Madam Speaker, I am glad to be joining debate on Bill C-62. Off the top, I will mention that I will be voting for it. Like the shadow minister for justice on the Conservative side said, this is about protecting the vulnerable. Though the federal government has dropped the ball in this latest iteration of its legislation, these three years, I hope, will be taken to basically fix the mistakes that were made all the way back to Bill C-14. I want to talk a little about what brought us to this moment, and then refer to some constituents of mine who have emailed me over the last few months on the issue of assisted suicide.
I will also mention that I am sharing my time with the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. I am sure he will add more to this debate.
To go back to the beginning, not too far to the beginning because I could get into Genesis, the Carter decision is what kicked off multiple debates that I have now been a part of. I have now seen this debate go from Bill C-14 to Bill C-7 to Bill C-62, and the attempts by my hon. colleague from Abbotsford, who, I think, tried to do right by vulnerable Canadians all across Canada to make sure that we would not see an expansion of the MAID provisions to those who are still suffering with mental health conditions.
The great thing about Hansard is that I was able to go all the way back and review what I had said on Bill C-14. I spent quite a bit of time complaining that the reasonably foreseeable clause would be knocked down by a court. It was knocked down by a court in the Truchon decision, because all our deaths are reasonably foreseeable; that is what living is all about. At the time, I had said that all of us who are born are born with one foot in our grave. One is assured one will die; one does not know just what it is, but it is reasonably foreseeable. I am just repeating it now. I know that it is morbid, but it is the truth. A lot of what we are dealing with here are issues of life and death and how one's death will happen. Therefore, at the time, this reasonably foreseeable clause would get knocked down, and it was knocked down in the Truchon decision.
My issues, just generally, are that, in a perfect world, this would not be necessary because people would not suffer. However, because this world is not perfect, people do suffer. People suffer in deep and different ways. Members know that I had a disabled daughter who passed away a few years ago. Had she lived longer, and I know at least one little girl in Calgary who has lived much longer with the same conditions my daughter had, she would be one of those vulnerable Canadians who would be facing the possibility that her physician, her specialist, might push for and might offer MAID.
I say “offer MAID”, but it seems so weird to say “offer MAID”, to offer something that I do not consider to be a medical service and to rush one's death sooner. Although we all die, as I said many Parliaments ago, the act of dying is not one that one does alone; it is done as a family, as a group of friends and with those loved ones around.
It is not something that happens in solitude. There are others who will miss one when one is gone. I know that it is difficult in a moment of suffering and a moment of great pain, or chronic pain, to believe it, to know it. A lot of the emails, the correspondence and the meetings I have had were with people who are worried about the assisted suicide MAID provisions, which the government has ineffectually dealt with through successive pieces of legislation. I think it was a grave error not to appeal the Truchon decision. I really do. I think it was a mistake. I said it to constituents at the time.
I have a Yiddish proverb, because I always do. They are great proverbs, and everybody should live by them and should know more of them. I just wish I could pronounce them in Yiddish: The truth never dies, but it is made to live as a beggar. This legislation is a beggar. This legislation should have been a permanent fix to the issues.
I think that Conservatives have suggested, both in committee and outside of committee, what some of those fixes would be. Although I disagree with an acronym, I will use RFND, reasonably foreseeable natural death. It should be limited to those who are terminally ill, where their death is foreseeable within the next six months, where there is a prognosis from a medical professional saying that one will indeed pass away.
For those most terrible conditions, I am thinking of a lot of cancers. My grandfather passed away from brain cancer in Canada, which brought my family to Canada. His death was very much reasonably foreseeable when it was terminal. There are others who have mental health conditions, which are caused by a physical condition. The mental health condition alone should not be the reason to seek assisted suicide.
Different Conservatives have mentioned, and I very much agree with this, that patients should be the ones requesting it. These are all things the government could have legislated into law. These are things that experts have said, and I want to read some of what the experts said in different committees.
Professor Trudo Lemmens and Mary Shariff persuasively rebutted a bunch of arguments that were made in Truchon. They noted again that reasonably foreseeable natural death applied to “all” persons, “not only to persons with disabilities”. “The judge in Truchon failed to appreciate how such a restriction reflects a constitutional duty to protect the equal value of the lives of all Canadians.”
