Madam Speaker, let us deal with the elephant in the chamber here. There are reasons to support euthanasia despite 21st-century medical advancements, but to protect the vulnerable in our society from mistreatment or abuse, we must provide the service ethically and monitor its delivery scrupulously. However, what we are debating here today is exactly the opposite of that.
Bill C-7 seeks to amend the medical assistance in dying legislation by eliminating various safeguards on how and when the service gets delivered, with apparent disregard of any scrupulous requirement. Some of the offensive changes to end-of-life decision-making would include removing the 10-day waiting period between a MAID request and its administration, allowing for no reflection or opportunity for consultation on alternatives during this critical period, and proceeding without immediate consent, thus removing the final opportunity for someone to change their mind.
The bill would also create a two-tracked approach. The first track is someone whose death is deemed reasonably foreseeable, a term which is subjective and lacks effective meaning as the Truchon case in Quebec revealed. The second track would allow individuals who do not meet the reasonably foreseeable death criteria to receive MAID. At least these individuals are granted the opportunity to reflect for 90 days.
I voted against the second reading of Bill C-7 because it would not adequately protect Canadians from harm, and the gap presented is way too wide to be bridged. Unfortunately, as I predicted, the government refused to accept any reasonable amendments submitted by concerned stakeholder groups. I will, therefore, be voting against Bill C-7 during third reading as well.
As has been said many times, the bill would create pathways to end of life that would significantly impact the disabled, without sufficiently supporting the alternatives. Also, it does not include enough consideration for the rights of medical professionals to refuse to provide death as a service. Doctors know their patients' most intimate details. They have the professional experience to make suggestions on treatment and to know how to refer to other experts when necessary. However, because of MAID, medical professionals, such as Dr. Mai, who is a stroke neurologist, have expressed concerns that doctors are not being encouraged to suggest the best treatment. They are being obligated to suggest and provide a treatment that they may not believe is the right one for any patient. They are being told to kick their conscience to the curb.
In this regard, I will quote someone who, according to the CBC, has two law degrees and a master's degree in health policy, and has helped develop health law and policy for the WHO and several governments. He has practised medicine in Canada, Africa and the South Pacific. The member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River shares our mutual concerns of how the bill addresses the issues faced by those who are transient or undecided in their end-of-life decision-making.
In a CBC article, he stated, “My biggest concern, as someone who has spent my whole life trying to avoid accidentally killing people, is that we don't end up using MAID for people who don't really want to die”. As someone with a medical background, he says he feels that it is morally incumbent upon him “to stand up when it comes to issues of health and life and death”.
Perhaps this concern is something that should be addressed through a review. It has recently been said in this chamber that any legislation that is introduced in Parliament requires a thorough review, and that is especially true for bills that are literally matters of life or death. Bill C-7, which seeks to expand medical assistance in dying, is one of those bills.
Members of the justice committee have heard first-hand from disability advocates vehemently opposed to Bill C-7 and its rapid expansion of MAID. They argue that it amounts to a “deadly form of discrimination”, making it easier for persons with disabilities to die rather than live.
It is shameful that in the Liberal government's rush to pass the bill before December 18, it continues to neglect to address the legitimate concerns being raised by persons with disabilities and medical professionals.
The Conservatives are focused on ensuring this type of legislation includes safeguards for the most vulnerable in our society, and for the conscience rights of physicians and health professionals. I have previously outlined these reasonable amendments we have introduced to reinstate such balances the government has removed, so I will not re-list them here. However, I shall repeat that it is essential the government begin a separate and comprehensive parliamentary review of the original 2016 MAID legislation and the state of palliative care in Canada. It is critical that this review analyze how the government's MAID legislation negatively impacts persons with disabilities.
I might add, such a review could have taken place over the summer. Instead, the Liberal government shut down Parliament to hide from its ethical scandals, only to return and introduce this legislation from scratch again. What larger lapse of moral fibre and ethical decision-making could there be?
Furthermore, it pains me to find this bill comes at a time when vulnerable Canadians, such as those in palliative care, are more isolated than ever. Because of the pandemic, they could be left alone in their room for days. These measures that are aimed at saving lives have left them looking for options, as in the case of Ms. Nancy Russell, a 90-year-old long-term care resident in Toronto, who received MAID simply because she did not want to go into another lockdown, according to a media report.
Fleeing from the Communist regime in Shanghai, my father struggled to provide for himself and his family by mastering the art of directorship in the early film industry in Hong Kong. He later worked in Nigeria when I was a teenager and only returned home after suffering from a major stroke. I witnessed his struggle first-hand to live and attempt to regain independence with little familial resources or societal help. My father was a fighter. He also overcame cancer and other major medical problems before dying in his sleep in Saskatoon one early Sunday morning in the nineties. If the Bill C-7 MAID legislation had existed back then, he would have been under inhumane pressure to lessen the burden he was imposing on his family, even though his death was not reasonably foreseeable. I for one am grateful for his strength and determination to stay alive so that I could reciprocate the care he provided me when I was young. He was able to live long enough to hold my brother's firstborn, his very first granddaughter, only months prior to his natural death.
Medical assistance in dying is a very complex issue and evokes strong emotions. Recognizing we need more time to review the bill, my Conservative colleagues and I repeatedly proposed increasing the number of meetings dedicated to reviewing the bill and hearing from witnesses. Unfortunately, each time the Liberals refused.
Canada's Conservatives will continue to highlight the flaws in this bill, which threaten the lives, rights and dignity of people with disabilities long past this unfortunate legislation. We will continue working to protect vulnerable Canadians, especially persons with disabilities, when the next assault on their dignity arrives. Canadians deserve as much.
Like many of us here, my constituents have approached me in earnest to express their opposition to Bill C-7 and MAID. They ask for their MPs to stand in defence of the rights of people with disabilities, highlighting that it is a discriminatory policy and that Canada should not stand for such discrimination and must not extend euthanasia to people who are not dying. They asked me to stand in defence of the conscience rights of doctors, hundreds of whom are protesting Bill C-7 as being against their oath to protect—