House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 58% of the vote.
Criminal Code November 18th, 1999
Madam Speaker, I have completed my remarks. I simply want to assure members on all sides of the House who have these concerns at heart that we will continue to try to improve the bill in different ways such that it reflects and protects workers. It would appear at this point that our only recourse is to bring it into the criminal code so that there is broad, uniform protection across the country for health care workers.
Criminal Code November 18th, 1999
Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking members on the government side of the House who supported this bill. Although they are not here in body, I know they are here in spirit and they are supportive of it.
It is unfortunate in our present system that we have a scenario where private members' bills are slotted at the end of the day, late in the week, when individuals have to catch flights and things of that sort. These are individuals from the New Democratic Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. There were some 100 signatures collected in support of this bill. The bill also came in by way of the draw and that is why we are having this discussion today.
What I think is really quite questionable about our system is the fact that if we go into committee with a bill that has the support of at least a third of the members of the House, in principle the bill should come before the House. It should be voted on, it should be tweaked, it should be amended, it should be changed and improved.
I would certainly welcome the member from the Conservative Party who spoke previously for the contributions he would make there. He would listen to the various witnesses from Nurses for Life and various health care workers and he would find that we do not have protections in our country at this time for nurses, the men and women who serve alongside, but who are in a different position than physicians. Everything that he had to say concerned protections for, in his own words, physicians. Physicians are a lot different than nurses. That is the focus. That is the particular matter under discussion here today. I want to thank and encourage others who work in the health care profession and those who are in training institutions.
I recall a day some months ago when I had an aboriginal girl come into my office. She was pretty emotionally shook up. She was coming to the completion of her term of study. She asked me “What can I do in the situation I am caught in? I am supposed to do a study of certain modules or elect certain modules as I come to the end, and it appears—I do not know and I have to find out—that I have to be involved in an abortion procedure”. This was an aboriginal girl and from her background, whether religious or not, sanctity of life, respect for life, was important. She had the feeling that she would be coerced or forced into an abortion procedure or be denied completion of her program. I have talked to doctors and to others, and it seems that in some schools at least, students are forced to be involved in this as part of their training program.
As the member who spoke prior to me mentioned, it is not covered. We have too many nurses, too many individuals, who call and tell us that this is a problem. It is not something that we can simply leave. It would no longer be a problem if it were something the provinces could deal with. It needs the broader protection of the federal government. It should be in the criminal code, as we are suggesting.
If there are better ideas in terms of the protection of health care workers, we are certainly open to them, but nothing has been forthcoming so far. We would gladly do what we could in defence of and on behalf of good health care workers who dedicate their lives to the profession or specialize in the area of bringing life into the world. They do not want to be involved in abortion procedures. It is not banning abortion; it is simply saying that others cannot be forced into being involved. It is saying that others cannot be forced into being involved in euthanasia. We hope to have a bill in place some day to deal with the reproductive technology that greatly troubles health care workers. It is ethically troubling for them.
Again, as I conclude my remarks, I want to thank members of the House who may even be viewing this in their offices or in their homes on CPAC, especially members from the government side of the House. Obviously they would not be the minority, but there are good members of that party which have given their support, as well as members of the Conservative Party. In fact it was the deputy House leader from the maritimes who seconded this bill. It was this member's own colleague.
I want to thank members of my party, a good number of them, maybe the most significant amount of those 100 signatures, as well as members from the NDP. This issue needs to be dealt with and we will do that in due course.
Criminal Code November 18th, 1999
Madam Speaker, I have listened to the comments of the member and I think you should shut it down. He should finish his speech. We have had good support from all members—
Criminal Code November 18th, 1999
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The comments of the member are very offensive when we are dealing with something as serious as this. We have had members from all parties in the House support this.
Criminal Code November 18th, 1999
It is a point of order.
Criminal Code November 18th, 1999
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to draw to the attention of people watching that I have received a lot of support from all members of the House.
