Debates of Dec. 8th, 2020

Criminal Code

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is absolutely inappropriate. There are 338 of us in the House. We certainly all do not agree on everything. We come from different walks of life and different faith backgrounds. We all have different beliefs, different lived experiences and different families. We are different in every way.

That is what the strength of the House is. We come together with all of those differences and we make good laws by bringing our unique experiences to the House.

It is very important for our colleagues in the House to bring their lived experiences here and share them with everybody. Together, we make good laws.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Madam Speaker, listening to the member for Winnipeg North sounded like it has been repeating a tactic of using a conspiracy theory. I have also heard a conspiracy theory about the Liberal Party of Canada on the MAID strategy, which makes it sound like they want to withdraw palliative care so that they can save money by pushing for more MAID. I do not believe the Liberal Party of Canada would sink so low.

I would like to ask my colleague to comment on that, please.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, conspiracy theories are always an interesting and strange place to go, but the member raised something that I wanted to mention, and that is palliative care. My mother-in-law experienced an end-of-life situation in palliative care and it was very important to my family to have that ability. Unfortunately, 70% of Canadians do not have access to palliative care and that is, in part, driving the demand for MAID.

It is important that we as a country and the government come up with a strategy and plan to develop proper and improved palliative care in the country. That will go a long way to helping seniors and those in end-of-life situations.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I consider it an honour to speak for a third time on Bill C-7 as the bill would dramatically expand access to assisted death in our country.

I rise again to represent the thousands of voices across the country who feel that the bill puts them in crosshairs. I am referring to vulnerable Canadians living with disabilities and disabling conditions who believe they have been targeted. They have told us that this legislation singles them out by providing them with a special path to assisted death. They want us in this place to know their lives matter. This is the last opportunity for members of the House to legislate Bill C-7 to ensure their best interests are considered.

I want to use my time today to reiterate what has been a common theme throughout my interventions on Bill C-7. The Liberals are moving to impose sweeping consequential legislation despite what they have been clearly told by Parliament and Canadians. Yes, they have even ignored their own legislation.

The government should not have moved to implement the bill before the parliamentary review of Bill C-14, which was slated to take place before the end of June next year. It should have done that first. We do not yet have a clear enough picture of the impact a Canada-wide MAID regime has had on our country. Five years is not remotely enough time to take stock of trends, abuse and the impact of MAID on charter-protected conscience rights.

I remember the words of the former member for Winnipeg Centre, Robert-Falcon Ouellette, during debate on Bill C-14. In his view, the Liberals should have delayed the implementation of the Canada-wide MAID regime for at least five to 10 years until it could be adequately determined what the impact of assisted death would be in all communities across our vast and diverse country. Mr. Ouellette spoke against adding fuel to the suicide crisis that had taken such a heartbreaking toll on reserves.

Tyler White, CEO of Siksika Health Services, said recently that Bill C-7 ran the risk of undoing the work that indigenous elders had done to curb the frequency of suicides among indigenous youth. What message does Bill C-7 send these young people? If indigenous advocates believe that Bill C-14 was a step in the wrong direction, why is the government taking things even further with Bill C-7? What is the purpose of rushing this?

I also remember the elements of the Bill C-14 debate pertaining to instances of MAID abuse in other parts of the world. This is key. The Belgian model, which Bill C-14 was modelled after, is known for its abuse. In Belgium and the Netherlands, MAID laws, once limited to mentally competent, terminally ill adults, now include adults and children with mental deficiencies, severely disabled individuals and even those with treatable psychiatric conditions, such as anorexia and depression. Between 2012 and 2017, the Netherlands alone saw a 600% increase in euthanasia, which was sought to address psychiatric conditions.

When was the government planning to take a hard look at Canada's MAID regime and how we could prevent this kind of abuse in the future? The Minister of Justice says that it is in the works and part of the plan. Why was it not done first? This is the cart before the horse. It is the tail wagging the dog.

By ignoring a five-year review, the government has also cast aside the concerns of physicians. We cannot ignore the monumental importance medical professionals place on their Hippocratic oath, such is true of Dr. Ramona Coelho, a champion of conscience rights in her field. She told former MP David Anderson at the end of the Parliament, “Doctors know the importance of conscience rights to protect themselves and their patients..people like me who are being pressured to leave family medicine. I know palliative care doctors in Ontario who have stopped practising. I know nurses in institutions who are feeling bullied…shift their focus, or retire early ...The pressure is there, and we are looking for relief.”

