Debates of Feb. 13th, 2023

Criminal Code

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague quoted one of his favourite sentences, and I would like to hear his comments on the following sentence: Perfection is the enemy of the good.

Are we not letting people suffer as a result of the constant desire to set limits and constraints? Is the Conservative Party not falling into a trap? Instead of protecting life, they are protecting suffering.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Madam Speaker, I believe that we are doing something very positive when we take the time to reflect on what has been brought into place through Bill C-7 and MAID and adequately address the ever-growing concerns of this legislation being abused or overextended to those dealing with mental illness alone.

We need to take this time, pass this bill and make sure that in the time it allots us, we put in place the safeguards that Canadians are demanding. These safeguards will make sure that veterans who are vulnerable and people with mental illness are protected and that those who are passing through a temporary season in life do not make a decision with such finality. We need to make sure we put the safeguards in place.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his speech this evening. I enjoy my time on the fisheries committee with him.

The member spoke at length about putting into place the necessary safeguards to protect those most vulnerable. I cannot agree more. I am hearing from people who are at their wits' end; for them, it feels easier to die at this point than to keep living. That is horrific. I have spoken about this before.

This bill needs to be put into place. I absolutely agree that we need to have the appropriate information to know how we can move forward and protect those most vulnerable. We also need to ensure that people have what they need to live with dignity and respect.

Could the member share with us whether he agrees that we need to put into place a guaranteed livable basic income, as well as ensuring that the government is offering mental health transfers?

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to serve on the fisheries committee with my hon. colleague.

With regard to this matter, obviously the challenges of poverty, desperation, hurt and pain are evident throughout our country at this time. Many political parties of various stripes are going to come up with all kinds of potential solutions to that, but the bill that is before us for consideration today is about delaying the legislation to provide time for reflection and the ability to implement safeguards. Safeguards need to be implemented for people across the board, especially our vulnerable youth, seniors, veterans and all individuals who are dealing with mental challenges and the addictions epidemic that is plaguing this nation. We need to look at it holistically.

I do not believe government can solve all these problems. We must expand that circle of solutions to include those from all sectors of society, including our faith-based communities, as well as non-profits and other great NGOs that are doing tremendous work in our communities.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Tobique—Mactaquac gave a very heartfelt speech. He has followed this closely.

If all of us in this House remember, when this bill was originally put forward, it was supposed to be very narrowly cast. One of the trade-offs was that the government was going to be putting in supports for palliative care for mental health. Sadly, we have not seen those investments. Even the original justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, was not in support of extending this to people with mental illness.

The member mentioned at the beginning of his speech that sometimes countries have to make a decision on how they want to be perceived in their heart and soul. Why is it so important right now that we make a stand to not continue down this slippery slope? Canadians are going through a horrible time and need that support.

What does he recommend at this time in history?

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Madam Speaker, that is the value and the absolute purpose of the pause. This bill would enable a pause so that we can take immediate steps. Internationally, questions are being raised suggesting that we have gone to the extreme on this issue. It is time to put some adequate safeguards in place to make sure our most vulnerable are protected.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, as always, it is a true honour and privilege to stand here in the House of Commons to represent my beautiful community of Peterborough—Kawartha.

Today we are debating Bill C-39, an act to amend the Criminal Code in terms of medical assistance in dying, which I will refer to as MAID for the remainder of this speech, and extend the exclusion of persons living with mental illness from being eligible to receive MAID beyond March 17, 2023.

We are going to need to rewind a bit to paint a picture of how disturbing this legislation, conversation and ideology are. In December of 2021, without any consultation, study or discussion, the Senate added an amendment to Bill C-7 to make people with mental illness eligible for MAID. This is gravely concerning and indicative of the Liberal government's recklessness to add such a serious amendment, which targets the most vulnerable, without due diligence of study and consultation with experts.

Instead of recognizing the undemocratic and dangerous way the amendment was added and scrapping the entire thing, which should have been what happened, the Liberals' proposal is simply to extend the deadline with an arbitrary date.

