Charlie Angus

[Criminal Code, October 21st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague and I shared a friend in Angela Rickman. She was a very powerful and profound woman who worked on the Hill and died much too young. I am glad the hon. member thought of her tonight.

We have to think of the people we know who are suffering and make sure we do this in a manner that respects them and respects our obligations under the law.

[Criminal Code, October 21st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, the member went from profound to as cheap as one can get. We are talking about the dignity of people. I bet the member has never seen the kind of poverty we see. Am I going to plunge the nation into an election because the little guy in the front from the Bloc said he wanted an election last spring? No, I have better issues to deal with.

If that member cannot understand the profound issues facing people in Neskantaga, I would say that we can see what happened. I have not heard anything from that member in terms of the horrific death of a woman in a hospital in Quebec.

[Criminal Code, October 21st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that frustrated me with the Supreme Court decision was that I felt it put an unfair restriction on the review of Parliament. Because this was a profound piece of legislation, we needed the opportunity to have enough witnesses.

I do not believe this is something that should be dragged out, but as parliamentarians, we need to ensure we have an adequate number of witnesses to bring forward enough points of view that we can ensure the proper details are in this legislation. I do not know the details of what goes on in a medical relationship. I am not that person, but I have sat at the deathbed of many people. I want to make sure it is done right.

[Criminal Code, October 21st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, even though we are being ordered to because of the Superior Court of Quebec decision, it is important that we do revisit legislation. What we anticipated may not be the case out in the field.

In terms of the request for medical assistance in dying be done in writing and signed by an independent witness, the request can be made after the person is informed they have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, and a professional or health care worker can serve as that witness. That is interesting. I would like to have that tested with people in the field who can let us know whether that will meet the need of ensuring we have adequate safeguards.

The fact that the person must be informed of available and appropriate means to relieve their suffering, including counselling services, mental health services and palliative care, is important. However, we have to be able to test that at committee. Is that a reality that people are going to have in rural areas? What about for people who do not have a larger family unit to support them? I am looking forward to seeing how these will be tested at committee.

[Criminal Code, October 21st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured, as always, to rise in the House, particularly on such a profoundly important issue.

I am going to ask the Speaker's indulgence for a few minutes to speak about an issue that is occurring right now. I have learned that in Treaty No. 9 tonight families in Neskantaga First Nation are being evacuated because they have no access to water. For an Oji-Cree community in the middle of a pandemic to be willing to be flown out to an urban centre shows how severe the situation in Neskantaga is. I think every member in every party will understand the importance of bringing this forward.

One of the beautiful things we have said during the pandemic in Canada is that we are all in this together, but we are not, not in Canada. We have never all been together, not when it comes to the poverty, the casual degradation that indigenous people suffer and the systemic negligence of the most basic rights to life and dignity that Canadians take for granted as part of how this country is run. We cannot find a community that has suffered more than Neskantaga. For 25-plus years they have lived with unsafe water. That is a second generation growing up with improper water.

What does that mean? I remember meeting a beautiful young girl from Treaty No. 9. She had this incredible long, thick hair and she said she did not like to take a shower because it gave her blisters. That is what we put young people through in communities like Neskantaga. At age 13 or 14, they have to leave home because the federal government will not bother to give them a school. They have to go to a foreign culture in Thunder Bay. We know of the horrific treatment and abuse that indigenous children have suffered in Thunder Bay, the deaths of children in the rivers and the racist attacks, yet they have to leave their homes.

We are talking about something as profound as medical assistance in dying. However, when one has had to go to a hotel room in Thunder Bay to say sorry because a beautiful young girl from Neskantaga gave up hope at age 14, we could say this nation does a lot of work to assist in the dying and hopelessness. Tonight, in Neskantaga, after 25 years of not having water, where the schools cannot be opened because they cannot get water to the schools. They have had to shut the water system down. It is winter there and elders are going to the river and getting water in buckets.