It saddens me that the government has yet to establish conscience protections for medical practitioners who do not wish to violate their conscience while at a patient's beside. This bill is asking doctors to go far beyond what Bill C-14 even asked them to do. In Dr. Coelho's words, “it is my conscience that pushes me to go the extra mile, and I think patient care will suffer if doctors are not allowed to live with integrity and follow their conscience.”

It is because of this risk of abuse on many fronts that many of us on this side of the House walked away from the Bill C-14 debate with an unpleasant feeling in our gut, one that suggested that the implementation of the MAID regime had started Canada down a very slippery slope to a culture of death on demand. We are at Bill C-7 today.

However, there was an ever-present light at the end of the tunnel with Bill C-14. The five-year review was important to members of the House and indeed to all Canadians. It is shameful we find ourselves ramming through this legislation before this review is even started.

On that note, I realize that the Liberals are frustrated that my colleagues and I have been so diligent in vocalizing the outpouring of concern from disabled Canadians, concerned medical professionals and those whose personal beliefs conflict with the bill. That is our responsibility.

The Liberals desperately want to speed up the passage of this life and death legislation. They want to meet the deadline imposed by the Quebec Superior Court, a deadline they could have met comfortably if the House had sat in May and June and the Prime Minister had not prorogued Parliament in August.

In a way, this is beside the point. The December 18 deadline is arbitrary, as was the deadline for Bill C-14. As legislators, our mandate is to pass the best legislation possible for all Canadians. I underscore the words “all Canadians”.

The bill has barely been studied as the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights only held four meetings of hearings. Many witnesses and briefs were denied a voice because of this. Of course, the Liberals certainly could have, should have and still could appeal the Quebec Superior Court decision. We could have struck a balance in good faith of what Canadians actually wanted when it came to end-of-life decisions.

As I said in a previous debate, four years since the passage of Bill C-14 has allowed Canadians to further process the idea of assisted death. Almost 80% of Canadians believe it should be easier to make end-of-life decisions for themselves. That number is seven points higher than it was four years ago upon the passage of Bill C-14.

At the same time, Canadians are unwavering in their support of strong safeguards for the most vulnerable in our society as well as conscience protections for medical professionals. They are unwavering. According to an Angus Reid Institute poll released last month, the same majority of Canadians who desire empowerment in their end-of-life decisions want Parliament to weigh the risks of MAID for those living with mental health issues such as depression.

Sixty-nine per cent of Canadians fear depressed individuals could see MAID as a means to escape dealing with the underlying cause of their condition. Of those surveyed, 65% want Parliament and the courts to consider MAID's impact on the elderly and those with disabilities. They fear death-on-demand could encourage these Canadians to seek it as a means of ending their perceived burden on others. This perceived feeling is being encouraged and more research needs to be done.

Sixty-two per cent of Canadians want Parliament and the courts to examine the potential impact of MAID on our health care system. There is a danger that increased reliance on assisted death will lead policy-makers to begin neglecting long-term and palliative care. I am being gracious in saying “begin”, because, in my view, we can see this discouraging trend unfolding already.

Seventy per cent of Canadians continue to live without access to palliative care, while the government has failed to invest the $3 billion it promised to help in closing that gap. Clearly there is a discrepancy.

Canadians are equally as outspoken when it comes to conscience protection for doctors or those whose faith bars their participation in MAID. Fifty-seven per cent agree that nursing homes and hospices with conscientious objections should be able to deny MAID to those who request it. The Canadian Medical Association has indicated that 23,000 doctors are available to provide this service, which is more than enough across Canada. We need to protect our conscience protections.

Canadians want to see reasonable safeguards maintained in Bill C-7. They want to see Parliament legislate with their interests in mind, their interests, not those of the courts. They want to see the House continue to give credence to the views of medical professionals and those with disabilities.

Regrettably, judging by what we have seen through debate, Bill C-7 is another example of the government allowing the courts to legislate for Canadians. This bill is not reflective of what Canadians hold dear: Care and compassion for all, regardless of age, disabilities or religious beliefs.

Public health and economic safeguards have been the highest priority of the House throughout the pandemic. That is why so many in this place and across the country find Bill C-7's attack on end-of-life safeguards so painfully ironic and troubling. It is for this reason I cannot and will not support the bill.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to relay for the hon. member a bit of a story. Recently, on my Facebook page, I shared a picture of a clinic that had “Suicide Prevention” written on the front door with a set of stairs going up, and “Assisted Suicide” on the side door with a ramp going up. Something I often raise about this bill is that it would create two classes of citizens in the country.

Ms. Keay, a constituent of mine from Whitecourt, recently reached out to me. She was concerned that the picture I shared on my Facebook page was not reflective of the current situation in Canada. I have assured her that it is indeed reflective of it.

