Evidence of meeting #9 for Medical Assistance in Dying in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was treatment.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Joint Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Thank you, Senator.
We'll finish off now with Senator Martin. You have three minutes.
5:55 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Yonah Martin
Thank you.
With what my colleague Senator Dalphond just said, “to err on the safe side,” I'm going back to what you and Mr. Thériault were discussing in your exchange and the fact that March 23 is less than a year away. There are a lot of questions. In fact, Ms. Abby Hoffman, when she appeared before our committee, said there haven't been consultations with first nations, Métis and aboriginal peoples.
If the provinces are not ready, will it fall upon individual practitioners to make decisions? I'm really quite concerned about the readiness of our country, province by province and territory by territory.
Would you comment on anything to reassure me, others listening and members of this committee? It is less than a year away and we seem to not have the consistency and the standards across our country.
5:55 p.m.
Associate Clinical Professor, Expert Panel on MAID and Mental Illness
I'll say, slightly tongue-in-cheek, that compared to the time frame of C-14 and C-7, this is loads of time, whereas those changes happened very quickly.
I want to come back to my opening remark, which is that we're already doing it. We're already evaluating requesters who have histories of suicide attempts. We're already evaluating requesters who have serious histories of mental disorder. I'm not so concerned about the preparedness of the assessor and provider community. I think the training that's being developed is excellent. I think practitioners should pursue it, but I'm not so worried about that.
Your question about consultation with indigenous peoples is a good one. As I said, I really think it's for indigenous communities to say how they think we should move forward and not have a unified vision that gets imposed upon them.
6 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Yonah Martin
With that, who would lead those consultations? The federal government has not done that, so I don't see how individual nations or groups would lead their own and be able to understand what's happening federally, because it involves the federal government.
6 p.m.
Associate Clinical Professor, Expert Panel on MAID and Mental Illness
That's right.
What our panel membership came to ground on was the idea that this could happen at a regional level. You're absolutely right that this isn't something for individual indigenous communities to organize, lead and finance themselves. It's something that needs to be done in partnership between indigenous communities and the provincial and federal governments.
My understanding is that there are structures in place at the federal government level for consultation and engagement with indigenous communities. Similarly, we encourage provincial authorities to do the same, particularly because we imagine that there are going to be differences in the indigenous communities across provinces, just as there are in non-indigenous communities.
6 p.m.
The Joint Chair Hon. Yonah Martin
We haven't heard about what models there are for such consultation. Would you be able to provide our committee with the examples that you are citing?
6 p.m.
Associate Clinical Professor, Expert Panel on MAID and Mental Illness
Yes. I believe that Crown-Indigenous Relations has a framework for consultation and engagement. I believe that exists at the federal government level.
At the provincial level, it was our hope that the regulators would take a leadership role in engaging with indigenous communities within their provinces. I don't think there's a specific model for that, but I can certainly forward you those documents that exist at the federal government level.
6 p.m.
Liberal
The Joint Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Thank you very much.
Before I thank you, Dr. Gupta, you have recommendation 14, which makes the recommendation of consultation with first nations, so I think you've covered that, as well, in the report.
Thank you very much for offering up your time this afternoon to face a barrage of questions. It speaks to the fact that we are very engaged on this very important topic. We very much appreciate that you took the time to come and speak to us so eloquently about the work that you and your committee did. Thank you. It will help us as we move forward.
As you saw, we still have some questions. That comes with our job.
With that, committee members, we will suspend. We will now attend to committee business. As you know, it's a different link and password. I will suspend for the moment and ask you to reconnect with the different link in a minute or two.
Thank you very much. This meeting is suspended.
[The meeting was adjourned at 6:53 p.m. See Minutes of Proceedings]