Debates of Dec. 8th, 2020

Oral Questions

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for his intervention. I do not know that I see any other member rising. I will take his point of order under advisement, and will get back to the House if necessary.

The hon. member.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if he is not willing to say it himself, I can point him out. It is the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil.

Maybe he wants to explain what he said here in the chamber.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I see the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil rising. He wishes to add to this point of order.

The hon. member.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would encourage you to listen to the tapes. There was nothing in what I said that was in any way anti-Semitic, and I am not going to sit here and take what they are doing in this situation lightly.

I encourage you, Mr. Speaker, to listen to what was said. There was nothing in there that was in any way anti-Semitic, and I am not going to sit here and take what they have to say.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank both hon. members for their interventions. I think we are treading into an area of debate, and the interpretation of such, so I think we will need to leave it at that for the time being.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

In the spirit of the holiday season, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion: that the House recognize that small business owners have cancelled or postponed staff holiday parties and celebrations in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, and have chosen to purchase gift cards for their staff, in lieu of physical gifts, in an effort to buy local this holiday season; and that, given that in-person holidays and dinners up to $150 are currently tax-exempt while gift cards qualify as taxable income for their employees, the House call on the government to exclude gift card purchases up to $150 from employment income for the 2020 holiday season, so that small businesses, non-profits and local governments can honour and thank their staff for their hard work, especially during these difficult times.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

As members will be familiar, and this being a hybrid sitting of the House, I will only seek to hear if any are opposed to the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni proposing this motion.

I therefore ask all those who are opposed to the hon. member moving this motion to please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

There is no unanimous consent.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

During question period, we had the opportunity to have exchanges in English and French. I am asking for the unanimous consent of the House to table the document entitled “Official Languages Requirements and Checklist”, which assists the President of the Treasury Board in requiring the necessary language analyses when awarding major contracts, such as the one awarded to WE Charity.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

This being a hybrid sitting of the House, for the sake of clarity, I will only ask those who are opposed to the request to express their disagreement.

Accordingly, all those opposed to the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable moving the motion will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We do not have unanimous consent.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), be read the third time and passed.

Criminal Code

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to pick up where I left off. I believe I was talking about compassion and how that is being shown to Canadians, in particular as it pertains to how we look after our senior and aging population.

Particularly in Saskatchewan, this is becoming an increasing problem. In 2015, StatsCan did a survey, and what it found out was that as we go forward, and I think it is in eight-year increments, our population is going to age about 4% to 5%, over and over, in that time frame. Again, our population is continuing to age.

We can look at our palliative care strategy and the infrastructure that exists, and see that we are at a deficit going forward. We are spending all this time in Parliament going over Bill C-7, as the government has decided to make its priority figuring out how it can reduce the criteria so that people could have expanded access to medical assistance in dying. This is basically why advocacy groups are saying that this legislation more or less amounts to assisted suicide. That is a message that we do not want to be portraying to Canadians, particularly as we look at many areas of the country that are under a suicide pandemic in its own right.

We need to be sure we are sending a clear and concise message to Canadians that we are focused on providing life-affirming care and life-affirming support. We do not want to give Canadians the impression that we have just kind of given up, and that instead of providing life, we are going to provide the option for death. I find that a very dark path for the government to be going down.

Again, we need to make sure we are sending the right message to Canadians, that we cherish all life, and our focus will solely be on the life and well-being of Canadians.

[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]

Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of palliative care and long-term care, and of ensuring, by making the statement every so often, as I do, that all life is of equal value. That is something I truly believe.

The legislation that we have before us today is a reflection of many hours of discussions and debates. Tens of thousands of Canadians provided input. The Superior Court of Quebec made a decision. It is reflective of other decisions that were made previously.

This legislation seems to have the support of the Bloc Québécois, the Green Party, the NDP and, obviously, the Liberal Party.

Could my friend just provide his thoughts in terms of the amount of dialogue that has taken place and the amount of support, at least from political entities in the House? Could he provide his thoughts on why he believes we should be moving forward with this legislation?

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of support for maintaining some kind of a framework around Bill C-7. In particular, we want to see the framework for ensuring we save the protections in the legislation. Some of those protections have been removed.

The member also talked about how tens of thousands of people were consulted on this, but there is one group in particular that received zero consultation: disabled persons in Canada.

One of the primary objections that myself and numerous other people have is what it has to do for people with disabilities and what it is signalling to them.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion certainly coming from our side of the House about the need to do better when it comes to people with disabilities and how many people living with disabilities have reported being pushed toward euthanasia and even being called selfish when they choose not to pursue that option. That is why we put forward a reasonable amendment that euthanasia should be a conversation initiated by the patient, not pushed forward by somebody else.

One of the other points about the discussion on the disabilities is we hear people talking about new benefits and spending from government, but what we need to recognize as well is people with disabilities have a significant contribution to offer in terms of employment. That is why the member for Carleton put forward a great bill in the last Parliament that would have removed barriers to employment for people living with disabilities.