I wonder if my hon. colleague could comment on the two classes of citizens we would create with this bill.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, it definitely needs to be discussed. For some reason, the members on the other side of the floor feel they have heard from the disability community. I have no idea who they have spoken to, because every disability organization across the country has come out saying the bill is a danger to it and it wants to see the safeguards in it.

Maybe a lot of Canadians are just waking up to this reality, but every letter I have received, like my colleague, indicates there is great concern. We value our life in this country. We value every person. My children had the privilege of growing up in a school where those with handicaps and disabilities were part of the classroom, which was something very different than I experienced. There is such a growing appreciation of the fact that all lives matter, regardless of one's conditions, and that we all have something to contribute to our country, our families and our communities.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Yorkton—Melville has referenced the issue of the steep slippery slope on which we find ourselves. Back when Bill C-14 was being debated in the House, many of us had concerns it was indeed a slippery slope and we were generally mocked and accused of fearmongering. Today, here we are. In fact, it is very clear it was a steep slippery slope.

It is the vulnerable in Canada who are being exposed to medically assisted death. I would ask the member to comment on the assurances from the government that those with mental health issues, children and other vulnerable Canadians will not be exposed to this in the future and that they will be fully protected under the legislation.

I would like her comments on whether she takes those words at face value or questions them.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am very troubled by what the government says and what it does. It puts preambles up on websites, but does not include them in its bills.

I put something on my Facebook that said, “If it's not in the bill. It doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist there is cause for concern.” We have heard that concern on this side of the floor, as the official opposition, from groups across the country. If the Liberals truly mean what they say, they need to ensure those safeguards are in the bill. They should go the extra mile to say that they truly care about the vulnerable and make it their priority. Right now, no way are Canadians hearing that from the government.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, a member stated earlier in question period that it was members of the faith communities who were holding up the bill, that they had an agenda. In my observations, throughout the committees and hearing the witnesses, although faith-based communities have been involved, primarily the disabled and indigenous communities have been sounding the alarm on the legislation.

I was hoping the member could comment on how incredibly inappropriate it is to try to cast aspersions on the motivations of vulnerable people who are just trying to stand up for their right to live.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is very disconcerting when it drops to that level. I guess that shows desperation.

That being said, the reality is this. We all have faith. My faith may be very different from someone else's, but whatever we do in this place is motivated by who we are and what we have entrenched in our lives through the relationships, exposure and perspectives we bring to this place. I am honoured to be here for who I am. We are in the House of Commons. We represent the sense of Canada across the nation, all our different regions and perspectives. It is an honour for me to stand here and represent the people who came to us for help on this issue, people with disabilities—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Unfortunately, I have to resume debate.

The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am rising today to participate in the third reading debate of Bill C-7. I want to recognize the very real and legitimate challenge here and the difficult questions that were raised by the Truchon decision, which declared that the reasonable foreseeable death criterion for accessing medical assistance in dying goes against the charter and is null and void. When we talk about the deadline in December that we are working toward, we are talking about the moment when the court decision will take effect and the criterion, regardless of whether Bill C-7 passes, will take effect. At that point, reasonable foreseeability of death will no longer be a condition for accessing medical assistance in dying.

That raises a lot of difficult questions. It raises a lot of questions about the nature of human dignity. Of course, one thing to consider in the long-standing debate on medical assistance in dying is the dignity provided to people who are experiencing severe suffering and know that it is not going to get better. There is a sense of autonomy that comes from being able to choose their own time to go and the conditions under which they go.

There is another really important side to human dignity, and we have heard some other members speak to it already today. It is the dignity of those who choose life and want to choose life. They have to know that in so doing they have the resources and the respect for their human rights to make that affirmation of life and to choose to go on.

I want to take some time to recognize that, for people in the disability community in Canada, this debate comes in a very difficult context. It comes in the context of decades of neglect and inadequate resourcing and support, and a recognition of the barriers they face in trying to live a full life and realize their potential. It comes in the context of the pandemic, during which there has been conversations about how to allocate scarce resources and a real worry, on the part of people living with disabilities, that decision-makers might not value their lives in the way they value the lives of others, which has to be scary.

When they looked for reassurance that the government had their backs and understood these concerns, what they saw over the first number of months of the pandemic, about six or seven months, was a lot of heel-dragging on a commitment to make a simple one-time payment to support people with disabilities regarding the added costs and difficulties of the pandemic. I can understand why that does not engender a lot of confidence that the government has their backs and understands their real concerns.

