Mr. Speaker, I realize this motion is of considerable importance and great consequence.
What is this motion really about? We need to recognize it is part of a political process. Instead of a motion that asks specifically to permit euthanasia, it is legislation by degrees. It first proposes that the committee study this issue in the hopes that everybody will say yes.
Slowly we will be dragged along to accept something we recognize deep inside ourselves is wrong. I believe most Canadians deeply inside themselves know that it is wrong. I am speaking against this motion simply because I am opposed strongly to the outcome of what this motion proposes.
I want to make it very clear that the whole issue of euthanasia and the lack of it in this country has nothing to do with forcing people to undergo continued suffering and artificially prolonging life using extraordinary means. Within the legal values in our country it is already a permissible act to ask that treatment be discontinued. Any patient has the right to deny further treatment.
I also want to emphasize that in our present technological age there have been great advances made in palliative care and in pain control.
The greatest danger in walking down this road is that it is the beginning of a long road which will inevitably have serious ramifications. There is no doubt in my mind as has been experienced in The Netherlands that once we start, the pressure will increase. Elderly people will feel if not direct pressure then subtle pressure to try to save their family members from their grief.
They speak of dying with dignity. I cannot help but think of the passing away of my wife's father several years ago. He had terminal cancer. He suffered with it, yes. There was pain, yes. When I think of the term dying with dignity I think strongly of my father-in-law Mr. Dan Klassen who to the very end kept a strong faith, a strong love for his family. He told me “It is tough to say goodbye. I would like so much to be with mom and the children but I am ready to go. That account with God was settled long ago”. He died with real dignity. That is the dignity of which I speak.
In the past 30 years we have undergone a dramatic change in our thinking. We have shifted 180° from the concept of the sanctity of all human life to the bizarre notion that somehow death is benign. That is a contradictory statement. I wish we would look again at our values and our true roots. Why do we think that death is an option? Is it because we despair of any other solution to our problems?
I was deeply moved by the speech this morning of the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis. His situation is very similar to that of my family. I have spoken in the House before of my sister Marian, who next week will turn 53. She lives in an extended care centre. She was born with cerebral palsy. She cannot speak. She never has. She cannot look after herself. She cannot dress herself. She needs help with eating. She can sometimes eat on her own, but it gets rather messy. However, there are loving people in the facility who will help her clean up.
Somehow many people have come to the conclusion that it would be better for people like her to die. That is a false assumption.
The facility in which she lives is a residential cottage in which disabled people like my sister are looked after. The cottages are brightly coloured. They are named after birds. My sister is in the Swallow cottage along with 20 or 30 others.
I am going to paint a picture of the future if we continue this way of thinking. What would we say if next Tuesday on my sister's birthday a bus were to roll up to the Swallow cottage and take the 20 or 30 residents to the hospital in downtown Moose Jaw and all of those severely handicapped people would undergo one last assessment after which they would be given a lethal injection?
On Wednesday the bus would go to the Swan cottage. On Thursday the Robins would go. On Friday the residents of Owl cottage would go, and so on. There would be 20 to 30 people each day. There are 430 residents living there so it would take a whole month. How many days would pass before there would be a sufficient public outcry to stop this? Is this acceptable? I say no, no, no, a thousand times no. That is not acceptable and it is not a correct way of thinking.
Most of us, I believe, recognize that what I have proposed would be terribly wrong. The simple question I ask is, if it is wrong for all of them, how can it be right for any one of them? How badly we have slipped when we are ready to accede to the notion that the elderly, the handicapped or the suffering are not worthy of being protected.
Recent events in my home province of Saskatchewan show that there is a surprising level of support for ending the life of one who cannot speak for herself. Where are we going? In my view, if we go forward with what is proposed under the term doctor assisted suicide, we are dangerously close to the scene that I have described.
It is not possible to logically argue against it once we have accepted that basic premise. How can we persuade our young people who are contemplating suicide that death is not the answer to their problem?
I cannot say it strongly enough. This whole notion of death to end suffering, to remove a person whose quality of life is judged to be less than acceptable is based on a wrong notion of false premise. I regret that in our society today so many of us are ready and willing to set aside those strong pillars of our society that have protected us and have kept us safe for all these years. In my view, we are indeed on a very dangerous slope and slide to oblivion if we continue with this way of thinking.
There will be some who will argue why not have a committee study it. The Senate committee has engaged in a prolonged study on this. I do not believe that having a committee studying it serves any purpose at all because we are fundamentally opposed to it.
I will close by re-emphasizing my question which I want to burn into the hearts of all of the members here. If it is wrong for all of them, how can it possibly be right for any one of them?