Criminal Code November 18th, 1999
That is nurses.
Criminal Code November 18th, 1999
moved that Bill C-207, an act to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit coercion in medical procedures that offend a person's religion or belief that human life is inviolable, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-207, an act to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit coercion in medical procedures.
The summary of the bill reads:
This enactment protect the right of health care practitioners and other persons to refuse, without fear of reprisal or other discriminatory coercion, to participate in medical procedures that offend a tenet of their religion, or their belief that human life if inviolable.
The purpose of the bill is to ensure that health care providers, particularly nurses, will not be forced to participate against their will in such things as abortion procedures or acts of euthanasia. The bill does not prohibit abortion itself, but makes it illegal to force another person to participate in an abortion procedure against their will.
There are legislative protections for health care workers already existing in many jurisdictions, including 45 out of 50 states in the U.S. But, incredibly, in Canada we do not yet have any legislative protections in either provincial or federal law.
This is tragic, because the need is great. There have been clear violations of the basic human rights and labour rights of nurses working in our country. Many have been denied employment. We have had conversations with and correspondence from different ones. They have been denied a promotion or have been dismissed for refusing to participate in abortion procedures. Other nurses, fearing the loss of a job and possibly a career, have violated their consciences in order to keep their jobs. This has created a great deal of psychological pain, since they entered that profession out of a desire to help and to heal, but now find themselves coerced into inflicting what their hearts tell them is the ultimate form of harm.
This situation facing nurses is described quite well by the organization called Nurses for Life. At least five things need to be kept in mind when considering the plight which a number of nurses in our country today find themselves in.
First, we need to keep in mind that although it is sometimes claimed that abortion is strictly a private matter between a pregnant women and her physician, nurses know that it is never the case. Doctors do not function without nurses who are intimate participants in assisting the doctor.
I just had a little baby boy who was born last Sunday evening. The doctor came in at the last moment. It was the nurses, those wonderful, gallant health care workers, who were there throughout, helping and assisting my wife until the birth. The doctor finally came in at the very last moment. We know the nurses are the ones who are intimately involved, as they are at the abortion stage.
The problem is that while doctors are free to perform or not perform abortions, and while pregnant women in our country are free to undergo or not to undergo an abortion, nurses have not been given the same freedom to choose whether or not they want to participate in this procedure. That is wrong.
Second, unlike doctors, we need to keep in mind that nurses are employees of hospitals. Their employment and their income is therefore dependent on their remaining in the good graces of hospital administrators in a way that doctors' employment and income is not.
Third, we need to keep in mind that even in the rare instances where nurses' employers accommodate their conscience right, these respect-for-life nurses can be singled out as non-conformists, who are not “team players”. This greatly inhibits their chance of promotion.
Fourth, it is becoming increasingly difficult for nurses to choose areas of practice in which they can avoid the problem of assisting in abortions, since the procedures are often performed more increasingly in wards other than obstetrics and gynaecology.
These concerns express the frustrations of hundreds of nurses across the country who have been unjustly coerced in one way or another. We have had contact with a number of them. Most of their stories have never gained the light of public attention. Some have, of course. One notable example involves the mistreatment of nurses at the Markham Stouffville Hospital in the Toronto area in Ontario. Eight nurses were dismissed from the hospital in 1994 because they would not assist in abortions. They took their complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Commission and waited five long years for a hearing, during which time one of those nurses died. At the last moment, right before the hearing that was scheduled for this year, the hospital agreed to settle. In addition to providing financial compensation to those nurses, this much delayed justice, the hospital also agreed to draft a strong policy statement protecting the conscience and the labour rights of nurses still at the hospital.
The situation pro-life nurses face in the workplace is clearly unacceptable. There is evidence at every turn that nurses are, or ought to be, entitled to legal protections. There is precedent for that.
First, section 2 of the charter of rights and freedoms guarantees freedom of conscience and religion.
