I do stand by that characterization. In fact, I'd make it even more specific. It's like the Lac-Mégantic disaster. Not only is it a runaway train, but we have had and are having the warning signs, based in evidence, that if we expand MAID for solely mental illness, we will be providing it to suicidal people who could and would have gotten better. That is a runaway train. In fact, I'm not the only one now making that characterization. That was made a week or two ago in The Atlantic, in the article done by Charles Lane.
I will point out on this front, about its being a runaway train, that I must say I disagree with virtually every single reassurance that Dr. Gupta has given. She has given reassurances that are not based on evidence. One question asked was, “Why are we conflating, so to speak, mental illness with these social circumstances?” I believe Dr. Gupta even said that it diminishes or denies the seriousness of mental illness. It does no such thing. Refusing to acknowledge that people with mental illness have far more psychosocial suffering...that in itself is stigmatizing and denies the reality of mental illness. In fact, the very high rates of social suffering are precisely linked to suicide risk factors.
If you look at the suicide prevention strategy in the States—I have to say “the States” because we lack one in Canada, where we don't have a national suicide prevention strategy and yet we're talking about expanding MAID for solely mental illness—most of those factors relate to the very things I'm talking about to help prevent suicide: social suffering. Only a small number of them relate to illness. This idea that we're somehow discriminating against people with mental illness if we recognize that.... It is backwards.
I will also further point out, in terms of the runaway train analogy, that reassurances are not evidence, and reassurances are not safeguards. When the previous panel, chaired by Dr. Gupta, had its opportunity to recommend specific safeguards in law, they refused to. They said, “We cannot actually say how many treatments, the types of treatments, etc., that someone should have before getting MAID for mental illness,” despite the fact that our country has no due care requirement.