In light of the Truchon decision, the long-standing neglect of people living with disabilities and the heightened sense of urgency given the pandemic, I can definitely understand how this has become such a charged issue and understand the very strong feelings that people, especially in the disability community, are facing. They do not want to be faced with the terrible dilemma of having to choose between a life of poverty and suffering on the one hand and a premature death on the other hand.

There are certainly members in the House speaking today to one side of that dilemma, which is wanting to ensure that people are not forced into a premature death. However, I put it to the House that we cannot do that if we are not willing to address the other side of the dilemma, which is to recognize the overwhelming number of people in Canada living with disabilities who are forced into a life of poverty. There are a number of people living with disabilities who have managed to overcome a whole bunch of barriers to get gainful employment and support themselves and their families, and that is a wonderful thing. That is what I wish for all people living with disabilities for whom that is a possibility.

However, we also have to recognize that many people with disabilities are not going to have a full time job just like everybody else. There are barriers that simply will not permit that. That is why we see such a high number of people living with disabilities on various kinds of social assistance plans and other kinds of income support programs.

Those programs have been totally inadequate for allowing the people who depend on them for their income to live with dignity. When we talk about dignity, it is really important that we talk about this, human rights and the importance of recognizing that people living with disabilities have rights and deserve to live in dignity. It takes resources to do that.

I really want to take the time to put the emphasis on that side, because the court has made a decision about whether a reasonably foreseeable death can be part of the criteria for medical assistance in dying. The government chose not to appeal it. I cannot change the government's decision on that. The NDP cannot change the government's decision on that. However, what we can do is try to add to and take on the sense of urgency the government has had in getting this legislation through the House when the House has been sitting.

I take the point. There is some real legitimacy to the point that, as we all know, we could have had more time in the House to consider these questions. When members talk about the effect of prorogation on House time, they are quite right about it. We have seen some urgency from the government regarding the legislation, but we need to see that same urgency for putting the supports in place for people living with disabilities so that the overwhelming majority of people living with disabilities are not forced, by virtue of being on some kind of income support plan, to live a life of poverty.

That is why I was proud, as the NDP's disability inclusion critic, to write, alongside the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, the government last week, calling for it to institute one national disability income support program that would cover people who are already receiving income support under the auspices of a disability program, whether it is through the provinces, the territories or the federal government. We want to set that at a rate of $2,200 a month to recognize that $2,000 a month is a reasonable standard, which many in the country recognized during the pandemic. It is not easy for everyone, for sure, but it is a reasonable standard of income. We have seen a larger consensus than ever on that.

We also need to recognize, as we did when the Canada emergency student benefit was established, that people living with disabilities do face additional costs. There was a differential for students living with disabilities. They were paid a little more in recognition of those additional costs. I think that $2,200 a month would accomplish that and would make sure that no matter where people in Canada, they have some kind of basic income that would allow them to put a roof over their head and get the basic necessities of life. Valuing life cannot just mean “not death”. It has to mean providing the resources for people to really live a life they value and that they feel allows them to meet their full potential.

That is not just a question of income. It is also a question of getting very deliberate and focused about an employment strategy to change the attitude of many employers who do not have experience with people living with disabilities. We can educate them about what they can do in the workplace to make it more friendly to people living with disabilities. It will help overcome some of those barriers and change attitudes in society generally.

It is also about supports, like investments in good public housing where rent is geared to income, so those who are not high-income people can still afford to be in good housing. It is about investing in good transportation options so that people living with disabilities who are not able to own or operate their own vehicle still have good options to get around the city. This helps with employment, but it also helps with socializing in times when we are able to do that.

If we want to talk about the value of life, these are things we not only have to talk about, but have to do. We have to do them with the same sense of urgency that the government has put on passing this legislation. I am very much looking forward to doing things in that urgent way, and the NDP will continue to push for this.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I had the honour of listening to the member's father, a very long-standing and esteemed member of the House, when he spoke at my university about the intersection between faith, social gospel and the founding of the NDP.

In the context of this debate, it was raised by a member in question period that those of a faith-based perspective who might be opposed to this legislation are so-called religious fanatics. I would like the member to talk about this and affirm that people who have a faith-based perspective on legislation such as MAID have a legitimate point of view.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I do not think the comments made earlier in question period are helpful for the debate. This is a difficult issue, and it is rightly a difficult issue. It is one of the most important issues, and it is a fundamental existential issue.

People bring their faith to the debate. That does not mean everyone is going to agree. We know that not everyone in the Christian community, for example, agrees on this point. There are people of faith who are proponents of medical assistance in dying, just as there are people of faith who are opponents of medical assistance in dying, and there is just about every position in between.