I wonder if the member could talk a bit more about how we can promote full inclusion across the board for people living with disabilities.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan makes a great point about why we need to affirm life in every individual. We need to stand up and defend the dignity of life for everybody. He hit on a great point about people with disabilities being able to contribute in the workforce. They are such an important part of the fabric of our communities.

In Swift Current, where I am, the Swift Current abilities group has such a fantastic group of people there. They do such great work in our community and have such an uplifting presence in our community. What this bill signals to them is that their contributions to our society are not as meaningful. We need to make sure we are sending the right message across.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we heard questions in question period today that were really attacking some people who took issue with this bill. I think it was a partisan political attack that really has no place in a conversation around some of the most important decisions around life and death.

I would like my hon. colleague to expand on some of the reasons the Conservatives put forward their reasonable amendments. It has nothing to do with politics, it has to do with some fundamental beliefs we and the people we are representing on this side have, including the people in the disability communities and people throughout different sectors who are having trouble with Bill C-7. It has nothing to do with politics, but fundamental beliefs people hold very dear, and there should not be any room in this discussion for partisan politics.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. The assertion made in QP that there are regular, everyday Canadians who are considered fanatics for their opposition to this bill is absolutely ridiculous.

We have to stay focused on what we are doing for Canadians. We have to focus solely on doing what is best for Canadians, and people are adamant we need to stand up and defend dignity in life.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Yorkton—Melville.

Dr. Heidi Janz, the committee chair of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, expressed her alarm at the breakneck speed at which the finance committee was operating. She called on members of the committee to extend public consultations on the legislation. I agree with her. We are moving way too quickly on this issue.

One of my constituents told me back in February that we need to slow this down. We also have to remember that we are here because of the WE scandal and the prorogation. That took away over a month of time we could have been debating this issue in the House. That has caused this to become a panic and there is a supposed rush to get this done.

I thought it important to repeat a few things. Sometimes Canadians, as they watch these debates, may get confused as we talk about things. I wanted to summarize a couple of quick points.

We are here because of the Truchon case from the Quebec Superior Court. This talks about the section in the current law that said death must be reasonably foreseeable. It struck it down and said it needed to be changed. That was the start of this particular bill.

The government chose to not appeal that, which is unusual. Normally, when a lower court makes a ruling against a government bill, especially one that is significant, the government of the day appeals, in this case, to the Quebec Court of Appeal and ultimately the Supreme Court. The government, for whatever reason, decided not to appeal it. Because of that, this bill will now be open to those who are chronically ill and chronically disabled.

They specifically excluded people with mental illness as opposed to excluding, say, people who are paraplegics. To me, this is arbitrary: it is picking winners and losers, and it is certainly going to make this legislation, if it passes, open to a charter challenge.

I also want to mention safeguards that have been removed in this legislation, such as the 10-day reflection period. As one of my colleagues mentioned this morning, since the MAID legislation has been in place, 263 Canadians who chose to pursue MAID changed their minds within the 10-day reflection period and did not pursue it. That is 263 Canadian lives that were saved because of the 10-day reflection period. That reflection period is gone, and future Canadians who might make that choice will not be saved if this goes through.

Another safeguard that has been removed is final consent. One can now give advance consent for this procedure. This is a problem for me, because we do not know, when the time comes, if the person wants to go through with this procedure because consent is not required anymore.

The other thing is that the current legislation requires two witnesses to agree that this makes sense for the individual. That is now down to one witness. There is no need for witnesses to agree. Just one person has to say it.

I also want to mention the new 90-day waiting period safeguard that has been added for those for whom death is not reasonably foreseeable. I do not think that 90 days is long enough.

For example, if someone has a spinal cord injury, that injury may not even have begun to recover within 90 days. In Ontario, if someone needs access to specialized long-term care, it takes on average 126 days to get it. If someone needs a specialized pain clinic, the median time to get that is five and a half months. Even something as simple as applying for a CPP disability benefit takes 120 days. All of those are far longer than 90 days. In my opinion, 90 days is too short for a waiting period.

The disability community has been very vocal since this has come out. I want to mention a few quotes. The first is from Inclusion Canada. It said, “By providing MAID beyond end of life circumstances to Canadians with disabilities, Canada would signal that these Canadians are expendable and threaten their lives, dignity and belonging.”

Canadian Physicians for Life stated, “This Bill prejudices marginalized patients to the incidental effects of a regime that endorses death as an appropriate response to non-life-threatening illness and disability. Furthermore, this Bill not only creates an unavoidable risk that some individuals could actually be euthanized against their true wishes, it increases that risk by removing key safeguards that ensure such requests are valid in the first place.”

The Christian Legal Fellowship said, “The risks created by this Bill—risks that will have a devastating impact on marginalized Canadians—are grossly disproportionate to the benefits it attempts to confer on those seeking more expedient access to MAID.”

The Catholic Bishops of Canada “remain steadfastly opposed to Bill C-7”.

Just to show that I am not completely one-sided on this, I will read something from the Canadian Unitarian Council, which is in favour of MAID. It said that:

During this time of the pandemic, our health care systems are burdened and stretched. We urge the government to find ways to provide the resources needed to make sure that those who want to access medical assistance in dying are able to do so, especially for those living in remote and under-resourced communities.

