44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 13, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, it is not only in Saskatchewan that people will benefit. Ironically, I was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, so it is near and dear to my heart. Coal-fired plants are being shut down in the Regina area and these skilled labour folks are going to need a home. In the event they decide they cannot get to another job right in Saskatchewan, they can get across the country from coast to coast to coast with their travel expenses paid. It gives them another opportunity, a great opportunity.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate on Bill C‑241.
As my hon. colleagues know, this bill would amend the Income Tax Act to allow tradespeople to deduct travel expenses if their job site is far from their place of residence.
Our government is already well aware that the health of the Canadian economy depends on the ability of rapidly growing sectors and businesses to attract the workers they need to grow and succeed. That is why we have already created a new labour mobility deduction in budget 2022. Canadians will be able to file their income tax returns for 2022 starting next week.
As of next week, when they do file their tax returns, Canadians will be eligible, for the first time, for a new deduction of up to $4,000 in eligible travel and temporary relocation expenses through our labour mobility tax deduction for tradespeople.
Our government shares the very same goal as the member for Essex. The labour mobility deduction that is now in place by this government is carefully and effectively targeted at achieving its objective. It provides greater clarity than Bill C-241 on the definition of core concepts as well. For example, Bill C-241 does not define “travelling expenses” or “construction activity”. It also uses the term “tax credit”. I have looked, but I have not seen that as a defined term in our tax laws.
The bill would also introduce fairness issues between tradespersons and indentured apprentices and other employees. That is because it would provide the former with tax recognition for long-distance commuting, while considering it a non-deductible, personal expense for the latter group of people.
The bill also requires no minimum period for relocation, places no limit on the number of trips or the amount of expenses that could be deducted in a year, and makes no allowance for trips that might span multiple tax years. Unlike Bill C-241, the labour mobility tax deduction for tradespeople that our government put in place includes safeguards that contain its scope and cost and ensure that it provides fair and targeted support where it is needed most.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated the incremental cost of Bill C-241, taking into account the fact that an existing deduction is already in place for the same purpose. The PBO's analysis reflects the fact that if Bill C-241 is passed, taxpayers will have to choose between the two options. This would result in substantially similar deductions being available to taxpayers for the same purpose and, in turn, would likely result in administrative challenges for the Canada Revenue Agency and confusion for tax filers, particularly given that the 2022 tax filing season will begin soon, as I mentioned at the outset.
Bill C-241 has no cap and a slightly different threshold for distance, and the PBO estimated only a small incremental increase in support as a result of this new measure, but this would actually come at a prohibitive expense in terms of introducing ambiguity and confusion for tax filers and administrators.
At the same time, by delivering targeted and effective support to help offset labour mobility expenses, our labour mobility tax credit is building on other important measures. Let me take everyone through them very quickly.
The moving expenses deduction, for example, recognizes costs incurred by workers who permanently move their ordinary place of residence at least 40 kilometres closer to their place of business or employment. There is also the special and remote work sites tax exemption, which allows employers to provide board and lodging benefits to employees on a tax-free basis at these work sites. There is also the Canada employment credit, which recognizes work-related expenses in a general way. For the 2022 tax year, this employment credit provides a tax credit on employment income of up to $1,300.
In budget 2021, we also took targeted measures to support apprentices by allowing them to acquire work experience and to make sure that employers can choose from a pool of skilled workers.
In the same budget, we allocated $470 million over three years, starting in 2021-22, to Employment and Social Development Canada to establish a new apprenticeship service.
This service helps 55,000 first-year apprentices in the red seal construction and manufacturing trades access opportunities for small and medium-size businesses. Employers can receive up to $5,000 for first-year apprenticeship opportunities to pay initial costs, including wages and training costs.
Moreover, to promote diversity in construction and manufacturing trades, this incentive is doubled to $10,000 for employers who hire under-represented individuals, including women, racialized Canadians and persons living with disabilities.
To prepare skilled workers to enter the job market, the Government of Canada spends approximately $90 million a year to provide 60,000 grants to support apprentices.
In conclusion, the labour mobility tax deduction achieves the objectives of Bill C-241 without its risks or shortcomings, and there is really no need to take my word for it. One need only listen to Canada's Building Trades Unions, CBTU, which stated, “Budget 2022 included a historic win for Canada's skilled trades workers with the inclusion of the Labour Mobility Tax Deduction for Tradespeople.” It also said, “Canada's Building Trades Unions is proud of securing tax fairness for skilled trades workers through the Labour Mobility Tax Deduction for Tradespeople (LMD).”
