Tamara Jansen

[Criminal Code, December 8th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is important to understand that we looked very closely at what our amendments were to ensure that they would be allowed. Unfortunately, the Liberals voted all of our amendments down.

[Criminal Code, December 8th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, what we are hearing is that those who are vulnerable are not able to access meaningful care. Without access to meaningful care, many of them have no choices. They are in our hands and we are not offering them care. We are offering them euthanasia.

I would like to point out what happened with MP Mark Warawa. He was diagnosed with cancer and it took him nine days to see a palliative care specialist. There were only two of them in the hospital there. The fact that it took him nine days to be able to see a palliative care specialist shines a light on the fact that our system needs more support. We need to ensure that these sorts of care are in place for those who are in need of them. To ignore them like this, and to rush this legislation in the way that we have been doing, is absolutely shocking. To see the vulnerable advocates who came forward at the justice committee, and who were ignored, is quite shocking. I would love to see the government stop and actually listen to those who are begging it to ensure there is care, and not a rush to death.

[Criminal Code, December 8th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I have been an advocate on this issue for many years now, and worked with Mark Warawa, an amazing member of Parliament who is no longer with us. I have had many people come to me with their concerns about issues of non-compliance. Perhaps other members have not been paying attention, but had they, and had they been advocating on behalf of the disabled and the elderly, they would know that this was happening. There is absolutely zero way of monitoring it.

Before anything, we absolutely need to ensure that vulnerable Canadians are protected. We are focusing on Bill C-7 rather than on ensuring that there is some sort of protocol in place, as the UN Rapporteur talked about, where we can monitor what is going on rather than just on MAID providers. We are opening it up more and more, and we have no way of knowing how much abuse is happening.

Again, I am speaking on behalf of those who are not able to speak for themselves and I am saying it is happening. We need to watch out. We need to take care not to push these myths forward.

[Criminal Code, December 8th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I support two very important principles. The first is that choices are patient-initiated, which is very important. The second is meaningful access to care before MAID is carried out.

If we cannot even manage to offer palliative care or psychiatric care, how can we honestly do what we are doing? The palliative care bill that we passed a number of years ago says that MAID cannot be considered voluntary if there is no meaningful access to care. I am begging members to consider that this is a bad bill. We need to focus on offering good medical care.

I will give the member a few statistics that come from the Canadian Association for Long Term Care. The 2017 federal budget included a historic $6 billion over 10 years for home and community care, but long-term care was not included in this investment. The national housing strategy does not include long-term care. The home support work pilot for foreign caregivers does not include employment in long-term care. The 2019 federal budget did not include investments in long-term care. The federal government flowed $343.2 billion in COVID-19-related spending in the first quarter of this year, and not one dollar was committed to supporting long-term care.

How are we going to support our seniors, our vulnerable, if we do not invest in long-term care?

[Criminal Code, December 8th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to address the House on this very important issue and to continue to act as a voice for those who continue to be ignored.

The government is acting as if rushing the legislation through in order to meet the Truchon deadline is its number one priority. Canadians are suffering because of the pandemic, and while people and businesses continue to fall through the cracks, the government is prioritizing expanding access to euthanasia over providing Canadians with the support they need. Shockingly, it is rushing the bill through before the mandated five-year review of the euthanasia regime in Canada has even taken place. This is reckless and this recklessness will cost people their lives.

The Truchon decision is not a binding legal decision for the House of Commons, but the government is choosing to act as though it is, despite calls from this side of the House to appeal it. When we are dealing with something this serious, with stakes as high as life and death, it is imperative that the process is not rushed by a lower provincial court decision. Our vulnerable citizens deserve better. In all honesty, this deadline is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

Amazingly, Bill C-7 would not only expand access to euthanasia to those for whom death is not reasonably foreseeable, but goes beyond Truchon by eliminating necessary safeguards that are in place to protect the vulnerable. By removing the 10-day reflection period, people nearing the end of their lives can receive medical assistance in dying on the very same day they request it. That means, in essence, for many Canadians, their worst day will be their last day.

I would like to point out an important statistic from the “First Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada” presented in 2019. In this report, it states that as of the date of its release, 263 Canadians who had requested MAID ended up withdrawing their requests. Because of the current 10-day waiting period, 263 Canadian lives were saved. It is clear these people felt they wanted to die on the day the request was made, but decided days later that they wanted to keep on living.

Had the 10-day reflection period not been in place, 263 Canadians would have had their lives ended prematurely. Maybe it was a phone call from an old friend, meeting with a family member or good news from their physician that caused them to change their minds. It does not matter. The point is that they did. Why does the government want to rob Canadians of the opportunity to make that decision? It justifies the need for Bill C-7 with the Truchon decision, but where in Truchon does it say that?

Another important safeguard that Bill C-7 seeks to eliminate is the requirement for final consent. This is one that truly frightens me. The reasoning behind the removal of this safeguard is the fact that a person may lose the capacity to consent to euthanasia before it is carried out if a person's illness advances causing significant cognitive decline. Therefore, people can give advance consent to have their lives ended should they lose the capacity to make such a difficult decision.

It fascinates me that we all agree that if a person is unable to provide advance consent to sexual activity, and that person is taken advantage of when not having capacity to say no, a crime has been committed. However, the government believes people can provide advance consent to have their lives ended, even if they lose the capacity to say no when the procedure takes place. The problem with the principle of advance consent is that it is impossible to know what people's desires are if they are unable to communicate them. We cannot know if a person in that state truly wants to die. Maybe the individual has had a change of heart and wishes to keep on living at the time MAID is administered, but just can't say that. That is horrifying.

The risks associated with the removal of the 10-day reflection period and the requirement for final consent are too serious for me to accept. We should remember that the stakes are as high as life and death. The government needs to protect vulnerable Canadians. It needs to ensure safeguards are in place. The removal of these safeguards puts their lives in danger.

I would like to remind the government of the voices it ignored in its rush to meet this unnecessary deadline, the voices of disabled Canadians, their doctors and advocates. I remind members of the words of Krista Carr, the executive director of Inclusion Canada, who said that this bill is disabled Canadians' “worst nightmare”. There are also the words of Catherine Frazee, who said that the bill tells people like her that their lives are not worth living.

How about Dr. Heidi Janz? She told the justice committee that the bill “will result in people with disabilities seeking MAID as an ultimate capitulation to a lifetime of ableist oppression.” Roger Foley bravely told the committee from his hospital bed that, if the bill passes, he will not survive and the Parliament of Canada will have his blood on its hands.

I am here in the House to remind the government of the words they refused to listen to. The stream of euthanasia access for those who are not dying is ableist and dangerous. These are not my words. These are their words.

Doctors who work with disabled Canadians made it very clear at committee that a 90-day waiting period is simply not enough time. They explained that suicidal ideations are very common when someone experiences a catastrophic medical episode, but with good care and support they are almost always overcome.

In my last speech on the bill, I introduced the House to Kristine Cowley's story. Since her spinal cord injury 33 years ago, Kristine has lived the kind of life that most able-bodied people dream of, but it took her years after her injury to feel great again. She worries that people like her will decide to end their lives when they are at their lowest point.

Now I will share the story of David Shannon. David suffered a spinal cord injury in a rugby scrum when he was 18 years old. He shared that after his accident he lay in bed close to death more times than he wishes to contemplate. David has gone on to have a career in non-governmental organization leadership and a law practice focused on human rights and health law.

I will share a comment from David:

I have accomplished a lot in my life. I've crossed our great country by the power of my wheelchair—coast to coast. I've jumped out of an airplane at over 25,000 feet. I've made it to the North Pole and planted an accessible parking sign. I’ve written a book, performed in plays and on TV. I’ve received my law degree and been a Human Rights Commissioner. And I am an Order of Ontario and Order of Canada recipient. I’ve loved and been loved. My proudest accomplishment is that I lived.

Several times during this debate, members on this side of the House have asked how many stories like this will never be told if Bill C-7 passes. I urge my hon. colleagues to truly understand what is being asked here. Much like the removal of safeguards, knowing that lives like those of David Shannon and Kristine Cowley will be cut short if this legislation passes is far too great a risk for me to accept.

Those who support the bill continue to fall back on the idea of autonomy to justify their willingness to ignore these risks, so I will read a comment from David Shannon addressing this:

What offends me most about Bill C-7 is that there is an implicit licence to promote death. And I ask, why is there not the promotion to pursue one’s autonomy? When someone is first injured, they are compromised. They need to know there are supports available, that life can be fantastic, not coerced to leave their life and loved ones behind.

When someone is first injured, they are compromised. When someone is compromised, their autonomy is impaired. It is in this compromised state that the government wishes to offer death to Canadians. I will also remind the House of the government's absolute failure to provide disabled Canadians with the care they need. I remind the House that it often takes much longer than 90 days to even see a specialist. I remind the House what the Minister of Disability Inclusion told the justice committee: It is easier to receive MAID in this country than it is to receive a wheelchair.

Not only are we offering death when a patient's autonomy is most compromised, but we are coercing patients to die by failing to offer them care. I have asked this before, and I must ask it again: Do we really want our legacy as members of Parliament to be the Parliament that offered patients death before we offered them care? That is where we are headed with this legislation.

Once again, on behalf of disabled Canadians, their doctors and their advocates, I am begging members of the House to stop this attack on Canada's disabled community. They have been crystal clear about the ultimate abuse that their community would be subject to if the bill passes. I am begging members to hear their pleas. We know the abuse we can expect in the future, so the government will not be able to say it did not know, just that it did not listen.

We have been warned in no uncertain terms about what will come, but now I would like to speak about the abuse that is already happening.

Gabrielle Peters, a journalist who lives with a spinal cord injury, wrote the following in a recent open letter to Canadian senators. “I know that Bill C7 must be stopped because I know passage of this bill will result in preventable deaths of disabled people. I know this because I know those already happen. I know they already happen because I was almost one of them.”

The government is rushing to eliminate safeguards for euthanasia when the current safeguards are not even being adhered to. According to bioethicist Dr. Jaro Kotalik, it is evident provincial and territorial authorities are not fully engaged in their role of monitoring, enforcing and reporting on the performance of the MAID program, which they are expected to do according to federal laws and regulations.

This is clear from Roger Foley's testimony to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. His caregivers, who he depends on for every comfort and necessity of life, have suggested four times that he opt for MAID. Roger's death is not reasonably foreseeable, so this is completely illegal.

It is incredible that on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, every Liberal MP voted against protections for persons with disabilities being added to Bill C-7. Even the Minister of Disability Inclusion, who expressed in the Senate pre-study that she shares some of the concerns of disabled Canadians, voted against our amendment.

Let me remind the House what the UN special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities said on her visit to Canada: “I am extremely concerned about the implementation of the legislation on medical assistance in dying from a disability perspective. I have been informed that there is no protocol in place to demonstrate that persons with disabilities have been provided with viable alternatives when eligible for assistive dying.”

The opposition tried to address that concern by moving an amendment in committee requiring that patients have meaningful access to care before MAID can be administered. I remind the House that the Liberal members voted it down.

Let me share another concern raised by the rapporteur. She said, “I have further received worrisome claims about persons with disabilities in institutions being pressured to seek medical assistance in dying, and practitioners not formally reporting cases involving persons with disabilities.”

Earlier I referenced the 2019 Health Canada report on MAID. While some of the statistics therein were helpful, there were clearly some issues with the report, namely the lack of any mention of abuse. The information collected was self-reported by MAID providers, so uncovering abuses was unlikely. We know there has been abuse; that much is clear. Cases like Roger Foley's, as well as those of many others, make this undeniable.

Archie Rolland, 18 months before his death by MAID, was transferred against his will from a residence that provided highly specialized care to a geriatric long-term care facility that could not meet his needs. He said that it was not the illness that was killing him. He was tired of fighting for compassionate care.

Sean Tagert, a father with ALS, exhausted from battling for the care he needed to live at home, was told he would have to be placed in a long-term care centre hours away from his home community and family. He was unable to live the remainder of his days at home with his young son and felt the only option was MAID.

There are also the stories of Alan Nichols, Yvon Tremblay, Gabriel Bouchard, Tommy Sec, Jonathan Marchand, Raymond Bourbonnais, Candice Lewis and far too many more. Some of these people are still fighting for their lives and some of them already gave in to the pressure to die.

Why are there so many horror stories? Why is there such a lack of compliance? It is simple: There is a lack of oversight. Many doctors and family members of patients have told me their complaints lie dead in the water. There also exists a culture of severe bullying in medicine, so doctors are scared to speak up out of fear of losing their jobs.

A press release from back in March written by the Physicians' Alliance against Euthanasia said, “The pressure has been intense for many physicians, especially amongst palliative specialists, some leaving even before this latest development. Descriptions were made of toxic practice environments and fear of discipline by medical regulators.”

When I last spoke to the bill, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice asked me if I knew of any cases of pressure that led to prosecution. There are plenty of cases of pressure, just no prosecution. When complaints are made about abuse, there is virtually no avenue for recourse. If someone complains to the police, they are blocked from investigating by doctor-patient confidentiality. When complaints are made to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, they are not followed up on. Many doctors feel cowed into submission before complaints are ever made in the first place.

I attempted to find out from the Legislative Library of British Columbia how many complaints were lodged against doctors with B.C.'s College of Physicians and Surgeons regarding MAID. The response I got is as follows. “The College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. cannot disclose the existence of a patient complaint against a physician, unless the complaint leads to formal discipline. Therefore, the exact number of complaints to the college, whether related to MAID or not, is not possible to ascertain using public sources.”

The response went on to offer me a media scan of newspaper stories related to MAID complaints in the hopes this would be helpful. Imagine that: The only place where any information is publicly available on MAID complaints is in the media. Shame on us. Imagine the cases of elder abuse that are happening under this easy-to-cheat scheme. We have millions of elderly Canadians with no protection from this regime because there is absolutely no way of monitoring it.

Imagine the cases like that of my constituents, who attended a town hall I held when the MAID survey was open for submissions. Together with almost 100 people, we went through each question attempting to understand and respond in a thoughtful way. The more questions we answered, the more we all realized the issue was far too complicated and nuanced for a survey to be of any good.

Then a young father stood up and told his own story of being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. In the town hall, he explained how he had become depressed following his diagnosis and sought counselling to help him cope with his new reality. Instead, his counsellor offered him MAID. He was shocked that in his darkest hour a professional counsellor would suggest the very thing that was extremely tempting for him, but not in alignment with his ultimate goal to live his best life to its natural conclusion.

The medical professional on our panel was shocked. This was completely illegal under current law and should have been reported, to which the young man said this: How does one even report it? Imagine that: This man, whose life was put in jeopardy, was completely unaware of even how to report the incident. The doctor said he could go online and write a complaint to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and told him to do it right away. The young man replied that he did not have the energy. He was going through chemotherapy and was absolutely exhausted. He could not wrap his mind around anything extra at that time.

How many people are out there right now who either do not know who to file a complaint with or just do not have the energy or strength in them to fight? They are already fighting a battle with death and now we want them to go online and file a complaint they may not live to see to its conclusion.

Let me close with a comment from a constitutional lawyer, Derek Ross. He said:

In the face of ongoing evidence that the current procedural safeguards are not being followed, it is alarming that the government is seeking to remove many of those safeguards, rather than strengthen and uphold them. Who is investigating these findings of non-compliance? And who is collecting and consolidating this data? The Carter decision was premised on the assumption that procedural safeguards would be “scrupulously monitored and enforced”. The federal government bears responsibility for reviewing reported cases of non-compliance and ensuring that data regarding non-compliance is gathered and used to inform future policy decisions.

There are horrible abuses of the current MAID regime taking place, which anyone who is engaged with it will know. The bill is a nightmare to disabled Canadians and to physicians across Canada. The risks associated with it are too serious to accept, and the stakes are as high as life and death. We cannot get this wrong.

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, federal flip-flopping has led to poor leadership on behalf of the provinces. What is really important is that we get consistent and stick to the right leadership plan, because doing otherwise causes chaos for everybody.

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives would like smart programs that do what they are supposed to do. People from my riding who have small businesses and are self-employed are calling me to say they have just been told they have to return the entire amount of the CERB simply because the government forgot to give a little detail about who actually qualified. This is outrageous. This has happened time and time again with these programs, and we are begging the government to stop and think carefully when they make these programs so that people are not harmed, but helped.

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have been working very hard on behalf of small business. We see that the government has given households $7 for every $1 that went to small business, and it almost reeks of vote buying. We need to make sure that small businesses, which are the backbone of our economy, are supported with good programs that actually help them get through the pandemic.

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I most certainly do believe in science, as do most Canadians. We want to make sure that we are changing based on science, not based on ideology.

[Business of Supply, December 7th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, Cloverdale—Langley City is becoming a ghost town. After a recent strengthening of restrictions announced for the Fraser Valley region, most people retreated back into isolation: no visiting, no travel, no gym, no church. We were urged not to venture out at all for anything, so this week we saw a huge run on live Christmas trees and toilet paper while people prepared to be locked in their homes for Christmas.

We sit and watch the daily COVID updates with health officials showing us charts and graphs that demonstrate the science that drives this bus, and then they ban parking lot church services conducted via FM radio, lock seniors in their rooms without the loving touch of their families and encourage us to download COVID apps that do not even function in many of the provinces across the country. Is it any wonder that people are becoming cynical and starting to lose hope?

This government has stumbled from the very beginning of this tragic moment in our history. It sent mixed messages about lethality and transmissibility from day one: Masks do not work; masks do work. Asymptomatic people do not transmit it; asymptomatic people do transmit it. Rapid tests are snake oil; rapid tests are on the way. One can collect rent relief if one's landlord is willing to apply, but the majority were unwilling. One could collect CERB if one is self-employed, but now one has to pay it all back because of a three-letter word the government neglected to mention, so sell the truck and tools, Mr. Small Businessman, as there is until December 31 to pay it back.

People are not only losing hope. They are losing their homes. They are losing their livelihoods and their lives because of consistent bungling of programs like testing and tracking, vaccine procurement, financial support programs and the list goes on. Canadians are tired of hearing the meaningless platitudes coming from the tent of commons, given in the Prime Minister's best late-night DJ voice. It is clear that we are not all in this together.

For example, on a recent Zoom meeting with independent travel agents, it was obvious that the tourism and travel sector are barely holding on by a thread. This recession, or should I say she-cession, is tearing the supports out from under many women who have built their own small businesses over the years, providing top-notch travel advice and service. It all began for them when airlines began cancelling flights due to COVID-19. People were fighting hard to get home from abroad and leaned on the army of ladies who booked their original tickets. Thousands of hours were spent, unpaid, trying to help clients find their way home.

Then, the next wave hit. Again, without receiving a dime in compensation, these same ladies worked tirelessly to help clients find ways to alter or cancel their 2020 bookings, which were no longer valid due to travel restrictions. As large airlines began to refuse cash refunds and travel insurance companies did the same, these women, many of whom are the single breadwinner in the family, in an attempt to do their best on their clients' behalf, gave up thousands of dollars of commission in order to secure a refund for their frustrated customers.