I have read the Carter decision twice now. As many in the House know, this is something I take pride in saying that I am not a lawyer. I am not burdened with a legal education. I know the member for Fundy Royal is disappointed and that the member for St. Albert—Edmonton will be disappointed too, so I come to this as a layperson. Even the Carter decision did not say he had a right to die. It goes back to this idea, like I have said, that all of our deaths are reasonably foreseeable. It will happen; it is unavoidable in life.
These two experts said that the judge in Truchon made a mistake. This concept, this expertise, was then repeated in observations made by 72 disability rights organizations that penned a letter to the then justice minister. They said that reasonably foreseeable natural deaths are the ones where there is terminal illness that is coming up very quickly, and that this idea is an equalizing effect, guaranteeing a common thread among persons accessing MAID, assisted suicide, namely that they are dying within a very short time window. That is how I think this legislation should work. I am not saying there should be no MAID.
The Carter decision stands as a Supreme Court decision in Canada, so there has to be a provision of it in a method. It should be rare and should be restricted to the very few people for whom it was originally intended. I feel that Bill C-14 to Bill C-7 to the situation we are in today do not address that. That is why we have this legislation that is a beggar. It is not in the original form that it should be. The truth lies in abiding by what Carter decided.
Another one reads, “From a disability rights perspective, there is a grave concern that, if assisted dying is made available...regardless of whether they are close to death, a social assumption might follow (or be subtly reinforced) that it is better to be dead than to live with a disability.” That is a terrible message to send to persons with disabilities. I am thinking of my daughter, had she lived. That would have been a terrible message to send to her.
All three of my living kids have a chronic kidney condition. My boys will likely need a kidney transplants. What a terrible thing to tell them, that they are a burden on the medical situation and that maybe they should seek faster death. Is that what specialists are going to tell them when they are adults? I will not be in the room, but they will be in the room. Will that be pushed onto them? For those who are on dialysis, it is hard on their bodies to go three to four days a week to get dialysis in a hospital setting. I am not speaking of peritoneal dialysis that can be done in the home.
There have been lots of experts. The member for Fundy Royal explained a lot of what has been said on the issue. The government keeps erring in the wrong direction with more expansive legislation to allow more people to access something that was not the original intention of Carter. We should abide by Carter, as I mentioned before.
I have had constituents write to me. I just want to make sure that I read some of their thoughts into the record. Leanna wrote, “Please Halt the expansion of MAID to include those facing mental illness.” Catherine wrote, “As a parent who has seen my own children experience mental health challenges while in their teen years and early twenties, I am writing to express my deep concern about people with mental illness alone becoming eligible for medical assistance in dying. The move towards this will put countless vulnerable people at risk.”
Joe, in my riding, is a regular writer. I respond to most of his emails. I will send this to Joe just to make sure he knows I read his emails. His second and third points read, “By offering MAID for mental illness governments may put less money into treating mental illness.... Canadians may wish for MAID because of despair. They have not have been offered treatment for their mental illness.”
Cameron talked about a friend of his who is a nurse working in a mental health unit in Calgary. Mental health for him is all about seeing the intrinsic value of every human being, as celebrating the person not for what they contribute but for the beauty of their existence. He feels that once we stop seeing the dignity of one person, we will doubt our own worth and validity.
I know my time is running short, so I will not belabour this. I have heard comments from some members of the House who have tried to impugn a person's faith, religion or philosophical affiliations with whatever beliefs; although, all of us come to the House with our different beliefs. Some of them are sacred. Some of them are secular. It really does not matter where they come from, but all of us try to ascribe value to life, what that life is and what autonomy should be like.
To those members, I note that I did abstain from one vote that was specifically on advance directives because I have a constituent, Jim, who communicated with me over email that he and his spouse saw the experience of his mother, who passed away from Alzheimer's, and how terrible it was. In situations like that, it is incumbent upon the government to find a way to meet the requirements of the original Carter decision so that Jim and his spouse, when that time comes, can have their wishes met.