It sounds an awful lot like this is a solution to an overburdened medical system. Fifty-plus religious leaders in Canada penned an article, and I will read a brief portion of that. It says:

With our world-renowned health care system now endorsing euthanasia as a “solution” to human suffering, we will be undermining the creativity and resolve that is needed to confront some of the most complex cases of care. We are, in effect, imposing the intentional taking of human life as a solution to human suffering.... How precipitous a fall we have made into a moral abyss. This is not what we, as Canadians, have in mind when thinking of ourselves as a caring, compassionate and inclusive society. Instead, we must embrace those who suffer, and offer exceptional care to those who are confronting illness and death.

I also received a lot of correspondence from people in my riding, and I want to read some of those.

Cecile Goodmanson wrote:

Bill C-7 is a horrible law and I am asking you to oppose it. It is basically a suicide pact....Under Bill C-7, we as a society are saying that it is okay to kill sick, disabled, lonely and mentally ill people. If those people feel like life is not worth living, we should go along with that lie and dispense with them post-haste.... This is ridiculous. I thought we were not supposed to discriminate against the disabled, the elderly and those who are sick or mentally ill.

Becky Thomas wrote:

The new Liberal government Bill C-7 to expand assisted suicide and euthanasia is truly horrifying. It would allow people who are not even dying to be able to demand that a doctor help kill them. Anyone will be able to demand the state and taxpayer participation in their execution provided they claim they have intolerable psychological suffering or physical suffering, terms that are very broad and open to every interpretation one could imagine.... Please speak out against this push.

Pat and Donna Robol wrote this to the justice minister, and I am not sure that he read it so I will read it so that he can hear it. They wrote:

As someone opposed to physician-assisted suicide, we did complete the questionnaire; however, found the online survey very difficult to complete, because it was formed on a basis of presupposed agreement with euthanasia and assisted suicide. It did not give those of us opposed a proper voice. I heard over the course of a couple of weeks of many who, in conscience, felt they could not participate in such a survey for that very reason. This survey was flawed in so many ways, including the time allotted and the assumption everyone had access to computers.

David Dombrowski wrote:

I am very concerned that the Liberal government is not doing the promised five-year review of their Liberal euthanasia law but instead liberalizing it well beyond the court ruling that prompted the government's response.... This government has not charged anyone or even decided to investigate any of the several publicized cases of abuse under the existing euthanasia law, and now it proposes to remove many of those existing safeguards.

Cheryl Fraess wrote:

The Government of Canada prides itself on championing inclusion and accessibility. With its current position on the reintroduction of MAID, the government reminds us that it has a glaring blind spot when it comes to its vision of a more inclusive Canada. This is not simply an unfortunate omission. It is a betrayal of the foundational principles of inclusion, one that puts the lives of people with disability at risk.

As I conclude, I want to mention a few men who have gone before me.

My Uncle George was born around 1940. He had Down syndrome. He was my father's next oldest brother. My father would say that he did not even know that his brother had Down syndrome until my father was eight or nine years old. My Uncle George died naturally at age 53. My Uncle Ken suffered a horrific farm accident when he was four years old and became a paraplegic. His life was very difficult in those days, especially for his parents in dealing with a newly paraplegic son, but he persevered. He had a successful career with the provincial government, and became a very senior bureaucrat. I looked up to him, and he was by far my favourite uncle. He died of cancer in his fifties. I am who I am today, in part, because of these two men. I stand on the shoulders of these two men. Without words, they taught me tolerance, acceptance and love, and I am here today, in part, because of those two men.

Let us not create a Canada where men like Uncle George and Uncle Ken are erased from existence. Let us slow this down.

[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, it is important that we recognize that there is a clock ticking on this piece of legislation. The Bloc raised this issue in question period today and other people from other parties have raised it, in terms of seeing it passed.

The Conservatives should not try to give the false impression that it is about the process, or that it would cause a delay in passing it. If the Conservative Party is to be completely transparent, it does not support the legislation because it believes that the decision should have been appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. That is why it does not support the legislation.

I wonder if my colleague from across the way would acknowledge that this is, in fact, the case.

[Brad Redekopp, Conservative, Saskatoon West, SK]

Madam Speaker, perhaps the parliamentary secretary needs a bit of information. The government seems extremely stuck and confused as to what to do. There are many options available to it.

Number one, it could ask the Quebec superior court for an extension, as it already did. I am sure it could do it again.

Second, the government could appeal. That is commonly done and is necessary in a case where the law that is being changed has such profound impact on the country.

There are many tools the government could use if it chose to. It is just choosing not to.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for referencing the human side of this. He mentioned his two uncles, both of whom had serious disabilities, yet lived productive, satisfying lives. He mentioned that those uncles taught him tolerance, which is sometimes in short supply here in the House as we heard today during question period, where those who opposed the expansion of medically assisted suicide were being referred to as religious fanatics.

I would be interested to hear the member's views on whether that is the appropriate way for MPs to characterize those of us who have serious substantive reservations about this legislation.