The MAID special joint committee was created after the amendment was added. How backward is that? The committee heard testimony from many experts, including Dr. John Maher, clinical psychiatrist and medical ethicist, who said, “Psychiatrists don't know and can't know who will get better and live decades of good life. Brain diseases are not liver diseases.”

Of course, today I will support this bill, but let us call it what it is, which is window dressing for a much bigger ideological problem. We do not need to extend the timeline of this bill; we need to get rid of making those with mental illness eligible for MAID. We need to call out the Liberals for not providing a dime of their promised $4.5 billion to the Canada mental health transfer. We need to ensure people at home watching know we are working diligently to give them timely access to treatment and recovery when they are willing to get it. That is what we need to be doing.

I urge every member in this House to listen to their constituents and recognize how dangerous the message is that we are sending to those struggling. I encourage every member in this House to support Bill C-314, which was introduced last Friday by my colleague from Abbotsford and would solve this problem instead of prolonging and dragging out an amendment that should never have been put there in the first place.

It is difficult, if not impossible, in the case of mental illness to determine whether someone can recover, get better or get healthy. Therefore, one can appreciate how dangerous a bill like this is.

I am going to read into the record a letter that was recently sent to me.

It reads:

“Dear Michelle Ferreri,

“My name is Kayla. I am going to be sending this letter to several MPs, but as you are the MP presiding over the constituency where I reside, I thought I should send this to you first. I am very troubled by something that is going to be happening very soon in this country, and I hope you will listen to what I have to say.

“Overall, I am a very healthy individual. I have a mental health condition, but it is my sole medical condition. However, I was mortified to discover last month, that medical assistance in dying (MAID for short) will be available to people whose sole health condition is a mental health condition as of March 17, 2023.

“Persons who suffer from mental health conditions suffer horribly. I know that. I have suffered with mine for nearly 12 years. Perhaps the most appalling things of all are that ‘The law no longer requires a person's natural death to be reasonably foreseeable as an eligibility criterion for MAID,’ (Government of Canada, 2021) and ‘There is no obligation for a person or their health care practitioners to inform family members if that person has requested or received MAiD.’ (CAMH, 2022).

“I think you are an intelligent person, Michelle. I think you see this for what it is. As of March 17, 2023, I will be eligible to end my own life on the basis that I have an incurable mental illness. Let me give you a bit more background: I have two university degrees, in biology and environmental science. I have a job that I love and have held since a little while after I graduated. I have never failed to pay taxes, nor have I ever taken extended leave or gone on EI due to my mental illness, no matter how hard it gets. I have family and friends that I love dearly, and they love me too. And yet now my own government has deemed my life not worth living. This just isn't unfair. This is monstrous.

“But it gets worse. What about those people who are in the same boat that I am medically, but are much, much worse off. They cannot pay their taxes because they cannot work. They have a substance addiction. They are veterans with PTSD. They are homeless because they cannot seem to fight off their demons. These are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. To say nothing of the nature of the 'mature minors' (whatever on Earth that means) that will be able to access MAiD in the future if this doesn't stop.

“Make no mistake. This thing that we dress up with a nice name 'MAiD' is euthanasia of our most vulnerable people because they cannot 'contribute to society' like others can. The fact that the government would offer to get them out of the way (read: convince them that they should die) in this way, just because the systems that the government put in place are failing them is an unspeakable evil.

“I hope, Michelle, that you will do everything in your power as an MP, as I will do everything in my power as a citizen, to abolish this law. I understand the federal government is seeking to push back the timing of this law, likely because it has received so much criticism. I understand that it likely wasn't you that made any of the decisions for this law to go ahead. But I also understand that you are in more of a position to do something about it than many other people are. I hope you will respond after reading this letter.

“Sincerely,

“Kayla.”