Yes, this is Canada in 2020. Therefore, when I hear people say that we are all in this together, we could say it more clearly by saying we are all in this together, except when it comes to indigenous people, because they are at the back of the line again and again. I am not saying this from a partisan point of view. This was the primary program. Neskantaga was going to be fixed. We were told that by the Prime Minister. The previous prime minister put enormous amounts of money into water, yet the government continues to refuse to put in place the basic infrastructure that will support safe communities: the sewage lifts, the water pipes, the proper water treatment centres.

I am asking my colleagues tonight, in light of the crisis in Neskantaga and the risks people are taking by being flown out in the middle of a pandemic, to say we have to make the guarantee of access to clean water a fundamental human right. It has to be done, and it has to be done now. We cannot have any more nice words. We have all the beautiful words that come from the government, yet there are people who cannot even live in their own community because they do not have water. I am asking my colleagues to work with us to guarantee that the people in Neskantaga will be able to go home to safety, decency and water.

The issue of medical assistance in dying is an important conversation for us to have in the House. The last time we had this conversation, we were under the gun because it was a court decision that pushed the federal government to act. I had a number of concerns about the previous legislation. We knew it was not going to withstand a court challenge, yet the government went ahead with it. Now we have to come back and do it again. We need to work together because we have some fundamental principles that we have to protect in terms of how this moves forward.

I worked on a national palliative care strategy across the country before the last election. The one thing I have learned, and I saw this with my beautiful sister who died so young, is that the will to live is incredibly strong. People deal with an incredible amount of suffering, and they have the will to have family and have support. The right to die in dignity is a fundamental human right. Part of that is making sure we have a proper medical system in place to give people this support, so we have to have the provisions in place with this legislation.

Nobody's claim of dealing with someone who is dying is more precious than anyone else's. In our lives, it is the most intimate thing we can be involved in, and those deaths can actually be good deaths, deaths of dignity and of hope, where families are together. The day my sister died, as my mom said the rosary I sang Danny Boy for her because that is how we go out in our culture. It was terrible to see my sister go, but we came together and it was beautiful.

There are deaths that do not have dignity, and deaths of suffering. It is incumbent upon the House to make sure that the legislation in place meets a number of steps in the right to dignity, but also that it makes sure that people who are making this choice are not doing it because they feel they have been neglected or they are in a substandard seniors home, as we have seen with so many of our seniors in Quebec and Ontario who died in the pandemic. People must actually have dignity, and if they are in a home, there must be support for them so that they do not have to make that choice.

I will agree with my Conservative colleagues and all the people I have talked to in all the work I have done with palliative care, that if that choice has to be made, it is one that people do not want to make. People want to go out in a way that allows them as much time as possible. However, when that decision is made, as it is a right upheld in the courts, we have to make sure that the provisions are there to allow it to be done properly, to allow it to be done so that people are of a mind that they understand what they are doing and that they can do this in a way that meets the test of a caring society.

To that end, we have seen a staggering number of our elders die without dignity in this pandemic. It has exposed the fact that we do not put investments into care for our elders and they have suffered needlessly. That we had to send in the army to keep people from dying is a fundamental failing of our system for seniors and their health.

Of course, it is not just seniors who have to make this decision. My sister died much too young. Her husband died at 42, and he was one of the greatest people I have ever met. People die at different ages, and some of those deaths are very difficult.

I am very pleased to say that we will support the bill being sent to committee because it is at committee where we will hear witness testimony. We need to hear from the experts. We need to have a conversation and start to make sure that in the legislation, which we are compelled to bring forward because of the Quebec superior court decision, we meet the tests of the court and we meet the tests of dignity.

Again, I do not believe this needs to be a partisan issue, where a party is going to be on one side or the other. We have to put first the rights of the individual and their dignity, and the support for their family, because death should never be a lonely act. Death has to be part of family and community, and when it is, it can actually be a moment of real grace and learning.

The New Democrats are supporting the motion to send the bill to committee to be studied. We want to make sure that we get it right this time so that we do not have to change it for the next court decision.