With that goal achieved, Bill C-241 is not only problematic but also redundant. I would therefore encourage the House to withhold its support for this bill in favour of allowing the labour mobility tax deduction to support Canadian tradespeople and apprentices as they begin to file their taxes in the coming weeks.
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Mr. Speaker, although I had the opportunity to do so earlier, I would like to begin by once again congratulating the hon. member for Essex for Bill C-241. This bill was worth introducing and debating in the House, and I think it is important, since it will give us an opportunity to discuss the reality of tradespeople, a reality we do not discuss enough in the House.
We address all sorts of theoretical questions in the House. We talk about families struggling to make ends meet, and it is important that we do. We also talk about the ultra-rich. However, we do not talk enough about tradespeople, the middle-class, the people who work so hard to build our country.
I will therefore take this opportunity to speak in more detail about a tradesperson I know well and who was born on July 15, 1941, in Hochelaga, Montreal. He was one of seven children, so he had six brothers and sisters. He did not grow up in Hochelaga, but in Pont-Viau, Laval, because his father managed to get a job at Frito-Lay. Chips lovers will recognize the name.
His father was a labourer and had seven mouths to feed in addition to his wife’s and his own. That requires a lot of work. At the time, working-class families were large, and this was a family of nine. Families lived in small apartments, with one, two or three bedrooms. Ultimately, they took what they could get. Children did not have their own room: there was a room for the girls and a room for the boys. There were a lot of people in each bedroom.
This skilled tradesperson got married later on, on June 30, 1962. Let us get back to the issue before us, skilled trades. He began practising his trade in 1956 at the age of 15, and worked hard on construction sites. He and his wife had four children, only three of whom reached adulthood. He found time outside his work hours to take care of his children and to be a hockey and baseball coach. He worked for more than 40 years on construction sites as a skilled tradesperson before retiring in 1997. He then continued to work as a plumber for more than 10 years.
The person I am talking about is my grandfather. I was well aware of his situation, since he was still a tradesperson when I was a child. When I went to his house, even if I was not supposed to, I would go into his garage, a real treasure trove. It was incredible to see all the tools and equipment he had. I also remember the smell of oil and iron. It was amazing.
My grandfather worked on many large construction sites. The Conservatives are going to like this: He worked on the many gas pipelines built in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He also worked in the petrochemical facilities in Montreal East. At the time, we needed advanced technology and facilities to be able to put gas in our cars. He worked on a number of hospital construction projects across Quebec, and built high-rise housing units on Île-des-Sœurs.
He also worked on a major construction site that had an impact on Quebec, and many people remember it in both a positive and a negative way. It was Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, a huge project that cost a lot of money and took us a lot of years to pay for. However, it was a symbol of pride at the time, since we were hosting the Olympic Games in Quebec, in Montreal, which was an extraordinary feat. My grandfather worked on the Olympic Stadium as a skilled tradesperson.
He also worked on the Port of Montreal facilities, which, with the growth of Montreal, always had to be expanded. Workers were needed to build the infrastructure and make sure it would withstand the passage of time. He also worked at the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu military base.
I listed a few projects to show that tradespeople work all over the place on any number of projects. These are assets and infrastructures that will remain standing for a long time, and people will be able to use them and rely on them even after I am dead.
Plumbers and other skilled tradespersons do not have it easy in their day-to-day work life. For instance, they have to move large and heavy pipes made of various materials such as concrete, steel, iron or copper. PVC pipe is more common these days, although that has not always been the case. It took strong arms to carry them. We are not talking about three-foot pipes, either. They were really something. Tradespersons have to move things like pipes, toilets and sinks. Anyone who has ever carried a toilet or sink knows how heavy they are.
These people do physically hard work and they generally work outside. Think of the people who build high-rise apartments. Workers on construction sites sometimes work inside, but they often work outside, sometimes at -40°C. The work still has to be done, even if it is freezing cold. Workers get used to it, and they work hard.
They do not just work in winter. There is also summer. When it is 30°C or more and they are working indoors, in an enclosed space, with the boilers running, and they need to run pipes and the welding machine adds even more heat, that is even worse. The workers have to put up with that kind of heat while they work, and it is not easy.
