Mr. Speaker, I would like to participate in this debate as a clinician, as a GP, as a guy who dealt with people at the end of their lives, and as someone who did surgery. This has had a very significant impact on my life. I do this with humility, recognizing that the ending of a life is a significant and important issue.
I would like to make sure that those watching understand what euthanasia is not. Euthanasia is not withholding unwanted heroics. Euthanasia is not advanced directives. Euthanasia is not unplugging resuscitation equipment that is unwanted or useless.
Euthanasia is active help to aid a person commit suicide, or active aid to end a person's life. Asking a physician to participate in that goes against everything I was taught in medical school.
Proponents say, and in fairness I listen to their arguments very well, that if we had strict guidelines, the process of doctor assisted suicide would be rare. I do not believe that it is adequate to just listen to those arguments. A good debater can make those positions well. I believe it is much more instructive to look at jurisdictions where this has been tried.
Holland of course is probably the best jurisdiction. I am taking my information today from a fairly new publication. It is the Canadian Family Physician for those who would like to research this for themselves, the February 1997 issue in which the Dutch experience was looked at scientifically.
Holland has a total population of 15 million, just about half of Canada's total population. The data that I am discussing today is from general practitioners just like me, doctors who see a broad part of family existence. The Dutch experience is as follows.
I spoke of criteria that would be used by the proponents. In Holland the criteria are as follows. A request for euthanasia must be voluntary. It must be well informed. It must be persistent. It cannot just be casual. There must be intolerable or hopeless suffering. There must be consultation with a second doctor so that one doctor would not make the decision in isolation. Finally, there must be a report to the authorities, a report to the coroner.
How rare is euthanasia in Holland? This is just GPs. This is not palliative care or surgeons that I am talking about. GPs permit about 2,000 cases of euthanasia per year. The most interesting thing about this scientific data is how often were the criteria followed. It is quite remarkable to find that about 180 patients per year were euthanized without their personal permission. These were individuals who could have given their permission. It is quite surprising.
If we look at all doctors in Holland, substantially more than just the GPs, the numbers are even worse. This is from 1990. For those who would like to research this data themselves, it comes from the Remelink study done in 1991 by a justice in Holland.
For all doctors in Holland in 1990, 2,700 people were euthanized according to the coroners' records. This is following the criteria. But 1,040 were killed involuntarily by all doctors and not reported. Even worse, 8,100 were killed by deliberately using pain medication.
Here we have in a country half as populated as Canada, over 10,000 people euthanized in one year when only 2,700 were reported.
In Holland doctors have taken over end of life decisions. This has not become an empowering thing for the patient. I would conclude by saying giving the power of life to physicians is bad public policy.