[Business of Supply, October 20th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I think the overreach the Conservatives are making with their motion is identifying that they are going after corruption and then naming people who have not been found guilty of anything. I know Frank Baylis. He is a well-connected Liberal. Whether or not this deal was right or wrong is something that belongs at committee, because we certainly need to get an answer. However, the idea that this was an act of corruption, and naming Frank Baylis in a parliamentary motion, I find very concerning as we do not have the evidence. It is the same with Rob Silver. I am very concerned about the calls he made. Personally, I think it stinks to high heaven, but the Ethics Commissioner said there was nothing wrong. For Parliament to say that these were acts of corruption, before we have done the investigation, to me is a serious mistake.

The one thing I have really been struck by is the dead silence from the Conservatives on the fact that I called for an investigation into David MacNaughton, and he was found guilty. David MacNaughton, who is a top Liberal insider and good friend of the Prime Minister, was found guilty. He works for a very powerful American company, Palantir, and is not being looked at, yet he had meetings with the Deputy Prime Minister, he had meetings with—

[Business of Supply, October 20th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I have said that the WE scandal is the dumbest political scandal in history. I think the only thing dumber is the government's response.

We will not participate in a Liberal-run committee because we have participated in Liberal-run committees and we have seen how they have shut down our work. They shut down the SNC-Lavalin inquiry. They shut down finance. However, the idea that they can threaten us with an election to make this go away is really preposterous.

I have work to get done at ethics committee. I was willing to share it with the committee, but we will do this work one way or the other. I offered to pull off, as friendly amendment to get the Liberals to work with us, on the Prime Minister's family. We offered to change that amendment. The Liberals talked the clock out.

If the Liberals do not show good faith, we can still go back to our committees. We can still demand documents, which we are willing to pull back on in order to get them to work. We will get this information one way or the other unless the Prime Minister decides to go to Rideau Hall. That is the only way he will stop our work. Whether they have a committee or not, our committees will do the work.

What does my hon. colleague think the Liberals are up to in thinking they can intimidate us into not getting answers?

[Business of Supply, October 20th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I have enormous respect for my hon. colleague. I almost thought I was listening to part of his filibuster from earlier this week. It is the unwillingness to address the issue of what has been disrupting work at the ethics committee that has been concerning me.

We did reach out to the Liberals at the ethics committee to try to break the logjam. We said that we would not ask for documents relating to Margaret and Sacha Trudeau out of respect for the family and we would focus on the Prime Minister. However, the Liberals continued to talk the clock out, so we have gotten no further. My sense from the Liberals is that they are not serious about working with our committees to get answers to which Canadians have a right.

We have tried and reached out in good faith to find solutions so we can move forward. Are the Liberals going to continue to obstruct, interfere and even threaten the Canadian people with an election in order to avoid basic questions of accountability on this scandal?

[Ethics, October 20th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, we are in the worst medical and economic catastrophe in a century, yet the Prime Minister has stated his willingness to plunge the nation into a pandemic election, and all over the procedural wrangling of a committee. Seriously? This is the same Prime Minister who prorogued Parliament and monkeywrenched the work of our committees. If he wants to take advantage of the pandemic, he can go to the Governor General any time. He does not need to hide behind the opposition. Or he can show some maturity and let Parliament do the work we are all here for.

What is it going to be? Is he going to keep up the cover-up, is he going to let Parliament do the work or is he just going to go to the Governor General?

[Business of Supply, October 20th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is that come to Jesus moment, where the Liberals ask if we can just help Canadians. Yes, we can help Canadians. What have we been doing in this House? He is saying let us help Canadians. The best way we help Canadians is to set this committee up so the other committees can do their work, and have the Prime Minister stop threatening an election.

If my colleague said, how about the government helps Canadians, promises not to threaten an election and actually shows that it cares about indigenous people, then, yes, let us do that. If it actually cares about students, it should transfer that $900 million—