Mr. Speaker, Bill C-7 on medical assistance in dying is an important, sensitive and justifiable bill on a very difficult subject.
I am quite happy to be speaking at the end of the day, at the end of the debate. Before getting into my speech, I would like to lighten the mood for a moment and wish my young, beautiful daughter a happy 19th birthday. Last year she had to celebrate her 18th birthday on her own because her mother was on the campaign trail. This year she has to celebrate her 19th birthday on her own because her mother is in the House of Commons. I want to tell her that I love her and wish her a very happy 19th birthday. This will give us some energy to continue with the debate. It feels good to lighten the mood a bit and talk about our lives.
A year ago, I was elected in the riding of Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, and I was given a very important mandate: to represent, here in the House, Quebec's values in matters of culture, languages, the environment, the green economy and health. A year ago, I had no idea that I would be rising in the House and speaking to my distinguished colleagues in favour of Bill C-7 on medical assistance in dying. To be perfectly frank, this is not usually a topic we find easy to talk about.
However, something happened that gave me the courage to get more involved in this issue of late, and so, despite everything, I am pleased to do so. This is not an easy debate because what we are doing will have a major influence on the fate of courageous individuals with conditions that cause them extreme and irremediable pain and suffering that will never end.
To help us do this work, we must turn to our own experience. I will share some of my own experiences that, sad as they are, will put a human face on this afternoon's debate.
As an only child, I accompanied my parents on the sad and often difficult path leading to the end of life. My father was the captain of a schooner, a small wooden boat, that he sailed on the St. Lawrence. His entire life he claimed that his schooner was a leaky boat and that he had to learn to sail in order not to drown.
His lung specialist told him that he was going to drown, that the cancer would drown his lungs and that he would suffocate to death. My father had a great deal of character and thought that he had not worked all his life without drowning to then die by drowning. That was out of the question. He wanted the doctors fo find a solution. Surprisingly, he was told that, in his particular case, he had to right to a medical protocol involving sedation to avoid a situation of imminent death, respiratory distress. On the morning of August 12, 2010, he decided that he could not go on, that his condition was deteriorating, that he wanted relief. He was relieved to learn that he would not die by drowning, because he could avail himself of the protocol on the day that he decided that he could take no more. He passed away peacefully and serenely.
My mother was not as lucky. She had pancreatic cancer and died in excruciating pain. She was dehydrated and her stomach was perforated by the disease. She was in palliative care for 17 days. In her case, palliative care could not ease her suffering. Use of the respiratory distress protocol was not an option, even though there was plenty of distress for her, me and all her health care providers. In short, there are many ways to die, but in her case, morphine never did any good. Her heart was too good, too strong and it resisted. It resisted for far too long, much longer than the specialists could have predicted.
My experience with my parents is certainly just as valid as those of my dear colleagues. It allowed me to compare what it means to die when you can control how things happen and the consequences, and what it means to die in desperation without any way to ease the pain.
I now want to talk about my friend Sophie, who died on Saturday. Sophie was 39 years old and had two young children aged 11 and 13. Sophie had cystinosis, a nasty disease that took her sight, then her ability to swallow, and finally her kidney function. She had had a kidney transplant, was part of an American research program and had access to some new potential medications developed in the United States, which were able to help some people with the same disease. Unfortunately for her, the disease had progressed too far. The experimental treatments did not work, in spite of the 100 pills a day she had to swallow, at a cost of $300,000 a year.
I share my friend Sophie's story because it needs to be heard here today. When her condition started to get worse, she wanted to request medical assistance in dying. She had already started the process and started filling out the mountain of paperwork, as she called it. Unfortunately, even with the help of her loved ones and her doctor, she did not have the time to go through with it, because she suffocated and collapsed, dying in front of her powerless, terrorized and unprepared young children, who will forever be traumatized by these memories. This happened on Saturday at 6 p.m. in Quebec City.
Things could have been very different for our dear Sophie and her two children. Simplified access to medical assistance in dying based on criteria that suited her situation could have given her children a chance to say goodbye to their mother, to hold her in their arms and to be with her as she passed away quietly and serenely. Their experience of death, while deeply sorrowful, could have been tempered by the dignity and peace that only medical assistance in dying can provide in some cases clearly defined by law and the experts when given the chance.
Bill C-7 is a step in the right direction. We must make it so that other people suffering from degenerative or incurable diseases need not go to court to challenge the eligibility criteria for medical assistance in dying. This bill is a step in the right direction because a person's eligibility for medical assistance in dying no longer hinges on their death being reasonably foreseeable.
The complexity and diversity of Sophie's symptoms made it impossible for her death to be reasonably foreseeable and to know what would ultimately be her cause of death. Everyone around her knew that her only hope of dying with dignity and without suffering was quick and easy access to medical assistance in dying after obtaining the appropriate medical opinion.
Sophie's story will not be reported in the papers or on television. Maybe it will be shared a bit on the family's social media, but Sophie is the perfect example of what we have failed to do so far.
On behalf of all those who are sick and waiting for medical assistance to die in peace and with dignity, I call on all hon. members to stop playing games and acting superior to those around you, and drop all the political strategies that often animate and sometimes drag out our debates. I ask each one of these people to take a deep breath on behalf of all those we have yet to help who are anxiously waiting and hoping that our good collective judgment will help us reach a consensus. Let us set aside all the parliamentary back and forth and let us be guided instead by our humanity and compassion.