The important thing is to stay focused on the issue at hand and not to get into ad hominem arguments. I know there is often a temptation for that in politics, but particularly for issues like this, it is important to avoid that temptation.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, there is one concern that I believe has a lot of legitimacy, and it would be nice to see some further dialogue on it. It is with regard to palliative care. Depending on where one might live in the country, whether it is urban or rural, there is a great deal of difference in obtaining palliative care.

The member for Elmwood—Transcona is very much aware of provincial jurisdiction and federal jurisdiction, so I am interested in hearing his thoughts about what he believes the national role should be on the issue of palliative care. If he could go beyond the idea of providing money, I would very much value his opinion.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg North for raising the issue of palliative care. I want to take a moment to recognize the very good work of the member for Timmins—James Bay over the years on that very point. There was a motion he helped the House pass that called for a national palliative care strategy. When I talk about according to other issues the urgency the government accorded to Bill C-7, this is one of those issues. That motion passed a long time ago now, and we have not seen that kind of action happen.

We need to get moving on these things. It is the lack of action on those things that people in the disability community and other vulnerable communities look at, and it is part of why they worry. The government and people in politics have words about these things, but we need to show that we can pass to action.

We need to do that when it comes to palliative care. We also need to do it when it comes to things like pharmacare and dental care. We must ensure that everyone, regardless of their employment status or their income, has access to those things as part and parcel of valuing life. We need to create supports for people living with disabilities that will allow those who want to choose life to have a life in which they can flourish and live with dignity. I believe that is most people.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Elmwood—Transcona for working with me on the proposal we sent last week to the government for a national income support program for people with disabilities that would replace the patchwork of programs across the country managed by the provinces.

I wonder if the member could comment on what he thinks the premiers' reactions or provincial governments' reactions would be to a federal national income support program for people with disabilities.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I think most members of the House are aware of the fact that provincial governments have been struggling a lot as a result of the pandemic. They have asked in many cases for additional transfers of funding that do not have any conditions attached.

The federal government is the government with the most financial wherewithal, and this moment, when the medical assistance in dying regime is changing, gives an even stronger added sense of urgency to the need to support people living with disabilities. This means freeing up some room in the budgets of provincial governments that currently have income support programs for people with disabilities so they can spend on other priorities.

I would hasten to add this should not be a replacement for the non-income supports that are provided for housing and transportation. This would be a quick way to put some money back into the pockets of provincial governments while raising up the level of support for people living with disabilities, no matter where they live in the country. That is one of the virtues of this proposal.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I was just wondering if the hon. member is not concerned about the two classes of citizens the bill would create. The first is if they are able-bodied Canadians, then suicide prevention measures would be given to them at their first request. The second is if they are disabled Canadians on their worst day and they are attempting suicide, then they would be provided with MAID.

Is the member not concerned about the two streams and the two classes of citizens that we would be creating with the bill?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I see the member's question as an opportunity to highlight a provision of the bill that I do not think has really been talked about in the context of the debate in this way.

I have heard Conservatives say that they are worried that the 90-day period is not enough for people whose death is not reasonably foreseeable. However, that waiting period is the waiting period that would apply to people living with disabilities whose death is not reasonably foreseeable. Therefore, Bill C-7 would add something that will not be there if we do not add it by passing the bill by the deadline. We could have a case where a person whose death is not reasonably foreseeable, but who meets the other criteria, could get access to MAID a lot more quickly than if we pass Bill C-7 before the deadline.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member's comments are always very thoughtful and well considered, so I really appreciate that.

The issue around dignity of life centres very much on people's ability to support themselves and the issue around income. To that end, with regard to the proposal for a new program from the government to support people with disabilities, what sort of response has the member received from the government on this proposal?

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, to date, we have not received a response. We sent the letter in about the middle of last week.

What we do know from the government is that it had a vague commitment in the Speech from the Throne to a bold new disability income support program. We are trying to fill in the blanks. Oftentimes, we see the current government, on other issues, make promises without a lot of details. Characteristically, New Democrats are interested in the details and how we would get it done.

That is why we proposed a number, we proposed a way to do it and we proposed what the advantages of doing that would be in terms of making sure that it does not depend on what part of the country people live in or what their level of income support is as a person living with disabilities. It is a way to put money back in the hands of provinces at a time when they desperately need it, and it is a way now to make sure that if they do need income support as a person living with disabilities, they are not forced below the poverty line. If we look at the rates that are paid across the provinces and by the federal government, it is not enough to make it. It is just not enough and that has to change.

