Evidence of meeting #4 for Medical Assistance in Dying in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was equality.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
Those particular calls I was referring to are from people who have been offered MAID, persons with disabilities, not dying—
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
—in discussions with a doctor, when they were not asking for it and when they were not there for that reason.
Senator, Quebec (De Lorimier), ISG
Okay. They call you to know what to do.
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
When they call us, it's because they are fundamentally traumatized and wounded by the experience.
Senator, Quebec (De Lorimier), ISG
I understand. I appreciate the comfort you provide.
You have 300 local associations. How many members do you have across Canada? How many people are within this organization?
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
Individual members total over 40,000.
Senator, Quebec (De Lorimier), ISG
Are all these 40,000 members opposed to MAID and opposed to what Ms. Gladu and Mr. Truchon did? Do they all think these two people were wrong and that MAID should not be accessible by track 2?
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
These are the individuals we work with on a daily basis and our local and provincial organizations work with on a daily basis. What they feel is that the availability of track 2 MAID and the further expansion of it embeds stereotypes and is discriminatory about their lives and their lives not being worth living or being worth saving.
Senator, Quebec (De Lorimier), ISG
I'm sorry to interrupt again. From your answer, I understand that all your members are not opposed to track 2.
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
No. What we are saying is that, yes, our organization and its members are opposed to track 2 and further expansion of track 2, as is the United Nations. That is what I am saying.
Liberal
The Joint Chair Liberal Marcus Powlowski
Thank you, Senator.
You have two minutes and 50 seconds, Senator.
The Joint Chair Hon. Yonah Martin
Thank you.
My question—or questions, potentially—will be for Ms. Gabrielle Peters or Dr. Frazee, maybe one for each.
I'll start with you, Ms. Peters. Some witnesses speak about the expansion of MAID for people suffering from mental illness as a sole underlying condition as a natural next step to respecting rights. From the disability community's perspective, does this feel like equality?
Ms. Carr has talked about concerns about expansion, but that is one of the positions we have heard, that it's about equality and respecting the rights of individuals, and that for mental illness that expansion is important. What are your thoughts on that?
Co-Founder, Disability Filibuster
Just in listening to this last conversation, and in general in the committee, it's very clear that there's a fundamental lack of understanding of what disability is, first of all.
Also, you can't equate someone's personal opinion in any moment with disability analysis. Disability rights have evolved from a period of time when people were largely institutionalized, so the focus was on independence and the right to live independently. Then we entered the universities and we entered the community, and the analysis has evolved. It's an actual area of scholarship and study.
You're taking somebody like Nicole Gladu, saying, “Oh, I want this,” and you're equating that with actual analysis—given the history, looking at our situation, looking at our lives and understanding all of these things in context—and making a judgment on how this will impact a community. These are not the same discussions that we're having, so it absolutely is not adding to disability rights.
One of the things that needs to be understood is that disability justice.... A McGill law professor has written very well and eloquently about this evolution from disability rights to disability justice. One of the things he observed was that we went in thinking that if we just fought for inclusion and integration into the existing systems, that would lead somewhere. However, people consistently come back saying policy-makers are not getting it, and they're still not getting that they're not getting it.
Liberal
The Joint Chair Liberal Marcus Powlowski
Thank you, Ms. Peters. We've run out of time.
Senator Loffreda, you have three minutes.
Senator, Quebec (Shawinigan), ISG
My question is for Ms. Carr.
A central concern that I'm hearing in the debate this evening is the protection of vulnerable individuals. I take from your view that the current safeguards are not sufficient to identify and protect individuals who may be experiencing this structural vulnerability or these external pressures.
Are there any specific safeguards that are missing that you think could correct those issues? What level of support do you have for additional requirements, such as mandatory multidisciplinary assessment or enhanced oversight in these complex cases?
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
Thank you very much, Senator, for the question.
The first thing I would say is that the current safeguards are flimsy at best and have gaping holes in them. I would also go on to say, as many others have testified in front of this committee, that when you have a fundamental equality issue, there is no safeguard that is going to fix that.
What we have here is a situation where we have singled out one group of people for death instead of support. One hundred per cent of the people who have called and are calling our office are saying they do not want to die. We have a fundamental disability rights equality problem, and there are no more band-aids we're going to be able to put on that to change it.
I would also say that with the “safeguards”—and I'm putting that in air quotes because they, as I mentioned, are flimsy at best—that we do have, there's no oversight to even make sure they're followed. You just have to look at the death review committee in Ontario and what they're finding to see there's really no oversight on whatever safeguards might be in place to start with.
Liberal
The Joint Chair Liberal Marcus Powlowski
Thank you.
Senator Wallin, you have two minutes and 50 seconds.
Senator, Saskatchewan, CSG
Thank you very much.
I am sorry to hear the stories that we hear from people at this committee. I happen to have experienced in my own life, as I know many of my colleagues have, knowing close friends or family who have chosen MAID and have done so willingly. It was not something forced upon them. It was not something they chose because they had some kind of disability, either mental or physical, or because of social determinants. This is available under the law, and they have chosen it.
While I think we all agree on one issue, which is that discrimination is not a good thing in any way, what I'm hearing from many of you here tonight is that your choices or your situations mean that you're willing to see those who want access to MAID discriminated against.
I'll start with Ms. Carr.
Are you in favour of medical assistance in dying in any situation at all?
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
Thank you very much for the question, Senator.
First of all, I think we've made our position really clear. We are talking about track 2 MAID, not track 1 MAID.
Senator, Saskatchewan, CSG
That's why I'm asking what your general view of this is. It influences this other side, which is people who are not being discriminated against but who want to access something that is legally available under the law.
Chief Executive Officer, Inclusion Canada
It is legally available under the law to only one particular group of people who are not at end of life and who are not dying. We are not offering this choice to people who are not dying equally across the board to anyone. We've singled out one group of people whose lives we have decided, because of our fear of disability or because of how we perceive it, are not worth living. Part of the reason people experience the difficulty they experience is the chronic ableism and lack of supports.
Senator, Saskatchewan, CSG
Many people who have lives worth living but who are ill or, through some physical condition or illness—it might be cancer, or perhaps they've had mental illness most of their life—have come to the conclusion that this is not quality of life and want dignity in the way they live and end their lives.
Should they be allowed that?