I did talk to Kayla, and it was a heartbreaking conversation. She is living very well, and I would like to give Kayla a round of applause for being so brave as to share that. This letter says everything Canadians need to hear. We need to be sending a message of hope and recovery, not a message that their life does not matter.

I leave members with one final story. Elyse is a young university student and she chatted with me during the Christmas break. She said she needed to tell me something. She said she was so worried about this legislation to extend MAID to those with mental illness. She said that she had struggled with mental illness and knew with certainty that if someone had offered that to her during her times of illness, she would not be here today. She told me that she would not be getting her university degree; would not be in a happy, healthy relationship; and would not know that her life is worth living.

We have a duty in the House to bring hope and create legislation that provides a better life for Canadians. A better life means access to help when they need it. I urge every MP in the House to listen to the experts and Canadians, and not just extend an arbitrary deadline, but drop this dangerous and reckless legislation. To everyone at home watching, including families who are supporting those with mental illness and those who are living with mental illness, we see them. They are worth fighting for, and their lives are worth it.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Madam Speaker, one thing I have been hearing this evening in some of our debates from my colleagues across the way is that we need to look at this to make sure we take the time to put in place the supports and infrastructure that will be required. That is exactly what this bill would do. It would take the time.

Is the member opposite in agreement with extending this one year so that we can take a look at it to ensure the supports are there and the infrastructure is there for medical assistance in dying?

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, no, they have to invest in what gives people hope. There is no research. The experts and the special joint committee have done the research. This is window dressing. This is an arbitrary timeline for something that is dangerous. There is no proof. There is no science. They cannot say with certainty whether somebody with mental illness will or will not get better.

Absolutely, we need to invest. There was $4.5 billion promised by the Liberal government to invest in the Canada mental health transfers. Not one dime has been sent. What are the Liberals saying to people at home who are struggling? They are saying that they care about them, but they are not going to invest in access to treatment. They are going to invest in legislation that allows them to apply for MAID. It is wrong.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Madam Speaker, my friend, the member for Peterborough—Kawartha, was absolutely right when she said that there is no science and no evidence to support this expansion. Indeed, the overwhelming evidence at the special joint committee, of which I am a co-vice-chair, was precisely the opposite.

The hon. member for Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne asked the member about whether it is appropriate to extend the deadline to essentially get it right, but evidence before the committee from a leading psychiatrist was that the medical error rate on the question of irremediability could be anywhere from 2% to 95%. In the face of that, it would seem to me that there are no safeguards to get this right. The only thing to do to get it right would be to scrap this ill-conceived—

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

The hon. member for Peterborough—Kawartha.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague has such a wealth of knowledge and facts on this legislation. Unlike the Liberals, he has done the due diligence. That is the reality. The facts speak for themselves.

At the special joint committee, there were numerous hours spent on this, and it was all done backward. Therefore, I absolutely agree with him and thank him so much for his intervention and his work on this file.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

When we hear these stories, it is difficult to be indifferent to the situation. However, it is always ironic to hear the Conservatives say that they base their rational decisions on science, when we clearly know the relationship they have had with science in the past few years.

My colleague stated that there is no proof and no science. However, the people currently asking for this to be postponed, the people who produced the final report of the panel of experts, who made 19 recommendations, are experts who are members of professional associations. They clearly used scientific evidence. These are people with expertise.

Does my colleague not agree? Does she not recognize the expertise of those people? That is the fundamental question being asked in the House this evening.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think we are saying the same thing repeatedly here. The experts have weighed in and said that we cannot, with certainty, scientifically predict whether or not someone will or will not recover from a mental illness.

If the member wants to take that risk, and risk playing Russian roulette, I guess that is his answer, but the data is already there, which we have seen repeatedly.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, we have been here before, with the Liberals scrambling to meet a deadline, unable to get their act together. In this case, though, perhaps the delay will provide us with the opportunity to get things right, or at least, that is my hope.

The question that we need to ask here is not whether there should be a delay in when medical assistance in dying is extended to the mentally ill, but whether such an expansion is a wise move at all.