When we talk about valuing life, about people choosing life and about not forcing them into a dilemma between premature death on the one hand and poverty and suffering on the other, it has to mean an income that does not keep them below the poverty line. That absolutely has to change and that is the real crux of that proposal.

We are hoping that the government will see that proposal as a good way to implement its own promise. If the Liberals have another idea, they had better hurry up and share it because this needs to be addressed with the same sense of urgency as this bill has been pushed through the House.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, it gives me no pleasure to rise yet again to oppose this deeply flawed and dangerous legislation, Bill C-7. The Liberals have been complaining in the media that they think the Conservatives are holding up the legislation and that they are going to miss their court-imposed deadline of December 18, but they really have no one but themselves to blame. Conservatives are doing our constitutionally mandated job to hold the Liberal government accountable on its legislation.

Looking at the record over these past eight months, it is clear that my party has bent over backwards to give the Liberals the breathing room to implement emergency economic aid and other COVID-related measures. We have been very co-operative. We have also seen a great deal of government legislation move fairly quickly through the House just this fall, and in a minority Parliament at that.

Let us look at the Liberal record on moving the legislation forward. From the very beginning, the government really made its own bed on this one when it refused to defend its own legislation, Bill C-14, which was just passed in the last Parliament. Even some of its own members said on Twitter that the legislation was unconstitutional, admitting they felt it was unconstitutional even when they were voting for it, but they did not use the opportunity to appeal the legislation to the Supreme Court. That shows me that it was the government's intent to use the courts to circumvent Parliament.

Parliament was mandated, under Bill C-14, to conduct a thorough review of medical assistance in dying and that review was to occur next year. It is important to have these sorts of reviews built into legislation because when we talk about something as serious as medical assistance in dying, which is a novel legislation, a new innovation in our social fabric, Canadian people really have not had adequate time to digest how they feel about the legislation and to examine their lived experiences.

A five-year review was a very adequate provision to give Canadians a bit of time to assess the bill and then have Parliament make recommendations and possibly changes to the legislation so that we could fix the bill, whether that meant tightening up some things that were prone to abuse or maybe loosening up the legislation in cases where it was needed. However, with the Liberal government's desire to short-circuit the legislative process and the will of the previous Parliament, it chose to fast-track the legislation by not choosing to appeal it to the Supreme Court. I believe this was done very purposely to ensure the legislation would pass before a review took place.

If the review had gone forward, as we have seen from the Council of Canadian Academies, there are a lot of questions about the practice of the legislation and how it has been carried out over the past few years. Abuses have been raised in committee and in the House repeatedly, yet in the legislation the government has taken no efforts to take those experiences and make this a safer piece of legislation for vulnerable people.

Going to the next example of why the government's problem is one it made itself, with the COVID-19 pandemic, which I agree was not the government's fault, it was required to request several extensions of the bill. The courts were willing to approve those extensions and, in late summer, Liberals chose to prorogue Parliament. By proroguing Parliament, they made the choice to clear the decks of all of their legislation, start from the beginning and send us back to the drawing board. By doing that, they delayed the legislation further. For the Liberal government to claim that Conservatives are holding up the bill when what we are doing is our constitutionally mandated job, especially on an issue as important as life and death, it does not ring true.

Another example is that if the bill was so important for the government to get passed so quickly, why was it not the first justice bill it put forward? Bill C-3 was passed in a very expeditious manner with all parties' support in the House. It was passed, largely, with the support of committee and minimal amendments. Even in that expedited manner, that delayed the government's legislation by weeks. The Liberals are talking and complaining about how Conservatives are allegedly delaying the legislation, but it was their own choices that resulted in the delay of the legislation.

We are left today with the government complaining that the Conservatives are doing their job. We are doing our job by criticizing the Liberals' legislation. We are holding them to account. We are championing the rights of vulnerable people. We will never apologize for doing what our constituents have sent us here to do, which is to stand up for their deeply held beliefs, to stand up for their concerns and to stand up for vulnerable people.

Vulnerable Canadians made their desires known and their concerns known very loudly and clearly at the committee. I am pleased to see that the other place has had more time to hear from witnesses. I believe it has heard from over 80 witnesses, the vast majority of whom are opposed to the legislation. Frankly, in the House, we only had four committee meetings for this very important legislation, so I am pleased that the Senate is taking its responsibility seriously and thoroughly examining the bill and hearing from vulnerable people and others who are concerned about the legislation.

The members of these communities were afraid of Bill C-14. They were assured by the government that they would be protected and that there were protections for people with mental illnesses from accessing it. There were protections for children. There was the reasonably foreseeable death requirement, which was touted as a great protection for the disabled community. I can tell members that what they are saying is that they are terrified by what they see in this bill from the Liberal government.

