Ted Falk

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 19th, 2016]

With regard to staffing at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO): how many people are employed in the PMO at the salary rate of (i) $150 000 or more, (ii) $100 000 - $149 999.99, (iii) $65 000 - $99 999.99, (iv) $45 000 - $64 999.99, (v) less than $45 000?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 19th, 2016]

With regard to the organization Canada 2020: (a) since November 4, 2015, how much money has the government provided to Canada 2020 in contracts, grants, or in the sponsorship of events, broken down by item; and (b) has the government agreed to work with Canada 2020 in any future projects, and if so, which ones?

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 19th, 2016]

With regard to the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington from March 9 to 11, 2016: (a) how many guests who are not employees of the government were invited to events during the visit; and (b) how much money was spent to support the attendance of these guests?

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 19th, 2016]

With regard to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and contracts: (a) what contracts have been issued by the PMO from November 4, 2015, to present; and (b) for each of the contracts identified in (a), which were awarded without a competitive bidding process?

[Petitions, June 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from residents of Manitoba from various communities. The petitioners are asking the Parliament of Canada to enshrine in the Criminal Code the protection of conscience for physicians and health care institutions from coercion or intimidation to provide or refer for physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.

I also have a petition similar to it, predominantly from folks inside Winnipeg and communities surrounding Winnipeg to the same note.

[Fairness in Charitable Gifts Act, June 7th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank all the members for their consideration of my private member's bill, Bill C-239, the fairness in charitable gifts act. I know I have support in all the parties. I do not know how much support, but I know that all the parties have members who have indicated that they will support the bill, and for that I thank them.

It is an honour for me to rise in the House today to talk about my bill. I wish I could spend a bit more time talking about some of the information that was given here this evening to clarify some of the statistics and numbers. However, I do not have that much time, so I will stick to the speech I have prepared, and hopefully we can move this bill on to committee for further study to evaluate its merits.

This is a fair bill, it is a bill that would benefit all Canadians, and it is a bill that would foster a culture of generosity from coast to coast. The aim of the bill is to strengthen charities and encourage Canadians to engage with and promote charities. This is a non-partisan bill. This is not a bill for rich people. It would hardly benefit rich people or those who are making big donations. It is a bill that, for the most part, would help the middle class. That is something the government has said it is all about, helping the middle class, and that is what this bill is about.

The impact charities make across Canada, in all of our communities, is evident. It was most recently demonstrated during the recent forest fires in Fort McMurray. The lives of tens of thousands of Canadians were turned upside down. Yet through all that devastation, the Canadian Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and many other charitable groups rose to the challenge and were there to help.

The help from charities will continue. Long after the government, long after the cameras, long after the media are gone, the charities will be there to continue that good work to help the residents of Fort McMurray recover from the trauma. They will help them rebuild their homes and re-establish their shattered lives. Where would the residents of Fort McMurray be without these charities?

Bill C-239 is a bill that would inspire Canadians and foster a culture of generosity, a characteristic that I believe is central to our country and its people, a characteristic that has been evident in the support for Fort McMurray.

The bill would make it more affordable for Canadians to donate to charitable causes. Causes that do not get national media attention and do not catch the eye of the camera are often just as individually devastating to the people experiencing them as the fires in Fort McMurray. They just do not happen to capture the attention of the national media.

Every day, every night, right across Canada, tragedies happen. Folks lose their jobs, illness attacks, families are broken, and people's lives are shattered.

However, there is good news. The good news is that charities are there to provide food for the hungry, beds for the homeless, help for the hurting, support for the aging, and hope for the sick.

Where would we all be without charities?

Canadian charities do more than just that, though. They do more than just crisis intervention, more than just assistance to those folks who are needy. They conduct and advance scientific research. They promote medical research. They promote education. They promote care of our environment. The list could go on and on. Charities have also been instrumental in the resettling of refugee families. We heard from our immigration minister today the way charities right across Canada have ponied up, have come to the table, and are waiting for the refugees. They have made commitments to help settle these folks. That is what charities here in Canada do.

Yet despite all this good work they do and the incredible impact charities have on our lives, the fact remains that charities all cite a lack of funding as the number one reason for their inability to do more.

Canadian charities are faced with an aging and ever-declining donor base. In fact, the number of Canadians donating to charities and filing charitable donations on their tax returns has dropped from a high of 29.5% to 21.4% over the past 25 years. The donor base is declining, and that is something this bill would address.