Second, these freedoms are also listed in the Canadian Human Rights Act and in provincial human rights legislation.
Third, there is precedent in the fact that case law in both charter cases and in human rights cases overwhelmingly supports the protection of freedom of conscience and religion in our wonderful country of Canada. The nature of the various rulings in those cases indicate that if every unlawfully dismissed nurse were to lodge a formal complaint against her former employer, the employers would probably lose. However, why would we want to put those nurses through that stress, through the great cost and through the time before they get some justice for the situation?
Four, another precedent in terms of legal protection for them is the Code of Ethics of the Canadian Medical Association which clearly acknowledges the principle that health care workers possess—in this case it is doctors—conscience rights. It states that physicians are “to inform the patient when their personal morality would influence the recommendation or practice of any medical procedure that the patient needs or wants”. The wording clearly implies that while doctors must inform their patients of their personal convictions, they in no way have to abandon those convictions. In the matter of abortion, for example, doctors are required neither to perform abortions nor even to refer clients to abortionists. Therefore, doctors have that protection.
Fifth, as a precedent, medical facilities have acknowledged that nurses possess conscience rights. It is kind of scattered, sporadic and piecemeal in the country. I have already mentioned the Markham Stouffville Hospital in the Toronto area, which is the most recent example of a hospital drafting and implementing a policy statement to protect nurses.
The first key statement in its policy reads “All nurses with a religious objection to performing, or participating in, first trimester termination of pregnancy will be exempt”. Subsequent clauses repeat that affirmation for second and third trimester abortions. The only exception made to this policy is when a pregnancy accident has put the mother's life in danger.
Even with this kind of clarity from the charter, from human rights acts, from the Canadian Medical Association and the policy statements of selected hospitals, nurses' rights are still being violated to this day. Why is this? Why have these laws and policy statements not been sufficient? There are reasons why they are not sufficient.
I will begin with the charter. The charter cannot protect nurses from coercion in the workplace because it simply was not designed for that purpose. The charter can only be used to attack laws that are inconsistent with charter rights and says that the current violation of nurses' conscience rights is not being driven by any specific provincial or federal law. There is nothing to attack by means of the charter. The charter is therefore unable to help nurses in their present plight.
If the charter is of little help, what about human rights acts and commissions? Unfortunately, they are also insufficient. Human rights commissions attempt to remedy injustices after the fact, usually years after the fact. They are ineffective at preventing people from losing their jobs. In addition, they only address abuses that are brought forward by people with above average initiative who are familiar with their legal rights and are persistent, are like bulldogs, are obsessed and obstinate about getting some justice for this situation. As a result, many people would grow faint-hearted and not pursue it and injustices would go completely unnoticed.
On the whole, human rights commissions, because they are slow and reactive, are unable to provide nurses with the immediate proactive protections that they need to stay employed.
Last, we should consider the effectiveness of hospital policy statements. The problem here is that so few hospitals or health districts have such statements. I have mentioned the success story at the Markham Stouffville Hospital. However, we need to keep in mind that hospital adopted that policy only when it was on the brink of a hearing before the Ontario Human Rights Commission. It did the right thing, finally, but very reluctantly. Without pressure it would never have acted.
That is why separate and explicit conscience legislation for health care workers is needed. I believe it is the responsibility of the federal government. We need legislation such as Bill C-207.
The bill is limited in scope but it would provide some relief to nurses from the immediate threat they are facing today. In the future we will need more comprehensive legislation than this bill. I want to elaborate on that important point using the U.S. experience as an instructive example.
The conscience laws in the United States are uneven and create only a patchwork of protection for health care workers. Of the 45 state laws currently in place, some apply only to abortion while others apply to additional procedures. Some laws apply only to individuals while others apply to institutions as well. Some laws provide substantive protection while others provide only a legal cause of action for the individual.