Seven years ago, I stood in the House and predicted that we would be here today. On May 5, 2016, I said:

It does not take much talent to predict that in the aftermath of this legislation there will be confusion.

However, if killing patients becomes an option, for whatever supposedly good reason, how long will it be before that reason becomes more flexible than rigid? What about those with no family who are a drain on hospital resources? Would it not be in the financial best interests of society to end their lives?

How are we going to prevent families from pressuring their aged ones, urging them to request death so that the next generation of the family will be financially better off? There are so many issues that are still unresolved. We are acting in haste, and it seems to be almost guaranteed that we will get it wrong....

We might not be discussing this issue if we were doing a better job as a nation in assisting those approaching the end of their natural life. Where is the commitment of the government to increase funding for palliative care, which was an election promise unfulfilled in budget 2016?

I did not, at that time, address the issue of so-called assistance in dying for those who are mentally ill. I confess that, at that time, it never occurred to me that such an idea would be considered.

We were talking about those whose deaths were not only foreseen but imminent. The idea of hastening natural death was put forward as something compassionate, to ease the pain of those suffering from terminal illness.

How quickly times have changed. What was once unthinkable is now being promoted as normal, which may explain why, in October of last year, a representative of the Quebec college of physicians suggested that MAID be extended to infants under the age of one with serious health conditions. These children are obviously too young to make such a decision themselves.

It was somewhat reassuring to hear the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion say that she was shocked by the suggestion and found it unacceptable. It was less reassuring when the minister also said that she could not speak on behalf of the entire government on the issue, which means that I would not be surprised if, in the not-so-distant future, we are being asked to make yet another extension to the circumstances in which MAID is available.

According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canada's largest mental health teaching hospital and one of the world's leading research centres in the mental health field, in any given year, one in five Canadians experience a mental illness. That, to put it mildly, is a significant number. Furthermore, by the time Canadians reach 40 years of age, one in two, which is half the population, have or have had a mental illness.

We need to recognize what that means for our country. Mental illness is a serious problem, but addressing it by making assisted suicide an option is not the way to proceed.

Speaking to the CBC, the minister of disability said that she frequently hears that some people with disabilities are seeking assisted death because they cannot find adequate housing or sufficient care, that they are choosing death because of a lack of social supports.

Is that not also the case for those suffering from mental illness? The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health tells us that about 4,000 Canadians commit suicide each year, an average of almost 11 a day, people of all ages and backgrounds. Those numbers are sobering.

In Ontario, 4% of adults and 14% of high school students report having seriously contemplated suicide in the past year. More than 75% of suicides involve men, but women attempt suicide three to four times more often. More than half of suicides involve people aged 45 or older.

In Alberta, each year, according to the University of Alberta, one in six people will seriously think about suicide. There are an average of 2,400 hospital stays and more than 6,000 emergency room visits annually for self-inflicted injuries, the result of suicide attempts. More than 500 Albertans will die by suicide each year. According to Alberta Health Services, in 2018, 7,254 Albertans visited the emergency department for suicide attempts. Three out of four suicide deaths are male, about 50% being middle-aged men aged 40 to 64.

After accidents, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 24. Indigenous people, especially youth, die by suicide at rates much higher than non-indigenous people. First nations youth aged 15 to 24 die by suicide about six times more often than non-indigenous youth. Suicide rates for Inuit youth are about 24 times the national average. This is a national tragedy.

Experts tell us that mental and physical health are linked, which means that people with long-term physical health conditions such as chronic pain are much more likely to also experience mood disorders. In the same way, people suffering from mood disorders are at much higher risk of developing a long-term medical condition.

What does it say about Canada as a society and Canadians as people that our response to mental illness is now going to be focusing on killing people rather than appropriate medical treatment? If we were doing a better job of supporting those who are mentally ill, we might not be having this discussion today.