The bill would incur a cost for our government. There would be a dip in revenue. However, what would cost even more and what we cannot afford is a capability gap in our charities due to a lack of donations.

When surveyed by Statistics Canada, 71% of Canadians stated that the number one reason they do not give is the lack of money. They simply cannot afford to give more.

How are we going to address that challenge?

Currently, the federal tax credits for political donations far exceed the federal tax credits for donations to charities.

As I am out of time, I would like to conclude by encouraging members in this House to support the bill and get it to committee where we can continue to study further its merits and make this happen.

[Criminal Code, May 31st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, that is a great question, because the Liberals did make a commitment to provide funding for palliative care. The doctors and nurses I have spoken to have said that when proper palliative care is available, the need for physician-assisted suicide just about falls down to nil. Had the money been in the budget that was promised by the Liberal government during the campaign, it would have helped to address that concern.

If we could provide proper palliative care for individuals, it would address the two basic fears that people told me they have at end of life. Number one is whether the pain can be controlled and number two is whether they can be helped with their fear, and both of those things can be addressed through proper palliative care.

[Criminal Code, May 31st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for that question because she is absolutely correct. There were no meaningful amendments directed toward the core of the bill that were accepted. The amendments that were accepted were minor in nature, or technical. The only substantive amendment of any sort, which is weak, is that there will be a palliative care review conducted every five years, along with a review of physician-assisted suicide legislation. Other than that, there were no amendments accepted by the Liberal government from the NDP, the Bloc, the Green Party, or the Conservative Party that were of any consequence.

[Criminal Code, May 31st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I am not sure what I am responding to, but I also want to make reference to my colleague from Mount Royal. He chairs the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights and he does a very admirable job. He serves us and this country well. He seeks to maintain a neutral and unbiased position, and gives us all an opportunity to present our concerns.

However, he is not completely accurate when he states that amendments were considered, because the consideration Conservatives asked for regarding conscience rights, in particular, was to have the bill amended, not merely to amend the preamble. The preamble states that no one shall be compelled by this legislation to perform physician-assisted suicide, but it does not provide specific and implicit conscience rights protection for health care individuals.

[Criminal Code, May 31st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I want to start by saying that I will be splitting my time with the member for Selkirk—Interlake.

I want to say right from the outset that I am conceptually opposed to Bill C-14. I believe in the sanctity of life, and I believe that all life, from conception right through to natural death, has value, has worth, and has purpose.

As a sitting member of the committee for justice and human rights, I spent several weeks together with the committee in significant and lengthy meetings examining Bill C-14. We spent long days listening to witness testimony from experts and organizations from all over the country, and then doing a clause-by-clause analysis of the bill. Despite the many concerns voiced again and again by witnesses, there were no meaningful amendments made to the bill.

Bill C-14 is called medical assistance in dying, but make no mistake, Bill C-14 is physician-assisted suicide. It is important that we make this distinction. The gravity of the bill should not be undermined by the colourful wording. The bill would change Canada forever, and it would be naive to think that Canada's most vulnerable people would not be at risk under the bill in its present state. This is the most significant social re-engineering bill in the past 25 years, because it changes how we view the sanctity of life.

The Supreme Court was very clear that physician-assisted suicide is not a charter right, but it is an exemption that could be provided on an exception basis providing individuals meet certain criteria. The person must be a competent adult who clearly consents to the termination of life, who has a grievous and irremediable medical condition, including an illness, disease, or disability that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition.

Bill C-14 clearly goes beyond the Supreme Court decision with a mandate to study making physician-assisted suicide available to mature minors, exploring the concept of advance directives, and providing physician-assisted suicide to mentally disabled individuals. This is just not acceptable.

The committee heard testimony from approximately 42 individuals and/or groups who all have a vested interest in this issue. Over 100 amendments were presented to committee based on evidence from witness testimony provided to committee. Sadly, the Liberals did not present any substantive amendments, and in fact, voted against any meaningful amendments presented by any of the opposition parties. The Conservatives presented many thoughtful amendments that would have strengthened the bill and added important safeguards, as they did last night at report stage. This is a missed opportunity.

Let me highlight just a few of these missed amendments, these missed opportunities.

These amendments included things like assuring that only trained and qualified medical practitioners, in other words physicians, would assess the individual and administer the lethal cocktail that would eventually procure death. The way the legislation is presently drafted, it would allow a person to obtain the lethal drug from pharmacists, take it home, self-administer, and procure their own death. This worries me, and it should worry every Canadian. Witnesses presented testimony that in other jurisdictions that permit this practice, 30% to 40% of prescriptions for death go unused.

