Madam Speaker, we have been here before, with the Liberals scrambling to meet a deadline, unable to get their act together. In this case, though, perhaps the delay will provide us with the opportunity to get things right, or at least, that is my hope.
The question that we need to ask here is not whether there should be a delay in when medical assistance in dying is extended to the mentally ill, but whether such an expansion is a wise move at all.
Seven years ago, I stood in the House and predicted that we would be here today. On May 5, 2016, I said:
It does not take much talent to predict that in the aftermath of this legislation there will be confusion.
However, if killing patients becomes an option, for whatever supposedly good reason, how long will it be before that reason becomes more flexible than rigid? What about those with no family who are a drain on hospital resources? Would it not be in the financial best interests of society to end their lives?
How are we going to prevent families from pressuring their aged ones, urging them to request death so that the next generation of the family will be financially better off? There are so many issues that are still unresolved. We are acting in haste, and it seems to be almost guaranteed that we will get it wrong....
We might not be discussing this issue if we were doing a better job as a nation in assisting those approaching the end of their natural life. Where is the commitment of the government to increase funding for palliative care, which was an election promise unfulfilled in budget 2016?
I did not, at that time, address the issue of so-called assistance in dying for those who are mentally ill. I confess that, at that time, it never occurred to me that such an idea would be considered.
We were talking about those whose deaths were not only foreseen but imminent. The idea of hastening natural death was put forward as something compassionate, to ease the pain of those suffering from terminal illness.
How quickly times have changed. What was once unthinkable is now being promoted as normal, which may explain why, in October of last year, a representative of the Quebec college of physicians suggested that MAID be extended to infants under the age of one with serious health conditions. These children are obviously too young to make such a decision themselves.
It was somewhat reassuring to hear the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion say that she was shocked by the suggestion and found it unacceptable. It was less reassuring when the minister also said that she could not speak on behalf of the entire government on the issue, which means that I would not be surprised if, in the not-so-distant future, we are being asked to make yet another extension to the circumstances in which MAID is available.
According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canada's largest mental health teaching hospital and one of the world's leading research centres in the mental health field, in any given year, one in five Canadians experience a mental illness. That, to put it mildly, is a significant number. Furthermore, by the time Canadians reach 40 years of age, one in two, which is half the population, have or have had a mental illness.
We need to recognize what that means for our country. Mental illness is a serious problem, but addressing it by making assisted suicide an option is not the way to proceed.
Speaking to the CBC, the minister of disability said that she frequently hears that some people with disabilities are seeking assisted death because they cannot find adequate housing or sufficient care, that they are choosing death because of a lack of social supports.
Is that not also the case for those suffering from mental illness? The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health tells us that about 4,000 Canadians commit suicide each year, an average of almost 11 a day, people of all ages and backgrounds. Those numbers are sobering.
In Ontario, 4% of adults and 14% of high school students report having seriously contemplated suicide in the past year. More than 75% of suicides involve men, but women attempt suicide three to four times more often. More than half of suicides involve people aged 45 or older.
In Alberta, each year, according to the University of Alberta, one in six people will seriously think about suicide. There are an average of 2,400 hospital stays and more than 6,000 emergency room visits annually for self-inflicted injuries, the result of suicide attempts. More than 500 Albertans will die by suicide each year. According to Alberta Health Services, in 2018, 7,254 Albertans visited the emergency department for suicide attempts. Three out of four suicide deaths are male, about 50% being middle-aged men aged 40 to 64.
After accidents, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 24. Indigenous people, especially youth, die by suicide at rates much higher than non-indigenous people. First nations youth aged 15 to 24 die by suicide about six times more often than non-indigenous youth. Suicide rates for Inuit youth are about 24 times the national average. This is a national tragedy.
Experts tell us that mental and physical health are linked, which means that people with long-term physical health conditions such as chronic pain are much more likely to also experience mood disorders. In the same way, people suffering from mood disorders are at much higher risk of developing a long-term medical condition.
What does it say about Canada as a society and Canadians as people that our response to mental illness is now going to be focusing on killing people rather than appropriate medical treatment? If we were doing a better job of supporting those who are mentally ill, we might not be having this discussion today.
Many of those suffering from mental illness in its various forms will tell us that there are good days and bad days. On the bad days, when the dark cloud descends and it feels like it will never lift, death seems a pleasant option, but for most people, it does lift. As I said earlier, about half the population will experience some form of mental illness at some point in their lives. For most, it is something they can overcome.
Making suicide easier by calling it “medical assistance in dying” will, I am certain, mean that people with treatable mental illness will choose death. Some may do so because they are having a low period and do not see any hope for the future. For others, it may be a lack of medical and social support to help them deal with their illness.
Mental illness in Canada is estimated to cost about $50 billion annually when we include health care costs, loss of productivity and a reduction in health-related quality of life. That cost could be reduced if we were to invest more in mental health promotion and illness prevention programs, more support for early intervention aimed at children and families, and more emphasis on treatment for depression and anxiety disorders.
We need to pass this legislation, because there is a deadline approaching. Even more, though, we need to look at how we support those who are suffering from mental illness. Killing them should not be an option.