Madam Speaker, as I reviewed the amendments to Bill C-7 that have been proposed by the Senate, I was struck by how quickly some legislators have embraced radical, unstudied changes to Canada's medical assistance in dying. In many cases, the direction these amendments take Canada's MAID laws was rejected just a few short years ago.
When Parliament legalized medical assistance in dying in 2016, there was a commitment included in that legislation to review the impacts of the law five years after it received royal assent. That was June 17, 2016. We have not yet arrived at that five-year mark. We have not yet done a proper and thorough review of the original MAID legislation, yet now, before this review is even under way, not only are some in this place pushing to expand the accessibility and availability of MAID without the benefit of that study, but we are also considering amendments that disregard all the thoughtful and considered debate of this House, the Senate and the committees of each place that wrestled with this complex subject matter and initially chose not to go down the road that many of these new untested amendments would take us.
The Council of Canadian Academies considered some of the amendments now being proposed, producing several reports in 2018. Former MP and health minister Dr. Jane Philpott and the member for Vancouver Granville wrote in a Maclean's article about the council's conclusions. The article states, “...there is very limited guidance on these issues because there are not enough places in the world that have allowed broader access to assistance in dying.”
That is the context in which we are having this discussion, so it is troubling that the Liberal government has essentially accepted the amendments to throw the doors wide open to MAID for patients with mental disorders, something the justice minister previously had said there was no consensus on. This is a significant reversal that the Liberals ought to explain to the thousands of Canadians who have expressed concerns about the expansion of MAID to those with mental illness.
I am certainly mindful of the fact that COVID-19 and the restrictions imposed by governments as a result have created a tenuous mental health situation in Canada. Loneliness, social isolation and reduced care for vulnerable populations are all very real concerns.
Law professor Trudo Lemmens and Leah Krakowitz-Broker wrote this in a piece for the CBC:
Introducing a social experiment by expanding MAID when people are more vulnerable than ever is not progressive policy making — it is reckless. In its desire to accommodate some who want to control the timing and manner of their death, it puts others at risk of premature death.
I am reflecting on the question of why we are even here at all. Why are we having this discussion before meeting the five-year commitment for the MAID review? It is because the Liberals chose not to appeal the ruling of a Quebec judge.
As Senator Plett said:
Bill C-7 is a result of the federal government choosing to cave in to the opinion of one judge in one province who decided to unilaterally strike down legislation which had been extensively debated and passed by both houses of parliament.
I am speaking, of course, about the Truchon decision in Quebec. The Liberals could have simply appealed the decision in recognition of the upcoming review. It would have allowed for a substantive and careful discussion about the impacts of opening the door to MAID for seriously vulnerable individuals. Even in the Truchon decision, the assumption was that there would be enforcement of strict requirements that ensure the capacity and informed consent of those requesting MAID. Bill C-7 removes some of those very safeguards, including the requirement that the patient remains competent until the very end.
Truchon was also premised on the conclusion that medical assistance in dying, as practised in Canada, is a strict and rigorous process that in itself displays no obvious weaknesses, but that simply has not been shown to be true. According to the chief coroner of Ontario's review of 2,000 MAID cases, case reviews have demonstrated compliance concerns with both the Criminal Code and regulatory body policy expectations, some of which have recurred over time. As well, according to the Quebec end-of-life commission, at least 62 cases in Quebec between 2015 and 2018 did not fully comply with federal and/or provincial law. How can we move forward like this without properly responding to these serious failings?
In one of our last debates in the House, when I suggested that if Bill C-7 were to pass as it was, even before the amendments by the Senate were added, it would be believed to be the most permissive bill with respect to MAID in any country in the world, one of my colleagues expressed surprise that I did not think it was a good thing, as if being the most permissive jurisdiction was somehow inherently a good thing. A law's success should be judged by its outcome, not its permissiveness.