What happens to these unused drugs? What if the drugs fall into the wrong hands? What if the drugs were not administered properly? What if they did not take all of it and complications set in as a result? How can we be sure that the individuals were not at some point pressured into it? There are just way too many unanswered questions in the bill.

The bill would also make it near impossible for medical practitioners to monitor and report on subsequent events. Did the patient self-administer the drug or did the patient die from an illness? How do we ensure that we have the correct data to track euthanasia in Canada? These are valid concerns being voiced by Canadians, and it could have been addressed in the amendments that we proposed at committee.

The Liberals are unwilling to consider an amendment to ensure physician supervision during the procedure.

In addition, Bill C-14 allows for nurse practitioners to provide medical assistance in dying. There are substantial differences between a medical practitioner and a nurse practitioner, including the length of time spent training and the ability to prescribe various narcotics, yet suddenly, in this bill, we are affording them the ability to assess an individual's eligibility for physician-assisted suicide and prescribe life-ending cocktails, which is in stark contrast to the typical expectations we have of nurse practitioners.

This goes too far and is another issue we sought to address in the bill. Again, this is a missed opportunity.

We also provided an amendment that would have removed psychological suffering as an eligibility consideration for physician-assisted suicide. This, quite simply, leaves too much room for interpretation. Allowing for psychological suffering as an eligibility consideration is the start of a very slippery slope in terms of who can receive physician-assisted suicide and for what purpose.

We also suggested that “reasonably foreseeable death”, as defined in the bill, would be replaced with imminent death or at least death expected within 30 days. We heard testimony from witnesses on either end of the spectrum raising various concerns about this wording. “Reasonably foreseeable” in one physician's eyes could be completely different in the eyes of another. This will certainly open the door to uncertainty among patients and practitioners, and will definitely lead to subsequent lawsuits.

To further strengthen safeguards, we proposed an amendment requiring that prior judicial review had occurred to ensure that all criteria for physician-assisted suicide eligibility had been met.

Dr. Will Johnston, chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of British Columbia, came to testify before committee. He said the following:

...although it might be assumed, nowhere specifies that doctors must actually examine the patient, the extent to which they must do so, or the extent that doctors must inquire into the internal and external factors that create vulnerability for the patient.

Dr. Johnston brings forward a valuable consideration. Bill C-14 does not stipulate to what degree a patient should be examined nor does it require examination of the factors creating vulnerability for the patient.

In addition, we know that this is a complicated matter and difficult to address in legislation. Every individual and every disease presents a different set of challenges. Judicial oversight would ensure that individuals meet all the criteria given their unique set of circumstances and would further protect Canada's most vulnerable people. Again, this very reasonable amendment was rejected.

We also put forward a request that palliative care consultation be included as a criterion for seeking physician-assisted death. Patients would be made aware of all options available to them and ensure palliative care options were understood, offered, and available.

We heard time and again in committee that access to palliative care is a problem in this country. We also heard that palliative care, especially chronic pain treatment and counselling services, is very successful at alleviating the suffering, depression, and anxiety, things that lead people to wish to hasten their death.

The minister spoke on palliative care, and insisted that palliative care and physician-assisted suicide go hand in hand, yet the committee refused to adopt palliative care consultations as a prerequisite component in the bill.

The Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians outlined the issue well before committee. They wrote:

In order to ensure that medically assisted death is not our first or only response to human suffering, we need to build in an explicit legal requirement to identify, explore and record the sources of a person’s suffering and attempt to address the motivations of his/her request for death. This should not be undertaken as a screening or determination process, but rather an opportunity to ensure that a person who requests an assisted death is fully informed of available options for treatment.... The Bill should be amended to incorporate a meaningful right for patients to be informed of the full range of available treatments, technologies and supports that could ease their suffering, whatever its source.

Palliative care consultations would protect patients and ensure that physician-assisted death does not become the first response to human suffering. I cannot understand why the government would not want to ensure patients have sought out all other alternatives before requesting physician-assisted death.

One of the things we were very clear about, which the evidence produced over and over again in committee, was the whole need for conscience rights protection, not only for individuals but institutions. This came across as a large concern. We presented several amendments to committee that would have met the concern of many institutions and individuals that may be forced or required to offer this service. These amendments were all rejected, not only at committee but they were rejected here last night at report stage as well. We find that unacceptable.