Many of those suffering from mental illness in its various forms will tell us that there are good days and bad days. On the bad days, when the dark cloud descends and it feels like it will never lift, death seems a pleasant option, but for most people, it does lift. As I said earlier, about half the population will experience some form of mental illness at some point in their lives. For most, it is something they can overcome.

Making suicide easier by calling it “medical assistance in dying” will, I am certain, mean that people with treatable mental illness will choose death. Some may do so because they are having a low period and do not see any hope for the future. For others, it may be a lack of medical and social support to help them deal with their illness.

Mental illness in Canada is estimated to cost about $50 billion annually when we include health care costs, loss of productivity and a reduction in health-related quality of life. That cost could be reduced if we were to invest more in mental health promotion and illness prevention programs, more support for early intervention aimed at children and families, and more emphasis on treatment for depression and anxiety disorders.

We need to pass this legislation, because there is a deadline approaching. Even more, though, we need to look at how we support those who are suffering from mental illness. Killing them should not be an option.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, in May 2019, every member of Parliament stood up and supported my motion, Motion No. 174, to establish a national suicide prevention action plan. There were a number of key steps that the government and members of all parties agreed to, including establishing national standards for training people involved in suicide prevention and making sure we were working with first nation, Métis and Inuit communities on establishing norms and proper funding, as well as the obligation to report to Parliament annually on preparations for and the implementation of the national action plan, including data.

That never happened. The government voted for it, and nothing happened. Yet, when the unelected, unaccountable Senate decided to throw in, at the last minute, a provision that would allow mental illness to be the sole reason to judge whether someone should be allowed to die or not, that was accepted without even a challenge, and now the government is scrambling at the last minute to prevent it from becoming law.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague about the lost opportunities the government has had to lay a proper course for the protection of people to make sure that we are doing things in a humane way and not having to act in such an ad hoc, eleventh-hour response to a very badly thought-out provision thrown in by the unelected, non-accountable Senate.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member's question speaks to the spirit of my speech and what I was trying to address here, the last-minute actions and the non-action on the government side when it comes to addressing even election promises. It has been dragging for the last eight years, and there is no action happening to support the palliative care promise the government also made.

We are on the same page here, to call for a stop in dealing with last-minute legislation that comes in and does nothing but delay. It is toxic. This is a poison that we could ask Canadians to take at some point, but it is not acceptable. It is our responsibility, on our shoulders, to address this and deal with it as we are representatives of the Canadian population.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, in his speech, the member for Edmonton Manning spoke about the need for more mental health supports.

Last week, we had an announcement with respect to health care, but nothing with respect to dedicated mental health funding. I asked the parliamentary secretary about this last week, whether the governing party remains committed to a $4.5-billion Canada mental health transfer.

Could the member speak about whether he, too, is calling for the need for the Canada mental health transfer?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, it was in our platform during the last election to address this. Mental health is a health issue. The two can never be separated. The strategy has to be wide and wise to be able to address all the issues, because health care is at the front of everything we do in this country. It seems that the government is missing the point on that.

We call on the government to act wisely and to act in the best interests of all Canadians by seriously looking at the mental health issue that we are facing.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are living in a time when Canadians have lost trust in our institutions, whether it is the government, whether it is media, whether it is even the medical profession. We need to rebuild that trust. Canadians need to believe in their country and what it stands for. This bill that we are passing, hopefully, would just delay a very bad idea.

Could my colleague comment on why we really have to stop and re-evaluate? He said in his speech that he never even thought this would go to mental health. The original justice minister who put this forward was against it. Why do we have to rebuild this trust? Why is it so important that we speak out against this?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, this issue is for everybody, for every politician in Canada and in this Parliament, to work together on. There is no way this should be swept under the rug. We can delay the poison pill that we could give to Canadians—

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

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Provencher.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank all my colleagues who have spoken so eloquently here these past many hours.

It will come as no surprise to my colleagues that I am opposed to medical assistance in dying and also opposed to any expansion thereof, but I will be voting in favour of Bill C-39, because what it would do is delay the imminent move the Liberal government wants to make, which is to extend MAID to those with mental illnesses.

