports are really important. One of the amendments we requested, which was defeated, was to increase from 90 days to 120 days for people going through mental challenges. We do not have that support. We need to increase the supports for people in the situations of end of life.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Madam Speaker, let us deal with the elephant in the chamber here. There are reasons to support euthanasia despite 21st-century medical advancements, but to protect the vulnerable in our society from mistreatment or abuse, we must provide the service ethically and monitor its delivery scrupulously. However, what we are debating here today is exactly the opposite of that.

Bill C-7 seeks to amend the medical assistance in dying legislation by eliminating various safeguards on how and when the service gets delivered, with apparent disregard of any scrupulous requirement. Some of the offensive changes to end-of-life decision-making would include removing the 10-day waiting period between a MAID request and its administration, allowing for no reflection or opportunity for consultation on alternatives during this critical period, and proceeding without immediate consent, thus removing the final opportunity for someone to change their mind.

The bill would also create a two-tracked approach. The first track is someone whose death is deemed reasonably foreseeable, a term which is subjective and lacks effective meaning as the Truchon case in Quebec revealed. The second track would allow individuals who do not meet the reasonably foreseeable death criteria to receive MAID. At least these individuals are granted the opportunity to reflect for 90 days.

I voted against the second reading of Bill C-7 because it would not adequately protect Canadians from harm, and the gap presented is way too wide to be bridged. Unfortunately, as I predicted, the government refused to accept any reasonable amendments submitted by concerned stakeholder groups. I will, therefore, be voting against Bill C-7 during third reading as well.

As has been said many times, the bill would create pathways to end of life that would significantly impact the disabled, without sufficiently supporting the alternatives. Also, it does not include enough consideration for the rights of medical professionals to refuse to provide death as a service. Doctors know their patients' most intimate details. They have the professional experience to make suggestions on treatment and to know how to refer to other experts when necessary. However, because of MAID, medical professionals, such as Dr. Mai, who is a stroke neurologist, have expressed concerns that doctors are not being encouraged to suggest the best treatment. They are being obligated to suggest and provide a treatment that they may not believe is the right one for any patient. They are being told to kick their conscience to the curb.

In this regard, I will quote someone who, according to the CBC, has two law degrees and a master's degree in health policy, and has helped develop health law and policy for the WHO and several governments. He has practised medicine in Canada, Africa and the South Pacific. The member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River shares our mutual concerns of how the bill addresses the issues faced by those who are transient or undecided in their end-of-life decision-making.

In a CBC article, he stated, “My biggest concern, as someone who has spent my whole life trying to avoid accidentally killing people, is that we don't end up using MAID for people who don't really want to die”. As someone with a medical background, he says he feels that it is morally incumbent upon him “to stand up when it comes to issues of health and life and death”.

Perhaps this concern is something that should be addressed through a review. It has recently been said in this chamber that any legislation that is introduced in Parliament requires a thorough review, and that is especially true for bills that are literally matters of life or death. Bill C-7, which seeks to expand medical assistance in dying, is one of those bills.

Members of the justice committee have heard first-hand from disability advocates vehemently opposed to Bill C-7 and its rapid expansion of MAID. They argue that it amounts to a “deadly form of discrimination”, making it easier for persons with disabilities to die rather than live.

It is shameful that in the Liberal government's rush to pass the bill before December 18, it continues to neglect to address the legitimate concerns being raised by persons with disabilities and medical professionals.

The Conservatives are focused on ensuring this type of legislation includes safeguards for the most vulnerable in our society, and for the conscience rights of physicians and health professionals. I have previously outlined these reasonable amendments we have introduced to reinstate such balances the government has removed, so I will not re-list them here. However, I shall repeat that it is essential the government begin a separate and comprehensive parliamentary review of the original 2016 MAID legislation and the state of palliative care in Canada. It is critical that this review analyze how the government's MAID legislation negatively impacts persons with disabilities.

I might add, such a review could have taken place over the summer. Instead, the Liberal government shut down Parliament to hide from its ethical scandals, only to return and introduce this legislation from scratch again. What larger lapse of moral fibre and ethical decision-making could there be?

Furthermore, it pains me to find this bill comes at a time when vulnerable Canadians, such as those in palliative care, are more isolated than ever. Because of the pandemic, they could be left alone in their room for days. These measures that are aimed at saving lives have left them looking for options, as in the case of Ms. Nancy Russell, a 90-year-old long-term care resident in Toronto, who received MAID simply because she did not want to go into another lockdown, according to a media report.

Fleeing from the Communist regime in Shanghai, my father struggled to provide for himself and his family by mastering the art of directorship in the early film industry in Hong Kong. He later worked in Nigeria when I was a teenager and only returned home after suffering from a major stroke. I witnessed his struggle first-hand to live and attempt to regain independence with little familial resources or societal help. My father was a fighter. He also overcame cancer and other major medical problems before dying in his sleep in Saskatoon one early Sunday morning in the nineties. If the Bill C-7 MAID legislation had existed back then, he would have been under inhumane pressure to lessen the burden he was imposing on his family, even though his death was not reasonably foreseeable. I for one am grateful for his strength and determination to stay alive so that I could reciprocate the care he provided me when I was young. He was able to live long enough to hold my brother's firstborn, his very first granddaughter, only months prior to his natural death.

Medical assistance in dying is a very complex issue and evokes strong emotions. Recognizing we need more time to review the bill, my Conservative colleagues and I repeatedly proposed increasing the number of meetings dedicated to reviewing the bill and hearing from witnesses. Unfortunately, each time the Liberals refused.

Canada's Conservatives will continue to highlight the flaws in this bill, which threaten the lives, rights and dignity of people with disabilities long past this unfortunate legislation. We will continue working to protect vulnerable Canadians, especially persons with disabilities, when the next assault on their dignity arrives. Canadians deserve as much.

Like many of us here, my constituents have approached me in earnest to express their opposition to Bill C-7 and MAID. They ask for their MPs to stand in defence of the rights of people with disabilities, highlighting that it is a discriminatory policy and that Canada should not stand for such discrimination and must not extend euthanasia to people who are not dying. They asked me to stand in defence of the conscience rights of doctors, hundreds of whom are protesting Bill C-7 as being against their oath to protect—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

I have to interrupt the hon. member. Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is a false argument to talk about process being the reason why this legislation is not set to ultimately pass.

I do believe this bill reflects the many years of debate, discussions and consultations that came from the Supreme Court of Canada to the Superior Court of Quebec's most recent decision to literally tens of thousands of Canadians in all regions of our country.

Does the member believe that the Superior Court of Quebec does not have the confidence of the Conservative Party to support this legislation, or at least to allow the legislation to come to a vote so that it could be dealt with before we break?

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Madam Speaker, my Zoom session has exhibited some problems, and I did not fully hear the member for Winnipeg North. I recognized his voice, and I kind of get what he was asking. I will try my best to answer.

I am so privileged and honoured to live in a country that respects the rule of law. Our judicial system is structured in such a way that there is a hierarchy. That is why governments and individuals could appeal to a higher level of court. The Quebec court decision could have been appealed to the Court of Appeal, as well as to the Supreme Court of Canada—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

We will have one other member ask a question before we have to interrupt. The hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton.