Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today to an important bill.
We have to ask ourselves: why are we here this evening debating Bill C-39? What brought us to this place?
What brought us to this place was a government, once again, that had acted completely irresponsibly and with great overreach, ignoring the experts, ignoring Parliament and ignoring the most vulnerable.
We will back up a little bit. Bill C-7, which expanded medical assistance in dying in this country, went through the House of Commons and went through our committee, the justice committee.
Accompanying any piece of government legislation is a charter statement from the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. A charter statement is the government's certification that the legislation complies with our Canadian Charter of Rights.
I want to read, just briefly, from that charter statement. The minister's charter statement stated, for Bill C-7, that it excluded individuals with mental illness from eligibility to access MAID, because of:
the inherent risks and complexity that the availability of MAID would present for individuals who suffer solely from mental illness. First, evidence suggests that screening for decision-making capacity is particularly difficult, and subject to a high degree of error, in relation to persons who suffer from a mental illness serious enough to ground a request for MAID.
At the time, the minister said that there was not the public support nor was the infrastructure in place to allow medical assistance in dying for individuals whose sole underlying condition is mental illness.
The bill, Bill C-7, then goes to the Senate, the unelected Senate. The Senate amends the bill to include mental illness with no safeguards, no accounting for the fact that it was an extreme broadening of Canada's MAID legislation and would, in fact, lead Canada to become an outlier.
That bill came back to the House and was passed by the government, with the opposition from our Conservative caucus members. Conservative parliamentarians were strongly opposed, because we knew that MAID should not be expanded to those who are suffering with mental illness.
When we are reaching out to those who are struggling, for example through Bell Let's Talk, and I see members of Parliament posting that on their social media, the terrible message that it sends is that we as a Parliament think that, for those suffering with mental illness, offering them death should be an option.
One may say, well, that is not what this is about. Unfortunately, that is exactly what it is about. It is already happening. Many of us were horrified to hear of bureaucrats from the Canadian government in a department to which we entrust vulnerable veterans, veterans suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder. Can one imagine the family of a veteran who goes to Veterans Affairs for help and, without even mentioning the issue, is offered the opportunity to explore medical assistance in dying, when they are suffering from PTSD?
Imagine how that would make one feel, for someone who is struggling and who is trying to stay motivated to stay alive. The Minister of Veterans Affairs said that this was a one-off, that this was just one problematic situation.
Unfortunately, we found out that it was not a one-off and that it had happened many times, an untold number of times. We do not know how many times it happened. This is before medical assistance in dying is officially expanded to those suffering with mental illness.
Why are we here today? We are here because the Minister of Justice supported this and pushed this forward in spite of, we know, the Liberal caucus members who are very uncomfortable with this, because they know it is wrong.
Just today, we read an article saying that only three in 10 Canadians support the idea of allowing patients to seek MAID based purely on mental illness. Seven in 10 Canadians, the constituents that these Liberal caucus members represent, do not support this going forward.
The Minister of Justice said, in the same article, “To be honest, we could have gone forward with the original date, but we want to be sure. We want to be safe. We want everybody to be on the same page.”
The government is saying that it needs everyone to think like it does and that everyone needs to warm up to the idea. We do not accept that. We are going to continue to fight for the most vulnerable. This is happening right now in Canada. It is very upsetting for many of us.
Then we read, in the same article, of a report that noted that an Ontario man recently made news after he requested MAID, not because he wanted to die, but because he thought it was a preferable alternative to being homeless. A disabled Ontario woman also applied for MAID after seven years of applying for affordable housing in Toronto with no luck.
The abuse of this system is happening in real time. It is happening now. Because of the passage of the amended Bill C-7, we were set for next month to have, without any safeguards, those suffering from mental illness be eligible for MAID. Bill C-39 is the government's attempt to kick this down the road another year.
Where have we seen these U-turns? We saw them with Bill C-75 on bail changes. The government overstepped, and now it is reversing course. On the gun legislation, the government realized there was a big overreach, and now it is time to climb down from that.
Canadians suffering with mental illness deserve better. They deserve a thoughtful approach. I stood in the House not long ago, back in October 2020, and Parliament was observing mental health week. Unfortunately, at that time, parliamentarians did not know that the Liberal government would soon include mental illness in its planned expansion.
The point in that speech was that one of the key foundations of Canadian society, in our collective identity, is that we are a caring and compassionate country. Canadians, many in this chamber, do not see anything caring or compassionate about making people who are living with mental illness eligible for medically assisted death.
What message does it send to Canadians who live with mental illness? They are not people who are at the end of their lives. These are not people who would otherwise die. Why is the Liberal government pushing to include them in its medical assistance in dying regime?
The president of the Canadian Medical Association said, “We have a responsibility, we believe, as physicians and as society, to make sure that all vulnerable Canadians have access to proper care and the support they need.” I listed two scenarios, and we all have these scenarios in our ridings of individuals in need who are not getting the help they need.
If we have not succeeded to make sure that every Canadian living with mental illness has access to timely mental health care or adequate support, how is it that the government and the minister were comfortable in proceeding with broadening medical assistance in dying in such a radical way to take effect next month? All this despite the fact that this radical expansion of MAID was passed in early 2021. Conservatives have not given up the fight to do what is right and to protect vulnerable Canadians. We will not give up that fight.
The government failed to conduct a mandatory review of its own MAID legislation. That was supposed to happen, and it did not happen. The minister was to complete a charter statement. He did that on Bill C-7. The Bill C-7 charter statement very clearly rationalized why individuals suffering with mental illness were not included in Bill C-7. That is how they arrived at the constitutionality of the bill.
With this massive change, we do not see the updated charter statement. We do not hear the minister talking about the charter rights of those who are suffering. This is remarkable because the statement was written over two years ago.
A few days ago, more than 25 legal experts signed a letter addressed to the Prime Minister and members of the cabinet, challenging them to do better on this.
This expansion is wrong. Conservatives will support extending the coming into force by this year, but in that time, we will not give up the fight to protect the most vulnerable.
