Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise once again to speak to Bill C-7, the government's medical assistance in dying legislation. I do acknowledge that this is an incredibly complex subject matter for which there are many diverse views.
With that said, the way in which the government and the Attorney General have handled the legislation is a lesson in what not to do, having regard for the gravity of the legislation. I say that having full respect for the Minister of Justice and Attorney General. I believe he is a sincere and intelligent individual who is compassionate and does want to do what he believes to be right.
That said, when the Minister of Justice spoke in the House at second reading, he indicated that there were widespread consultations and that out of those consultations there was a consensus. Neither are true.
The consultations that the minister spoke about were largely over the course of one month in January of this year. They were online consultations that excluded vulnerable segments of the population, including persons with mobility, cognitive or visual impairments, persons without access to the Internet and persons living in remote and northern communities. Their voices were not heard or were not heard as easily as a result of the online consultation process that started and ended within roughly a period of one month.
Not only that, but the consultations were said to have had a predetermined outcome. In other words, the minister had an idea of the legislation that he sought to craft and he used the process as a way of getting the answers that he had hoped to receive.
Do not take my word for that. Take the words of the persons who were involved in the consultation process, including Heidi Janz of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, or Dr. Catherine Frazee, the former chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and a leading advocate for persons with disabilities. They said that the consultations were predetermined when they appeared before the justice committee.
What about the consensus that supposedly arose out of these so-called extensive consultations that simply were not so? We know that out of those consultations just about every national disabilities rights organization opposes this bill. As we speak, they are calling on the minister and the government to put this bill on pause. We know that more than 1,100 physicians have penned a letter expressing their opposition. Concerns were expressed by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities.
Just about every witnesses, if not every witness other than the minister himself, who appeared before the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee that held hearings the last couple of weeks, panned the bill. No one, it seems, is happy with the bill. So much for the minister's assertion at second reading in the House that there was a consensus. There was no consensus, because there was no meaningful consultation, and there was a predetermined result that has resulted in legislation that just about everyone in one way, shape or form has been highly critical of.
I heard over the course of the debate members of the government and other parties talk about this issue in a context as if there were no risks, “Get out of the way, let the patients make their choice and throw out safeguards, because otherwise one is infringing on individual autonomy.” The Supreme Court of Canada recognized in Carter that “there are risks, to be sure”, at paragraph 105 of the Carter decision, and the court talked about how those risks can be “'very substantially minimized through a carefully-designed system' that imposes strict limits that are scrupulously monitored and enforced”. That is what the Supreme Court of Canada said.
When we talk about those risks, one need look no further than the case of Roger Foley, who is severely disabled, requires 24-hour care and is in a hospital facility in London, Ontario. I will read what he said about his experience, because it really is quite shocking. When he came before the justice committee, he talked about what can happen when there are insufficient safeguards, and we are talking about safeguards that are in Bill C-14 which are now being further removed by Bill C-7. He said:
I have been coerced into assisted death by abuse, neglect, lack of care and threats. For example, at a time when I was advocating for assistance to live and for self-directed home care, the hospital ethicist and nurses were trying to coerce me into an assisted death by threatening to charge me $1,800 per day or force-discharge me without the care I needed to live. I felt pressured by these staff raising assisted dying rather than relieving my suffering with dignified and compassionate care.
In the face of that, we put forward an amendment to say that this must patient-initiated. The minister responsible for disability inclusion said that she had grave concerns about what happened to Roger Foley, and she has heard about this regularly. Yet, even in the face of that evidence, the government rejected that very common-sense amendment, rejected other amendments and instead moved recklessly ahead. We are now in this untenable situation where the most vulnerable persons in our society could be put at risk. It really is unfortunate that it has panned out this way. I can only hope that the Senate will bring forward substantive amendments to this deeply flawed legislation.