I read today on CBC that the Minister of Justice appears to be in a showdown with disabled groups who are demanding a halt to the bill. The idea that the Minister of Justice, whose role is to uphold the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for Canadians, is fighting and ignoring the pleas of disabled and other vulnerable Canadians is just plain wrong.

Conservatives have been listening and we have been fighting for these vulnerable Canadians. It appears that nobody else is willing to fight for them. That is what we will do. We are fighting for these vulnerable Canadians. We are not being intransigent about this bill. Conservatives have a wide range of perspectives on this issue. We have put forward, as a party, some very common-sense amendments that do not undermine the legality of medical assistance in dying as a general practice but will do a lot to assuage the fears of vulnerable Canadians.

Some of these common-sense amendments proposed at committee included protecting patients from undue coercion. By coercion, people immediately draw up images of doctors in deeply immoral situations pushing medical assistance in dying on vulnerable people who are isolated from loved ones and family members. I am not trying to say that is happening. Frankly, I think what we have seen is that it is a lot more benign than that. It is not doctors aggressively pushing medical assistance in dying on people.

Someone may be in a situation where there is a power imbalance, and as a disabled person, other vulnerable person or a person who is older, they might not have family members or access to supports like social workers and psychologists. In this situation, they trust their doctors and that is a good thing because our doctors work very hard and they are very professional. However, if someone has that trust relationship with their doctor and the doctor comes and asks if they have considered medical assistance in dying, that could seem very benign for an average person. If I was in a situation like that and the doctor came to me, I would say no thanks, but we never know what someone else is going through and what challenges they are facing.

If they do not have someone to turn to, they can feel like the doctor is looking out for their best interests and the doctor is suggesting that they consider medical assistance in dying, so maybe the doctor is right and maybe that person should consider it. In this case, we recognize there is a power imbalance. At committee, we suggested putting forward some very strong protections to say that health care professionals should in no way be presenting medical assistance in dying as an option to patients. This is a basic protection.

This is something we talked about with the last bill. I was actually very disturbed, during debate at second reading, when a Liberal member stood up and talked about a couple they knew who had not ever considered medical assistance in dying. It was a very touching story. The member nonchalantly said that the doctor came in, passed them a brochure and asked if they had ever considered medical assistance in dying. The member, I think, thought that this was an innocuous and benign situation, but for me and for people in disabled and vulnerable communities, it was very scary that they could be put into this situation without adequate supports. They might feel like they were being coerced into a decision.

We also wanted to put in some stronger protections around a period of reflection. I think the period of reflection is key because, even in the government's own reports on medical assistance in dying, there were many cases in which people did not receive disability supports, and they received MAID while still not receiving disability supports. There were people waiting to get palliative care who had not received access to palliative care who also received medical assistance in dying.

It clearly illustrates that the government is not putting the resources in to help disabled Canadians, or to help Canadians who need palliative care. If we shorten the timeline or eliminate the timeline all together, we are really losing an opportunity for people to access these wonderful services that can make the end of life much more peaceful.

One of the sad things about debating this bill today is that I feel like I am being forced to defend the status quo, implemented in the last Parliament under Bill C-14. I was not a big fan of Bill C-14, and as legislation it has proved time and again to fail to protect vulnerable people. It certainly did not protect the prisoners who underwent medical assistance in dying.

This issue was raised by the Office of the Correctional Investigator, and it has deep moral and ethical problems. Prisoners really have no power. He raised a case in which a prisoner was coming close to the end of life and wanted to die peacefully in the community with access to palliative care. They were denied the opportunity to do so, and then chose MAID instead. I think the correctional investigator was very astute in bringing that up. In situations where somebody does not have a right to determine their own manner of death or the manner that leads up to their death, how can they be given a choice to access medical assistance in dying? That raises some big issues.

In numerous cases, people were largely not sick with anything. In one case in the Globe and Mail a number of years ago, an elderly couple in their nineties wanted to die together. According to the article, they were not suffering from any pre-existing conditions, except arthritis, but it was ruled that because they were so old their deaths were reasonably foreseeable. That is really troubling. Medical professionals have raised the point that a reasonably foreseeable death is not actually defined in any medical journal. There is no definition of “reasonably foreseeable.” It is so subjective. One thing that I would have liked to see with this legislation was for the government to come forward with an actual medical definition of “reasonably foreseeable.” Instead, it has chosen to eliminate this language altogether, which waters down the protections.