Keep in mind that the commissions being clawed back are based on a service, booking flights and hotels, which they had provided but which the airline and tour operators were unable to fulfill. Imagine the incredible stress they are enduring right now with the threat of chargebacks by credit card companies as angry customers demand refunds for tours they cannot take. These chargebacks are going straight against the small business owner and can range in the thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars that these women cannot afford.

We are clearly not all in this together. The travel and tourism sectors have been begging for targeted assistance from the beginning, but their cries have fallen on deaf ears. Now as we approach Christmas, these wives and mothers want to know if they are going to be able to afford Christmas at all this year. They need to know who the newly announced highly affected sectors credit availability program will be helping. Is it only for the big players or is there relief in sight for them? What criteria will be in place? When can they apply?

They need details now, not later. We have seen this sort of pandemic program rollout time and time again: There are big announcements and then months of waiting, while women wait and hope against hope that there is help on the horizon.

Small business owners are drowning in despair right now. They are having a hard time keeping their doors open under the weight of the restrictions that keep changing without warning. Forty per cent of small businesses fear they will not survive. They pivot and they pivot again. They cut costs where they can. They call sons, daughters, uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews to help with the work, while they struggle to find employees willing to come back. CERB payments encourage people to stay home rather than exceed their allotted hours. This caused a lack of labour availability for restaurants and the service industry across Canada.

Pandemic relief measures were supposed to help businesses get through the pandemic, but the fact is that the government gave households nearly $7 for each $1 of lost private sector income. Rather than investing in job creation, these programs are enabling one-time consumption of offshore goods, and now the government is set to add insult to injury to small businesses by adding payroll tax increases in January to their already overburdened shoulders. However, there is more. Over behind door number three, we find yet another lovely addition to the tax portfolio by way of a carbon tax increase.

If, as we hear endlessly from the Liberals, we are all in this together, why are small businesses bearing so much more of the burden than bureaucrats, politicians and wealthy elite? Are we truly prepared to crush the backbone of our economy: the corner store, the coffee shop, the nail salon and every small endeavour in between? It is times like these that remind me of a quote from Ronald Reagan about how the government views the economy: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Jack Mintz recently urged the government to spur on private sector growth, without which we will not be able to recover from pandemic-related economic decline. As he said in his Financial Post article:

One thing this pandemic has taught is that it’s the private sector that delivers tests, vaccines, telecommunications and groceries to Canadians. Canada’s lost output from 2020 to 2025 will total $730 billion. That won’t be made up without a resilient private sector. Public spending is not a magic wand. It can even be a malevolent wand: high deficits and looming tax hikes can rattle investor confidence, leading to capital flight.

The finance minister indicated that she wants to pour up to $100 billion into building back better, using task forces and government departments that will be deployed on every ideological platform she can think of. It is all about the reset that the Prime Minister boasted about back in September to the UN.

Canadians do not want a reimagined economy. They want help to fight COVID. They want rapid tests and vaccines. They want science-based solutions that do not change with the direction of the wind. They need clarity so they can make their own plans to survive this crisis. We must let them get back to what they are good at. They know how to keep their customers safe. That is what they do every day they open their doors.

Rex Murphy recently highlighted the snobbery that is implicit in the statement “we are all in this together”. He said:

Everyone bears the health risk of the current moment. Not everyone faces losing their employment or their business. The latter deserve better thoughts, maybe more understanding, than have been shown by the better off and more comfortably situated.

I am here to speak on behalf of truckers, plumbers, carpenters, taxi drivers, furniture movers, waiters, bus boys and janitors. They are bearing the weight of this pandemic far more than those of us in the House, who are deciding their futures. They need a plan that is concrete and fixed.

They are not looking for a brave new world. They are looking to have a Christmas dinner with their family and friends without fear of being fined. They are looking for a way to attend Christmas mass or Handel's Messiah in peace. The Liberals offer a robust portfolio of vaccines that will not arrive in our local pharmacies until next September. Does the government honestly think Canadians can wait that long?