Mr. Speaker, there is a cruel kind of thief that enters a home without breaking a window or turning a lock. It does not steal the family's silver or the money tucked away for a rainy day. The thief takes something far more precious. It steals memories, familiar faces and little pieces of a lifetime lovingly built together. About 10 years ago, that thief came for my auntie Grace.
She arrived in Canada from Holland in her early twenties, stepping off a ship in Halifax with a whole new life ahead of her. She found work as a maid at 24 Sussex Drive for Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, where she even served tea to President Kennedy. Each morning, as she brought Mr. Diefenbaker his tea, he would hand her the newspaper and ask her to read aloud. She was in Canada now, he told her, and learning English was important, and learn she did. She married my uncle John, raised a family and together they built a successful pest control business. When they were not working, they would hitch up their little tent trailer and explore the beautiful country they had made their home. It was a good life, filled with hard work, adventure and love, but Alzheimer's has a terrible way of unravelling even the most beautiful stories.
My uncle cared for her at home until about five years ago, when her needs became more than he could manage alone. Today, at 92, he drives from Langley to Surrey every single day to sit beside his wife, make sure she is eating and see that she is being cared for. I remember him sending me a little video. There she was, happily sorting a tray of mismatched socks into pairs, only to mix them up and begin again. My uncle was so excited to show me how happy she was.
These days, she does not recognize the man who has loved her for a lifetime or the children they raised together, but sometimes, when the family sings old, familiar hymns, she quietly hums along. Every once in a while, the faintest glimmer of recognition sparkles in her eyes. How precious those moments are to a husband who has devoted his life to loving his wife. Imagine another scenario.
Imagine that, years ago, while my aunt was still the capable woman who had built the business, raised her children and travelled across Canada, she had written down a simple instruction, that if the day ever came when she no longer recognized her husband or children, she did not want to go on living. Perhaps she could not imagine there might still be happiness in a familiar song or contentment in sorting mismatched socks or love in the quiet presence of a husband she could no longer name. Imagine that day has come and someone must decide whether the time has come to act upon her words.
There is something deeply troubling about asking someone to predict years in advance what will make their life worth living. When we are healthy and independent, we imagine all things we could not possibly bear. We tell ourselves we could never live without our memories and our independence, but something remarkable happens when people actually live through circumstances they once feared. Researchers call it the disability paradox.
In a study of people with disabilities, more than half of those with moderate to serious disabilities described their quality of life as good or excellent. Lives that others might look upon with pity were lives the people living them still very much enjoyed. Researchers in the Netherlands studying advance euthanasia requests among people with Huntington's disease also found that people making those requests recognized that their wishes might change as their illness progressed. The person writing an advance request is imagining a future they have never lived, but the person living that future may have discovered reasons to treasure it. When the decision is irreversible, that difference matters.
I think about my aunt sitting contentedly with her mismatched socks and my uncle watching her, grateful for every smile. What if she had signed an advance request? Who would speak for the woman she is today? Who would notice that she was happy? Who would ask whether the suffering she once feared had actually become the suffering she was experiencing? Who would stop it if someone got that decision terribly wrong? When I turn to Bill C-41, I do not find the protections that would give me confidence that those questions have been answered. There is no requirement to tell a person their life is about to be ended or consult the family who knows them best, or have a dementia specialist examine them when that final decision is made. When the family disagrees, there is no independent court or tribunal required to review the decision before it proceeds.
Then, there is the question of intolerable suffering. How can we be certain someone is suffering intolerably when they can no longer tell us what they are feeling? Researchers have spent years developing ways to recognize pain in advanced dementia, yet there is no gold standard assessment tool. A grimace might mean pain. Agitation might mean infection or an unfamiliar environment. These are things we should be trying to understand and treat, yet Bill C-41 would ask practitioners to determine not simply whether someone is suffering, but whether someone is suffering intolerably. How can we ask someone who cannot tell us what they are feeling to bear the consequences of another person's judgment about whether their life is still worth living?
I want to take us now into an Ontario care home on a summer morning this past July. An 83-year-old grandmother named Brigitte Stegemann was lying in her bed. She was someone's mother and grandmother, and a woman whose family had loved her for a lifetime, but this was the morning she had scheduled to die. According to her granddaughter, just two days earlier, Brigitte had broken down in tears when she learned the date had been set. She said she had made a mistake, but now the day had arrived. Her granddaughter describes a nurse struggling to insert an IV, leaving blood on Brigitte's nightgown and bedding.
When the doctor arrived, Brigitte lay quietly with her eyes closed and her hands clasped tightly together, almost as though she was praying. Perhaps she was praying. Her family does not know. When the doctor asked whether they could proceed, Brigitte gave no answer. She did not open her eyes. She did not nod. She did not speak. Her granddaughter says she felt a wave of relief, believing the procedure would stop without confirmation of her grandmother's wishes, but it did not, and within minutes, Brigitte was gone.
This happened under existing MAID laws, before Parliament had even authorized this new expansion. A granddaughter is left wondering whether their grandmother's wishes were respected and whether the safeguards meant to protect her worked at all. Now, Parliament is being asked to allow advance requests to be carried out when someone cannot consent nor confirm that they still want to die. If we cannot be certain that consent is being properly respected under today's system, how can we be confident we will recognize a change of heart in someone who can no longer tell us what they want?
The government has chosen to call Bill C-41 the medical assistance in dying safeguards act. What a remarkable name for a bill that purports to protect one group of vulnerable Canadians while opening the door to an entirely new expansion for people who can no longer consent.
What troubles me most is what the government chose not to include. When I introduced Bill C-218 to protect Canadians suffering from mental illness, people asked why I had not included more mental health supports. I would have loved to, but as a private member, I was limited to what I could do in my bill. The government has no excuse. Instead of including the treatment, counselling and compassionate care vulnerable Canadians desperately need, the Liberals chose to attach an entirely different expansion of assisted dying. The only reason these two decisions are tied together is for political spite. The government could protect Canadians struggling with mental illness right now by splitting the bill and passing the mental illness exclusion today and then give Parliament the time to properly scrutinize the rest of the bill. With the looming March deadline, the Liberals have made the protection of one vulnerable group conditional on expanding assisted dying to another.
As I stand here today, I keep thinking about my uncle John. Tomorrow morning, at 92 years old, he will get into his car and make that familiar drive from Langley to Surrey. He will find his wife and sit beside the woman he has loved for a lifetime. Perhaps she will recognize him. More likely, she will not. Perhaps they will sing an old hymn and she will happily sort her little pile of mismatched socks. My uncle will treasure every minute, because while Alzheimer's has stolen so much from my aunt, it has not stolen her ability to experience happiness and it has not stolen my uncle's love for her. Who among us has the wisdom to decide that those moments no longer matter? The thief has already taken her memories. Let us be careful that the law does not take away her tomorrows.