Bill C-14 did not save people who were suffering from mental illness from receiving medical assistance in dying. There was a case in Chilliwack where somebody who had a history of depression was able to access medical assistance in dying in an expedited manner. Their family was not informed until very late into the process and they were not able to intervene and explain that this person, while they did have a reasonably foreseeable condition, also suffered from depression and other challenges and that maybe, with a social worker or a psychologist, those things could have been worked out and medical assistance in dying could have been avoided.

It is clear to me that we are removing even the barest of protections. We are removing this adequate reflection period and making this legislation, which is already prone to abuses, even more open with this new legislation.

The government claims this new bill is safe because it is explicitly denying people who are suffering exclusively from a mental illness from receiving MAID. When the previous legislation was brought in, even though I was not a member of the House at the time, I sat in on a lot of meetings. It is interesting that, in committee appearances and at the joint special committee, Dr. Sonu Gaind from the Canadian Psychiatric Association was very hesitant to endorse medical assistance in dying for people suffering from mental illnesses, especially exclusively mental illnesses. Their testimony said that they do not treat any mental illness as if it is untreatable. There is always a treatment. Sometimes it is a very difficult treatment or an ongoing treatment, but society must never accept that there is not a way to treat mental illness. The alternative is that we stop helping people and that they seek medical assistance in dying.

It is tricky when the government talks about excluding MAID for people with exclusively mental illness, but we are seeing that too many people who might qualify for medical assistance in dying because they have a physical condition and a reasonably foreseeable death also have a mental illness.

Where doctors are involved, they are very well educated but they are not necessarily educated in all aspects of health. Not every doctor is a psychologist or qualified to make mental illness determinations. How do we know that somebody who might have a reasonably foreseeable death, and who might have a previous condition, is not depressed and seeking medical assistance in dying for the purpose of their mental illness?

Under this legislation, there is no protection for those people seeking medical assistance in dying. While the government may say they qualify because they have a grievous and irremediable condition, we need to have more protections to ensure that people with mental illnesses are not seeking medical assistance in dying in the heat of the moment. Maybe they have had an incident that has led them to want it, and given more time to reflect maybe they could be dissuaded from seeking it.

There are no mechanisms, as I said. I am not going to just criticize, I am going to put forward actual, concrete ways I think we could make this legislation better. Unfortunately, it does not seem the government is in the mood to accept too many amendments from the Conservative side, but I will go ahead and say them anyway. We should require social workers and psychologists to be involved with decisions where underlying mental health issues, or issues related to access to income supports or to poverty, might be identified.

I was very disturbed to read in Maclean's magazine that some people are seeking medical assistance in dying because they are living in poverty. That was never written in the legislation. That was never intended as a purpose for medical assistance in dying. By including these important medical professionals, we could make it much more difficult for people to get medical assistance in dying who might not make that decision if it was between them and a doctor.

That leads me to one of my final points. The government is removing some of the witness requirements. Under the previous legislation, an independent witness who was apart from the medical process was required to be involved. That would provide accountability to ensure that doctors and health care professionals were crossing all their t's and dotting all their i's to make sure that this was a completely kosher procedure. By removing the independent witness requirement, it is leaving the decision up to a doctor and the patient.

I am going to be opposing this legislation. I look forward to the other place coming back with some very strong amendments. I look forward to debating those amendments again, and getting the best possible legislation that will protect vulnerable people in this country.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the hon. member to be a man of compassion and deep caring. He has now spoken at length, raising many compelling arguments that I have many points of agreement on. We share many points of common ground.

We have heard Conservative members talk about dignity and life, yet earlier in this debate, when it was proposed that we provide actual financial supports, a member of the Conservative caucus answered that it had to be in exchange for support for the extractionary oil and gas sector, in a very flippant way.

I am going to give the hon. member the opportunity to clarify, on behalf of care and compassion, all the talk about supporting people and the dignity of life. Is the hon. member willing to support our proposition that we provide financial supports to people living with disabilities in a way that would lift them out of the poverty and despair that we are hearing them advocate for as it relates to Bill C-7?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am not going to comment on the interaction. I am not aware of the context of the interaction that he alluded to. I will say that I am unreservedly in support of better economic supports for the disabled and those who are in poverty, but it is really about how we reach that place. We live in a confederation. We have provinces that have their own income support measures. I know the NDP members were talking about a national measure. It is all about finding the best politically workable solution to ensure that people can get access to the income supports they need.

Something that has been alluded to is that statistics are showing a lot of people who are accessing medical assistance in dying are in the upper class, but people who are impoverished are accessing this because they have concerns about their ability to make their payments or to live life the way they want to. We need to address those intersectional socio-economic factors with this legislation, and I do not think that has been given adequate coverage.