Mr. Speaker, thank you for your excellent work tonight. I would like to thank my colleagues who spoke, from the other parties, for their support for this motion.
Once again, this is a moment in the House when we need to move beyond partisan games and say that we recognize the importance of this common sense solution. We need to get a national discussion on palliative care. I again reference the excellent work the committee did before me.
It has been amazing on this journey that it is not an issue that seems to exist within the Ottawa media bubble. It is not something that is perceived as perhaps hot enough or interesting enough. However, when we have gone out into communities and talked with the faith groups and the people who are dealing with it in their communities in rural and urban Canada, we have seen the same conversations in downtown Toronto as we have seen in rural areas. They are about the importance of supporting families and having the measures in place that help families, not just individuals, deal with pain and the heavy psychological and medical issues in facing life-threatening illnesses. They are about the need to support families in those moments so that they can have that period when their loved one can be taken through and the family can be taken through in a manner that allows them come out whole on the other side.
This is bigger than any of us individually. It is bigger than any of our individual parties. It is a moment when we have to try to work together. I would like to think that we will stand in the House and do that.
I would like to thank my colleagues who have done the work. We have gone back and forth on language and what the language means. Certainly, as someone who considers himself a wordsmith, I understand the importance of language. I also understand that there is a moment when the motion has to be put, when people have to stand and say that in the Parliament of Canada in 2014, we recognize this important, fundamental fact.
Simply making a palliative care strategy and/or framework motion will not be the solution. The solution will come from all the civil society groups that will look to Parliament and say that we made that commitment to the Canadian people, and now it is time to follow through. They are the same groups that will go to the provinces and regional health bodies and say that the Parliament of Canada spoke on the vision of comprehensive, supportive, palliative care that respects the familial, spiritual, and cultural needs of Canadians. It will be those people who then will put the pressure back on us so that we deliver on this promise.
Today is the first part of that commitment to Canadians to say that we get it. We understand that we need to start pushing out and speaking about the importance of the common sense solution. It maybe is not seen as a hot button issue or a sexy issue, but it is an issue that touches all of us. Civil society, faith communities, and rural and urban people will then come back to us and say, “this is what it looks like”.
Within our role in the federal government, we do not deliver the health services on the ground, nor should we, but we have a role to play to say that these models and options work. By working together with the provinces and territories and respecting their jurisdictions, we can actually establish frameworks that will help ensure that all Canadians are able to really and truly, when they need it, die with dignity, and families will be able to move forward in healing.
I am asking my hon. colleagues for their support on Motion No. 456.