Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House of Commons and participate in the second reading debate on Bill C-7, an act to amend the Criminal Code, medical assistance in dying.
In developing these amendments, Canadians were widely consulted in January 2020. During these consultations, approximately 300,000 Canadians completed an online questionnaire. In addition, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion met with experts and stakeholders in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Quebec City to discuss proposed revisions to Canada's medical assistance in dying framework. These experts and stakeholders included doctors, nurses, legal experts, national indigenous organizations and representatives from the disability community.
The high level of participation in both the questionnaire and the in-person sessions is a reflection of the importance of this issue to Canadians. Moreover, the results of consultations were critically important in shaping our government's approach to medically assisted dying as it evolves to reflect the needs of Canadians.
The bill would amend the Criminal Code to allow medical assistance in dying for people who wish to access a medically assisted death whether their natural death is reasonably foreseeable or not. The bill would remove the reasonable foreseeability of natural death from the list of eligibility criteria. It would also expressly exclude people seeking medical assistance in dying solely because of mental illness.
The bill proposes a two-track approach based on whether a person's natural death is reasonably foreseeable. Existing safeguards remain and are used for people whose death is reasonably foreseeable. In addition, new and modified safeguards would be applied to eligible persons whose death is not reasonably foreseeable.
In the spirit of “nothing without us”, I would like to mention that our government remains focused on addressing the concerns of the disability community around vulnerability and choice. The proposed changes to the legislation supports greater autonomy and freedom of choice for eligible persons who wish to pursue a medically assisted death. At the same time, full consideration has been given to the protection of vulnerable persons and to respecting the equality rights and dignity of persons with a disability.
In short, the bill maintains and strengthens safeguards to support fully informed decision-making while also respecting individual autonomy. The bill would allow people who risk losing decision-making capacity to make arrangements with their practitioners to receive medically assisted dying on their chosen date even if they lose the decision-making capacity before that date. The bill would also make advance consent invalid if the person demonstrates refusal or resistance to the administration of medically assisted dying.
In addition, the bill would allow eligible persons who choose to self-administer to provide advance consent or for a physician to administer if self-administration fails and causes them to lose capacity. This type of advance consent would be available for eligible persons regardless of their prognosis.
I would also like to take a moment to speak to the progress our government has made with respect to the rights of persons with disabilities in Canada.
Last year, we enacted the Accessible Canada Act, which aims to create a barrier-free Canada through the proactive identification, removal and prevention of barriers to accessibility wherever Canadians interact within areas under federal jurisdiction. The act is one of the most significant advancements in disability rights since the charter in 1982 and is designed to inspire a cultural transformation toward disability inclusion and accessibility in Canada.
Knowing that I do not have that much time left, I would say that members of my community as well as members of my family and members of the greater Parkinson's and Alzheimer's community have been very vociferous on this issue, and both of those diseases affect people in my family. I am strongly in favour of the bill passing as quickly as possible.