Medical Assistance in Dying committee  First of all, I deeply regret the fact that the Truchon case was never appealed in the court of appeal or in the Supreme Court of Canada. Failing that, the government should have had the courage to refer it to the Supreme Court of Canada, and I believe something more progressive would have emerged.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  That is a tough question in many ways, but their answers are fairly simple. They say that this is a fundamentally ableist society and that those norms that devalue people with disabilities, especially persons with mental illness but also all people with disabilities, are ingrained in our medical systems and our legal system.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  The quick answer is that we have to disaggregate the concept of choice and autonomy for a person with a serious, long-term mental illness because of all of the psychosocial factors that infuse diagnosis and experience. If you think about persons with disabilities in general, their choices are driven by poverty, isolation, stigma, loneliness, feeling that they are a burden and so on, as well as potentially being coerced.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I'm just responding from the point of view of these providers. They said that over half of the time—

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  The answer is that, no, they are not adequate to provide confident predictions, according to medical professionals.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Obviously, this question is best put to representatives of indigenous persons, so I have looked to them for the content of my answer. In February 2021, for example, many distinguished indigenous signatories wrote to Parliament that the consultation here has not been adequate and “has not taken into account the existing health disparities and social inequalities we face compared to non-Indigenous people”.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  There is emphatically not a consensus. First of all, I think you should listen to Canadians with disabilities, who say.... For example, the CMHA states that “cases of severe and persistent mental illness that are initially resistant to treatment can, in fact, show significant recovery over time."

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Good evening, and thank you for this opportunity of contributing to your reflections. I'm opposed to this change in Canadian criminal law. I don't think Canada will ever be ready, from a public policy perspective, for MAID for persons with mental illness. Adoption would alienate and harm people with disabilities in Canada, contrary to our charter and to our international human rights law obligations, and it will diminish our well-earned UN reputation.