Mr. Speaker, a special Senate committee on euthanasia and assisted suicide spent over a year, from February 1994 to June 1995, studying this issue. It published a 250 page report in June 1995.
The Senate committee held 86 meetings and heard from 242 witnesses representing 92 organizations. It received 24 written submissions, listened to 12 witnesses by teleconference from Holland and received literally thousands of letters from concerned Canadians. The special Senate committee cost taxpayers more than $250,000 not including the salaries of the senators and the staff assigned to the project.
The Senate committee recommended no changes to the Criminal Code offences for voluntary euthanasia, non-voluntary euthanasia and counselling suicide. The Senate committee only made two recommendations regarding the Criminal Code: that consideration be given for creation of a new murder offence called compassionate homicide; and that the Criminal Code be amended to explicitly recognize and to clarify the circumstances in which the withholding and withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment is legally acceptable.
A special Senate committee has already spent hundreds of hours, spent more than $250,000 and heard hundreds of witnesses, received thousands of letters and issued a 250 page report to the Senate in 1995. There is no need for the House of Commons committee to repeat this same process. Nor is there a need for taxpayers to shell out a few more hundred thousand dollars to do it all over again.
This motion presupposes that the special committee will agree that amendments to the Criminal Code are needed because the motion directs the committee to prepare and bring in a bill. If this motion is passed, it will require the special committee to introduce legislation even if the special committee's deliberations and debate and public opinion conclude otherwise.
The Criminal Code as it is currently worded provides crown prosecutors with a sufficient number of options when laying charges with respect to homicides. The changes recommended by the Senate committee are not the highest legislative priority for the general public. If a special committee is to be struck to draft any bill, Reformers say it should be a victims bill of rights. For these reasons, I cannot support this motion.
The motion proposed by the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas proposes to introduce a bill dealing with a very complex and emotional issue. Some Reformers feel this is a moral issue and should be handled using a process employed on issues such as abortion and capital punishment and on issues of personal conscience. We as Reform MPs follow a four step process to clearly state our views publicly and to ask our constituents to develop, to express and to debate their own views on the matter. Following that process, we seek the consensus of the constituency and support that constituency in Parliament.
For the record, here is my personal view on this issue. I believe in the inherent value of life and the need to protect the most vulnerable individuals in our society. While I respect every person's right to refuse medical treatment, I do not believe that any changes should be made to the Criminal Code offences of euthanasia, assisted suicide or counselling suicide.
However, I do support designating palliative care as a core service in the Canada Health Act and developing in co-operation with the provinces national guidelines to govern the provision of palliative care services, including research, counselling and education programs.