When MAID first came to this House and was presented by the Liberal government, I was on the justice committee, and I, early on, warned this House that MAID was going to be a slippery slope, that “reasonably foreseeable” would not remain the standard by which MAID cases would be adjudicated, and that the legislation would also pose a serious threat to those with disabilities, the elderly, the poor and particularly those with mental health issues.

In August of last year, the Associated Press and the National Post both published reports on what has been happening in Canada's hospitals since the Liberal government introduced one of the most permissive assisted suicide regimes in the world. The results are alarming. In an interview, Tim Stainton, director of UBC's Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship and one of our leading experts on the subject, called MAID “the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis' program in Germany in the 1930s.”

A follow-up article in Forbes magazine written by journalist Gus Alexiou, who himself suffers from multiple sclerosis, states, “unfettered accessibility [to MAID] could...prove to be one of the most malignant forces the disability community [including those with mental disability or illness] has had to contend with since the 'mercy killings' of the Third Reich almost nine decades ago.”

This is because their reporting discovered that the people who are being targeted for MAID, and I do not think “targeted” is too wrong a word to use, are the most vulnerable Canadians: those who are disabled, seniors, those living in poverty and those with a mental illness.

Their story begins with Alan from B.C., who suffered from severe depression. He was administered MAID shortly after being taken to the hospital for a psychotic episode. His family begged the doctors not to kill him, as he had been involuntarily admitted and was in the throes of a psychotic episode when he demanded MAID. The family's pleas were ignored, and Alan was dead shortly thereafter. As Dr. Mark Komrad, a psychologist at John Hopkins Hospital, accurately predicted, our law “will provide, not prevent, suicide for some psychiatric patients.” Alan's death was not a reasonably foreseeable death. He was killed because he had a mental health condition.

Then, there was a disturbing incident where a Veterans Affairs agent casually offered MAID to a veteran with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury, something they had no business doing. To its credit, the government dealt with that employee, and I commend it for that, as I commend it for taking this pause on MAID expansion. I was in government, and I know how hard it is to walk back on things. It takes courage to do that, so I am glad the government has seen fit to do so. However, it turns out this one veteran incident was not an isolated incident; it was one of six incidents, that we know of, where it was suggested that veterans should consider assisted death.

Moreover, let us be clear about what we are talking about, because as I listened to the justice minister and read some of what has been put into print, it does not sound like he is convinced that those with mental illness should not receive MAID. It just sounds like he was not ready to go.

CBC, on February 2 of this year, quoted him as saying:

COVID slowed everything down. To be honest, we could have gone forward with the original date, but we want to be sure, we want to be safe, we want everyone to be on the same page.

We want, in particular, those health practitioners, those faculties of medicine, colleges who had some concerns to have the time to internalize what is happening.

Let me read that sentence again: “We want, in particular, those health practitioners, those faculties of medicine, colleges who had some concerns to have time to internalize what is happening.” That does not sound like an about-face to me. It sounds like the minister and the government still have every intention of moving forward with this.

According the National Post, a 2021 report by the UN “warned that Canada's liberalization of euthanasia posed a dire threats to its elderly and [infirm] populations.” That threat certainly includes those suffering with mental illness. The report said, “There is a grave concern that, if assisted dying is made available for all persons with a health condition or impairment [including mental health]...a social assumption might follow...that it is better to be dead than to live with a disability.” Given what we have seen to date, that certainly appears to be the case.

Just a little less than a year ago, last February, I received an email from a constituent. She is not my constituent but a constituent of a Liberal member of Parliament. It was sent to several MPs. I would like to read it into the record. It comes from a woman by the name of Melissa, and this is what she said:

...I was the farthest thing from a being a productive member of society. 15 years ago I was struggling really badly. I had entered into my second year of grade 10, which was due to a mental health diagnosis. I was diagnosed with PTSD, a personality disorder, major depression, and I had anxiety and was on a bunch of antipsychotics. I was in and out of crisis stabilization units, psych wards and a couple years later I got kicked out [of] a safe home for youth. I got kicked out of school and home because I was overdosing on the prescription medication and was self mutilating. I was a lost cause and didn't want [to] live and suicide was the only way out from all this pain......or so I thought.