The main reason for this unevenness is that the U.S. legislators, like legislators in other jurisdictions, have had as their goal the remedying of specific concrete threats to conscience rights as they have arisen. As we so often do, they have legislated in a reactive mode. Of particular note are the conscience laws passed in many states between 1973 and 1982. They were good but they were in reaction to other supreme court rulings at that time.
This legislating in a reactive mode has meant that in the U.S. there has not been a comprehensive, well thought out, well designed legal approach to protecting the freedoms of conscience and religion in the field of health care. Most conscience clause statutes protect the right to refuse to participate in only one or two procedures. These laws do not deal with emerging ethical issues like those relating to physician assisted suicide, fertility treatments or medical experimentation.
We ultimately need a comprehensive approach that will be able to address these rapid changes in technology. Some supporters of abortion on demand have scoffed at the idea of conscience rights as though it were merely a concern of pro-lifers. But as science marches on and as it marches forward, a surprising thing is going to happen. Mark my words. More and more people working in the health care field are going to find themselves facing troubling ethical decisions. Nursing ethicist Patricia Wall of McMaster University was right when she cautioned that ethical problems faced by health care workers are bound to snowball. They very well will.
In the area of reproductive technologies alone, increasingly sophisticated scientific developments may eventually offend even the most laissez-faire physicians. Without proper legislation there may come a day when no physician feels free from coercion to violate his or her conscience. If the health care customer is always right, then physicians and other health care workers will be forced to follow the dictates of those customers. It will not be what the doctor has ordered that will be important, but what the customer has ordered.
We need an approach that will bring together ethicists, scientists, attorneys, politicians, physicians, nurses, administrators, religious leaders and others able to contribute to the construction of a comprehensive approach.
My question would be: Why is the Liberal government not doing anything proactively to address this need for comprehensive legislation? Why is it that we cannot get a basic elementary bill like Bill C-207 passed in the Canadian House of Commons?
The Liberal government will not allow a vote on this bill so it will not become law. It is tragic. It went before a committee. One hundred MPs from all parties signed a petition to have this bill debated. I am confident the bill would have passed with a free vote in the House of Commons.
I would like to express my appreciation to those nurses who wrote to me and with whom I had conversations in support of my efforts to present this bill in the House. To them I express my sincere hope that future developments, social, political and technological, will one day refocus public attention on this issue of conscience rights for health care workers and that justice will eventually emerge for those presently being abused by medical employers with government approval.
Petitions October 27th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to introduce the signatures of 1,682 petitioners in support of Bill C-207, an act to prohibit coercion in medical procedures that offend a person's religion or belief that human life is inviolable.
These 1,682 petitioners want to ensure that health care providers working in medical facilities of various kinds will never be forced to participate against their wills in procedures such as abortions or acts of euthanasia.
They lament the fact that medical personnel in Canada has been fired because the law is not explicit enough in spelling out such conscience rights. They affirm Bill C-207 because it will make those conscience rights explicit.
Criminal Code October 14th, 1999
, seconded by the hon. member for Huron—Bruce, moved for leave to introduce Bill C-207, an act to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit coercion in medical procedures that offend a person's religion or belief that human life is inviolable.
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to introduce the former Bill C-461, an act to amend the Criminal Code to prohibit coercion in medical procedures that offend a person's religion or belief that human life is inviolable. The seconder for the bill is the hon. member for Huron—Bruce.
The purpose of the bill is to ensure that health providers working in medical facilities of various kinds will never be forced to participate against their wills in procedures such as abortions or acts of euthanasia. The bill itself does not ban abortion or euthanasia, but it makes it illegal to force another person to participate in an abortion procedure or an act of euthanasia.
Incredibly there are medical personnel in Canada who have been fired because the law is not explicit enough in spelling out their conscience rights. The bill will make those rights explicit.
This bill is in the identical wording as before prorogation and received some 100 signatures and significant support from all parties. It is a labour issue and it is also a conscience rights issue.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)