Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-14, which would enact a federal legislative framework to permit medical assistance in dying across Canada.
Medical assistance in dying is a deeply personal issue for all Canadians, as we have witnessed. As parliamentarians, we must consider a diverse range of views on this complex issue. I know that we all take this responsibility very seriously.
The starting point is, of course, the February 6, 2015 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Carter v. Canada. The court unanimously held that the criminal laws prohibiting physician-assisted dying interfere with liberty and security of the person by denying grievously and irremediably ill individuals the ability to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care, and leaving them to endure intolerable suffering.
The court also held that the laws deprive some people of life by forcing them to end their lives prematurely for fear that they would be incapable of doing so when they reached a point where their suffering was intolerable. The court accepted that the criminal prohibition on assistance in dying furthers a pressing and substantial legislative objective, that of preventing vulnerable individuals from being induced to die by suicide against their will in a moment of weakness.
However, the court concluded that a permissive regime with properly designed and administered safeguards was capable of protecting vulnerable people from abuse and error, and that the absolute prohibition went farther than necessary to achieve its objective. The court appropriately left the task of designing this new regime to Parliament.
The proposed legislation responds to the Carter ruling by enacting a new legal framework for access to medical assistance in dying, including the safeguards that the court called for in order to minimize the potential for errors and abuse.
The court did not define the term "grievously and irremediably ill", but the proposed legislation does define it in a manner that is consistent with these circumstances. Specifically, the person must be in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability. The person must have a serious and incurable medical condition. The person must be suffering intolerably. The person's death must have become reasonably foreseeable, taking into account all of the person's unique medical circumstances.
Canadians would have the comfort of knowing that they would be able to get the assistance they need if they are suffering intolerably when their capacity declines as they approach the end of their lives.
Like so many honourable members who have stood in this house to debate this difficult legislation, I have my own personal story that makes this issue all the more relevant. My mother, Eleanor Anderson, spent over 10 years in a wheelchair after suffering a massive stroke at the age of 69. She had to learn to walk, talk, eat, everything right from scratch. Then it happened again, another stroke five years later. She fought back again, but with each stroke a little more of her was taken away.
She never wanted to feel helpless. During those years in a wheelchair, my mother would try her best to do everything on her own, whether it was dressing, loading the dishwasher, or simply wiping down the kitchen counter. During those years, she never wanted our sympathy.
Despite her tenacity, she knew the day would come when she could not fight any longer. She made it very clear to my father, to me, and my brother that if the time came and she was not able to do much more than lie in a bed, she wanted to drift away peacefully. As expected, what we all feared eventually happened.
She continued to have small strokes, losing mobility and function with each one, to the point that she could no longer sit up in her wheelchair, talk, or even eat. We were not even sure if she knew any of us anymore. She pulled out the feeding tube that kept her alive, to the point where the doctors said they wanted to insert a tube in her stomach. That was not the life my mother wanted, and so we said no. We had to let her go. Doctors agreed it was best, and said she would only last a few days.
We asked that she be moved to palliative care at another hospital. Ironically, they said they could not move her because she would not make it, that she would die en route, and so she lay in that hospital bed, and we watched her slowly starve to death.
She would last 12 days, and her death was anything but peaceful. It was the most excruciating experience I have ever been through, and nothing prepared me or my family for her death. I know my mother would have agreed that this legislation is a step in the right direction. She would have wanted to be able to communicate her desire to die with dignity. However, she would have also wanted her family to follow through on her wishes.
Twelve years later, my dad said to me, after catching an infection, “I just want to close my eyes and not wake up”. That is exactly what happened. He was gone two days later. He got his wish. However, I know that many people are not as fortunate, and it is for those people that we must be prepared to lend our voice.
Health Minister Jane Philpott said this in her speech to the House:
...every person, every story, is unique. However, much is shared in common: the hope to die in peace; the desire to be respected; and to have personal autonomy and dignity honoured by family and health care providers alike.
Minister Philpott went on to say that her experience as a family physician reinforced her sense that we must—