Medical Assistance in Dying Committee on Nov. 25th, 2022

[Prof. Isabel Grant]

We deny that person access to effective pain management. We've seen with the opioid crisis that pain patients are the people who have been hurt a great deal by the denial of effective pain medications.

If we're really worried about their unremitting pain, then we should be doing more to treat that pain. We're offering them death when we won't offer them medication to treat the pain. There are people accessing MAID for that reason, because they have been cut off of pain medications. That is track two of MAID.

[Megan Linton]

I'm a person who lives with chronic unrelenting pain. I live a really wonderful, fantastic life that's made more difficult by the lack of access to pain management. No, I don't think that I should die because I have pain. I think I live a really great life.

I think that disabled people have the opportunity and should have the opportunity to live wonderful, beautiful lives, with pain or without. I don't know about many people, but—

[Stanley Kutcher]

Just so that I understand, the presence of severe, unremitting, intolerable pain to someone—not you, but another person—should not ever be a consideration for MAID.

[Megan Linton]

If they're not at the end of their life, then no. It seems like this is an issue of pain management and access to pain medication.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Senator Kutcher.

We will now go to Senator Dalphond.

[Pierre Dalphond, Senator, Quebec (De Lorimier), PSG]

Thank you to the witnesses for their appearances today.

It's not the first time that I've heard from some of them. Their positions are very clear. I understand their desire to prevent any deterioration in the situations of disabled people, in that we need more support and we need to provide more resources to help disabled people. It's certainly a pressing issue.

However, I certainly doubt that we should oppose the right to choose for somebody who wants to choose, like Mrs. Gladu. She was socially and economically in a good situation but decided at one point that she wanted to die on her own terms and conditions and she asked for MAID. She died from natural causes in the year that followed.

I understand that you would deny her the right to apply to have MAID. Your position is very clear, and I thank you for that.

My question is for Dr. Linton.

You said that disabled people are dying en masse because of track two. Would you have any data to support that affirmation? You're a researcher, so I'm sure you're speaking about the findings of your research.

We have had track two in place for the last two years. You said that a lot of people had access to MAID en masse. Would you provide numbers about that?

[Megan Linton]

We don't have access to the numbers because the MAID committee didn't look specifically at the use of institutionalization. That's despite my recommendation, in data collection stages, that they count those numbers.

We are seeing that Canada is the number one global provider of MAID. You can just turn to the front page of many newspapers, or even the back page of the obituary section, and it's quite clear that disabled people are dying significantly through MAID. There are many, many stories. There's also the report on MAID that came out and the statistics that are included there.

No, we don't have clear numbers of the number of people in institutions. As I was saying earlier—

[Pierre Dalphond]

Is it fair to say that you don't have numbers except in stories in the papers of some people, and some we've met with previously, where there is more nuance than what we read in the papers?

[Megan Linton]

I would say the report that was provided statutorily is a really great place to look for numbers.

I also think that the stories we hear from people and that are reported in papers are important to read, because, as I was saying in my presentation—

[Pierre Dalphond]

I assume you also surveyed the results of Belgium and the Netherlands.

[Megan Linton]

Yes.

[Pierre Dalphond]

You saw that en masse, disabled people are asking for MAID.

[Megan Linton]

Yes.

[Pierre Dalphond]

That's your affirmation.

[Megan Linton]

Yes.

[Pierre Dalphond]

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Dalphond.

We'll go to Senator Wallin for six minutes.

Senator Wallin, are you with us?

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Yonah Martin]

Senator Wallin had some technical issues, so she is not present at this time.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you, Senator Martin.

Therefore, we'll go over to you for three minutes.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Yonah Martin]

Thank you to all of our witnesses.

I have some questions for Professor Grant.

Are there any possible safeguards we could implement under track two that would make it so that it doesn't discriminate against persons with disabilities?

[Prof. Isabel Grant]

Thank you.

No, I don't think there are. I think the only safeguard is to make sure that people are at the end of their lives when they are accessing MAID. Death can't become a solution for the suffering of people with disabilities.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Yonah Martin]

You characterized the fast-approaching implementation of MAID for mental illness as an “impending...catastrophe”. Could you further elaborate on your thoughts on MAID for sole mental illness and perhaps offer your thoughts on the expert panel's report?

[Prof. Isabel Grant]

I had a lot of concerns with the expert panel report, which I'm sure doesn't surprise you. I think the evidence that we don't know whether mental illness is irremediable, and that we cannot identify that condition, was ignored. I think the data showing that that in Belgium and the Netherlands up to 70% of the people accessing it are women, many of them women who've lived through trauma, is deeply troubling.

For me personally, as someone who has done a lot work in civil commitment in British Columbia, that report recommends that people who are detained by the state, forcibly treated against their will and have lost all their rights and liberties are going to have access to MAID. I think that's an impending human rights disaster. The conditions in our psychiatric hospitals are abysmal, and death might feel like it's preferable to living. The fact that someone could be hospitalized because they are suicidal and could be detained against their will because they are suicidal but then be given access to MAID is deeply, deeply troubling.

[The Joint Chair, Hon. Yonah Martin]

Thank you.

Mr. Co-Chair, do I have more time?

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

You have another minute, Senator Martin.