Any time life is devalued or death is made easy, clearly, is not good. Life is to be valued and treasured as the gift it is, which is why we need to put our energy into supporting positive alternatives, such as strengthening a patient-focused palliative care service for all Canadians. There was unanimous agreement from the special joint committee studying physician-assisted death on the need for a pan-Canadian strategy on palliative care with dedicated funding.
Those suffering deserve the best possible care. After all, there is no real choice for Canadians facing end-of-life decisions without adequate palliative care options available to them.
As parliamentarians, we have a high calling to actively listen. Our obligation is to protect our most vulnerable citizens. Unfortunately, none of the proposed amendments addresses the serious concerns raised by disability advocates. As many in the House have mentioned during these debates, over 70 of Canada's leading disability rights organizations and advocates have expressed deep concerns regarding this bill. Therefore, so should we.
We should be especially concerned for disabled Canadians who lack socio-economic means and face a greater risk of coercion. If there is even a tacit suggestion that their lives are not worth living, we should care about the implications of that. Their lives matter. Canadians should never feel pressured or as though the law perceives their lives as a burden.
The Christian Legal Fellowship writes that by singling out life with a disability as the only existence deserving state-sanctioned termination, Bill C-7 perpetuates ableism in a most dangerous way.
We have already discussed in the House what UN experts have highlighted as a contradiction in Canada's international human rights obligations. We do not want to create a two-tiered system in which some would get suicide prevention and others get suicide assistance based on their disability status and specific vulnerabilities.
The justice committee was faced with very difficult stories where some of our most vulnerable felt pressured to accept MAID. Numerous groups were represented. Fifty religious organizations and faith leaders, including Jews, Muslims and Christians, expressed their opposition. Nine hundred physicians and 145 members of the legal community stated their positions.
It is not just the disabled who are vulnerable. Practising physicians fear that they will face legal charges if they refuse to participate in the deaths of their patients. There are blatant inequities and legitimate anxieties with this legislation.
Let us be clear: any inequities of support, systemic discrimination, family network or specific community should be addressed before people choose death. We need to make every accommodation for people to choose life, which is why I am perplexed by the Liberal government's decision to support the Senate amendments based on race-based data collection.
There is nothing wrong with collecting data to better inform policy, but we are sure going about this in an odd way. Rather than considering how expanded access to MAID would impact marginalized communities today, this amendment suggests we should investigate the impact when it is already too late for those many who have already accessed MAID.
This amendment seems to acknowledge that, but data may have a troubling story to tell us while opting to study that impact on the fly, before we understand what it will mean for the life-and-death decisions of the members of marginalized communities.
That being the case, we should refer back to the Council of Canadian Academies' expert panel, which identified a number of concerns associated with expanding MAID in this way. Its claim suggests that the data is predictable, as having a mental disorder is strongly correlated with certain social, economic and environmental inequalities such as poverty, unemployment, homelessness, social isolation, stigma and discrimination, and that people with mental disorders face impediments to accessing appropriate mental health care in Canada. Let us not wait for people to feel forced to make the choice of death to collect this data.
It has not taken long for us to forget the safeguards that we put in place for the protection of our most vulnerable just a few short years ago. I have expressed my deep concern for this bill a few times in the House. My conviction is that life is a gift to be valued. These amendments only heighten my deep concern.
Life is a gift. I am reminded of when my kids and grandkids brought home gifts that they had made at school. Sometimes they were not very attractive and, quite frankly, perhaps I was not the proudest to put them on my mantle or display them on my fridge, but they were gifts.
Life is a gift. I did not then take those gifts and give them back, saying that I did not really want their gifts because they did not look very nice. No matter what the gift looked like, no matter in what condition it was, it was a gift and I recognized the gift. I showed appreciation to my grandchildren for the expression of their love toward me. For each and every Canadian, life is a gift and we need to appreciate it for what it is. They do not all look the same and some life circumstances put some of our constituents and fellow citizens in situations that are not desirable, yet we have to recognize that life is precious and life is a gift.