She continued:

...it would have made me a prime candidate for MAiD, since my condition was nearly impossible to overcome apart from a miracle. I was a burden on my family, the medical system, the education system, and on top of it had chronic stomach issues and back pain which I would frequent the hospitals for. If I had an open door to access MAiD, that would have been something I would have seriously considered and would not be here to tell you about my story.

There are so many young teens that, like myself grow up in broken homes and get stuck in hopelessness and despair, and there are others who have everything they could ever want, yet still suffer from issues affecting their mental and physical health. Not everyone overcomes and it gets carried into their adult life, which makes them eligible for Medical Assistance in Dying.

She went on to say:

When you make the choice to go through with MAiD you no longer have an opportunity to go back and reconsider your decision. I know people suffer, and life can be tough and there are moments that seem unbearable. But there is Hope!!!! I've been there before. I suffered for over 10 years, I started on antidepressants by the age of 12, and by [the] middle of high school I had lost my mind and just wanted to end it.

Yet taking life is a very serious matter. I met Jesus who became my hope, I know that the name of Jesus has been frequently misrepresented but, the Jesus I met truly takes away needless pain and suffering.

Then she addressed her Liberal member of Parliament and asked him to reconsider his support for this particular bill.

Sadly, this is happening in Canada at the same time as we are facing a growing and serious health care crisis that has been exacerbated by years of COVID, restrictions and delays. Millions of Canadians are unable to access primary care, and wait times for doctors, appointments, surgeries, mental health support and emergency room visits are among the longest in the developed world.

Since it was expanded, MAID has seen a dramatic upswing, exacerbated by COVID-19 and the inability of too many Canadians to access timely and proper health care, including a lack of mental health supports. In fact, in an Angus Reid survey that just came out today, 55% of Canadians are worried that the expansion of MAID will become a substitute for social services.

An ER doctor recently told my office that prior to COVID, mental health cases accounted for one in every seven ER visits. Post-COVID and post-restrictions, that number is one in three. According research in the National Post, 2020 saw a 17% increase in MAID deaths over 2019 that disproportionately involved the elderly. I see no reason why we will not see an even more significant jump if MAID legislation is permanently expanded to include mental illness.

I recognize there are many for whom every day is a struggle and for whom mental health and physical health issues are debilitating. I will not begin to pretend that I know what it is like, and I want to be sensitive to that, but I believe that every human life, whatever the contents and challenges of that life may be, holds an innate and sacred dignity. Only God can give life and only God should be able to take life. It is my deeply held conviction that from conception to natural death, life is a precious gift.

It is the role of government to seek the best for all its citizens. We must adopt policies that embrace that gift, policies that uphold life and reinforce the value of every citizen. As Pope Francis put it during his recent Canadian tour, “We need to learn how to listen to the pain...of patients who, in place of affection, are administered death.”

We need to be there for the elderly, the infirm, the disabled. We need to be there for those who are suffering from mental illness, not offering the needle—

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

I have been quite generous with the time I have given the hon. member. We have gone way beyond it.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Edmonton Griesbach.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Madam Speaker, in light of this important bill, there is a need to push it to a place where the government and members of this House have an opportunity to hear more. We need to ensure that those who are desperate, in need and seeking the kind of support that mental health supports can provide them actually have those resources and can get them without seeking MAID. I support the member in his call for that.

However, I also support the need to ensure that those who are furthest behind and need support get that support through the mental health transfer or other means, like a guaranteed livable basic income. That is an important piece to this.

Can the member elaborate on the need to ensure that we support those who are living in poverty with real tools and solutions so they can live with dignity?