Mr. Speaker, the government's proposed legislation to expand the availability of MAID to people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable is, in my opinion, deeply flawed and the term MAID, in those circumstances, is a misnomer. If Bill C-7 passes, we are no longer talking about doctors and nurses helping those who are dying and alleviating suffering, but helping people to die who are not even near death.
The reasonable foreseeability of natural death standard, which was so central to the Carter decision, makes sense from a medical perspective, as doctors might be willing to expedite the natural dying process given their traditional roles of assisting medically to relieve suffering. It is quite another question whether medical ethics contemplate doctors now bringing death into the equation, where natural death is not even reasonably foreseeable. It is no longer medical assistance in dying, but medical aid to end a difficult life. This is a big shift for Canadians, but the average Canadian was not even consulted on this big shift.
After the Truchon decision of the Quebec Superior Court, the Attorney General and the Liberal government are treating as settled constitutional doctrine this very key question, whether those who are not dying but suffering grievously and irremediably must be given the right to choose MAID. The government side of the House, throughout the debate on this topic, has stated that it has consulted widely with Canadians, but the extent of the consultations was an online survey that was open for a couple of weeks, containing confusing and ambiguous questions with multiple choice answers that left some respondents, people I have spoken to, having to choose the least of a selection of evils. The public was never asked whether the reasonable foreseeability of natural death standard should be dropped. A judge in one province thought so, but what do Canadians think? We will never know, because the question was not asked. A so-called public consultation that fails to ask the key question is not a real consultation. It is a pretext for the government to advance an ideological agenda.
Truchon was poorly reasoned and unbalanced. It has been left unappealed. By failing to appeal this decision, the Attorney General and the government have conceded that one judge in one province can curtail Parliament's power to promote broader societal interests in protecting people who are elderly, ill, disabled or vulnerable. One judge in a lower court was allowed to overturn Parliament's well-reasoned response to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision, and Parliament's well-considered opinion expressed in Bill C-14, four years ago. In my opinion, the Attorney General failed to do his job.
What happens if nothing happens? What if this bill does not pass, either in the House or in the Senate, before the Quebec Superior Court's now-extended deadline of December 18? It will become law in Quebec, which means that provision in our Criminal Code will restrict MAID to only those whose death is reasonably foreseeable in Quebec. That is, out of circumstance, better than the new regime introduced by this flawed Bill C-7, so let it fall. Let the deadline come and go. There will be more protection for vulnerable people if nothing happens than if Bill C-7 becomes law.
If all Bill C-7 did was reflect the Truchon requirement, then this bill would be more acceptable. Rather, the government has taken this opportunity to go much farther than was required by the Truchon decision.
Bill C-7 includes some additions that were not required by Truchon, including advance directives and dropping the requirement for contemporary consent. It also drops the reflection period for those whose death is reasonably foreseeable and, for no apparent good reason, it drops the requirement for two witnesses.
Should we leave the safeguards in place? It has been argued by the government side of House that safeguards are just barriers to implementing the decisions that people have already made. However, that is exactly what safeguards are for. They are intended to be barriers to protect the vulnerable. That is the objective, not to create inconvenience, although safeguards may be inconvenient in some cases.
Now I want to talk about advance directives. We have heard arguments in favour of them, and some have cited the Audrey Parker case. Ms. Parker chose to end her life earlier than she had planned because she feared losing cognitive ability to make the decision later on, when she would have really preferred to make her final decision to die. The best argument, in my opinion, against the Audrey principle is that some people have indeed changed their mind when the time came for the lethal injection.
The first annual report on MAID in Canada, published in July 2020, stated that 3.6% of patients who had made a written request for MAID later changed their mind and withdrew their request. While 3.6% seems like a low number, it was based on 7,300 MAID deaths. That means 263 people changed their minds.
I want to go back to the consultation of 300,000 Canadians. If the government had asked as a question about whether Canadians were accepting of a safeguard that would be designed such that only 263 people would have died, with their lives terminated against their wishes, I think the answer would have been quite different. That is the thing about consultations and surveys: They depend very much on the way questions are written. I do not think Canadians were properly consulted.
The same argument can apply to the 10-day reflection period. The whole idea is to let people reflect on the gravity of the document they have just signed and have the opportunity to change their minds. Last year, 263 people did indeed change their minds. We need to protect people like them.
I now want to talk about seniors care. According to that same report, 771 MAID recipients gave isolation and unbearable loneliness as a reason for requesting death. Easier access to MAID is not the right solution to loneliness and isolation. It is palliative care.
I want to briefly give an example in my family. My father-in-law just recently passed away. He had excellent palliative care at Langley Memorial Hospital, and I want to thank the caregivers there. If every Canadian had palliative care like he had, this would not be the debate that it is. This is what we should be talking about. We should be talking about expanding palliative care, rather than expanding MAID to people whose death is not even reasonably foreseeable.