Madam Speaker, I withdraw the word I used. I will simply say that some people go out of their way to misrepresent what the bill is trying to do. I apologize, but I am still of the same opinion.
We all want to die with dignity. I listened to one of our colleagues across the floor who was saying earlier that his mother passed away while in pain, but despite everything, she died peacefully. How would he know? How can he know if his mother died peacefully while she was in pain? She had no choice. Perhaps she would have felt more peaceful if she had had the choice. There was nothing else to help her. I do not know. I think the members was making a gratuitous remark.
Let us talk about palliative care. Yes, there is some very good care, but there are also people who will simply be left on their own at the end of their lives, even if they have good palliative care. Does anyone here know someone who has died of Alzheimer's disease? What happens in the last four or five days of the life of someone dying of Alzheimer's disease? They can no longer swallow and they can no longer think. They are simply left on their own and given cortisone or morphine.
I have before me a text written by Claire Morissette. She died on July 20, 2007. She explains what she was going through during her final days. I would like to read a passage. This is what she wrote about pain.
Suffering is much like shivering. You shrivel up, your entire body contracts from your scalp to your feet. It HURTS!!! It hurts constantly. The shivering consumes all your strength, all your consciousness, it is exhausting. Think about it: could you stand shivering for ten days, twenty days, two months, years on end?
Then relief comes, the shot of morphine. It is like a wave of warmth that releases you from the shivering, blessed relaxation on an open beach. Thank you!!! Oh, thank you!!! That feels so good. But, [with doses like that], you hallucinate, you become confused, half-deranged.
While this is going on [listen carefully], the body drains away. Lacking appetite and exercise, you dissolve. In the mirror, you see (no exaggeration) a concentration camp skeleton. You have no buttocks to sit on, your breasts are empty, your knees are unreliable. [In fact, you have to hold a pillow between your knees so you can keep them together.] Your skin shrivels; wrinkles take over. How humiliating. What is worse, because of the medication, your urine, your feces, your flatulence, your breath, your vomit all smell like the end of the world, and, in complete humiliation, you inflict it on the people helping you. If you have to defecate in bed, in a dry bedpan, the stench is beyond description. Then someone else has to wipe your bottom, which is still more humiliating.
Is that how we want people to live? Is that dying with dignity? That is truly the end of the road. She goes on to say that making even the smallest movement takes an enormous amount of energy. People watch DVDs and try to get used to it, but when they are really suffering, all they want is to find sleep, deep sleep, unconsciousness, oblivion. Yes, indeed, everyone feels awful about it. Everyone wants to help, to do what they can. But their helplessness is tangible.
Claire Morissette continues on, saying that people will cry in secret, no matter how hard they try to keep the atmosphere from being too dismal. But their grief is heartbreaking. Is that really allowing a person to live with dignity?
She says that she could die of hunger or she could die of thirst. She knows that she will die, but all she wants is to die with dignity and to be allowed to choose where, when and how she will die.
This bill introduced by the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île will allow, would allow or would have allowed this person and their doctor to talk about options. All that is requested is our compassion. We would not let an animal die this way. If your dog was suffering, you would take him to the veterinarian. What about a human who is suffering terribly? We do not give them the possibility—