Welding in a heat wave is not the easiest thing to do. We do not say it often enough, but sometimes there are problems on the construction site. Maybe the engineer made a mistake with the blueprints, or some delinquent snuck overnight and had fun taking apart half of what was built. Then workers have to redo the work that took them weeks to do in the first place.
Another aspect of the plumber's trade is that they bring their own tools to the site. Sometimes the tools are stolen, so they have to buy new ones. That is an expensive proposition. To do good work, they need high-quality specialized tools.
Take, for example, replacing old pipes. The pipes in our houses transport water, and the pipes that run from our toilets and showers contain hair and feces. When a pipe is removed, what is inside may come out the ends. Sometimes, workers go home smelling bad, with traces of pee and poo on their clothes.
The job is not always a pleasant one. Sometimes, workers need to work in four feet of water or in spaces so tight it is difficult to crawl through. Pipes need to be changed even if there are insects and rats down there.
The working conditions are not always ideal, but the job is really important, and it makes a difference. It is work that needs to be done, and it is vital to every structure.
Every time we turn on the tap, water comes out because a plumber was there before us. Every time we go to the bathroom, we can do so comfortably because a plumber was there before us.
Sometimes there are time constraints, and workers have to work overtime. They do not necessarily work a 40-hour week. Sometimes they work 72 hours in a row because the work needs to be done. They work, they are tired, they do not see their children. They leave early in the morning when it is still dark out and the children are still in bed.
That is the reality of tradespeople. They come home filthy in the evening, with dirt under their fingernails, and they still smell even after they have washed two or three times. They cut themselves, burn themselves and suffer workplace accidents, but they still have to work, so they get over it. Sometimes, they damage their health.
My grandfather is a hero in my eyes. He is a tradesperson. He helped build Quebec. Now others are following in our forebears' footsteps. They are building the Quebec of tomorrow.
Bill C-241 is for these people. I think that the people who built Quebec would have been happy to see such a bill. They would have felt valued. They would have felt that there are members of Parliament who are listening to them and asking what they can do to help them in their work and their lives, based on their reality, so that their difficult and demanding work might be better compensated, valued and recognized. Just talking about it in the House today is a major step, and for that, I would like to thank the hon. member for Essex.
Obviously there are all sorts of considerations at play. Earlier I mentioned all of the construction sites my grandfather worked on. Most of them were in the greater Montreal area.
I also have another grandfather who was a lineman and who worked on almost all the hydro dams in Quebec. He worked hard, in cold weather and sometimes difficult conditions, deep in the woods.
These people built Quebec, and I am very proud of them. We need to talk about them and stand behind them.
That is why the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C‑241. Business people taking the jet or driving a Mercedes or a Cadillac should not be the only ones entitled to deduct their travel expenses. I think that ordinary workers who commute far from home for work, who work hard and earn their paycheque, should also be eligible for and entitled to deductions.
We stand behind our workers, and I thank the member for Essex again for his bill.
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Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to join the House today from Hamilton Centre in support of this bill at third reading. I extend my sincere congratulations to the hon. member for Essex. We had quite some time joking around about the fact that he got to be an honorary New Democrat while presenting this private member's bill, Bill C-241. I think he even promised to wear an orange tie, although I am not quite sure that I have seen that in the House, but I have done my best today.
I wanted to make sure that as New Democrats we get a chance to set the record straight today. This bill has been proposed five times since 2006. The then hon. member Chris Charlton for Hamilton Mountain introduced this bill in 2006, 2008 and 2013. In fact, she had introduced Bill C-201 in 2013, which was crushed by a Conservative majority. I will give the hon. member for Essex the benefit, because I know from his remarks that he was not elected in 2013. However, I will note that the Conservative leader, the hon. member for Carleton, voted against it.
We, as New Democrats, continued to fight alongside the building trades, and in 2021 this was introduced by my dear friend, the always honourable Scott Duvall from Hamilton Mountain, and of course myself. In 2021, one of my first orders of business, and a promise I made to our Hamilton-Brantford Building Trades Council and all of its affiliates, was that I would pick it up and run with it in Bill C-222.
As pointed out by the previous Liberal member, there is only a small difference between what the government has introduced and what this bill provides with respect to distance. Members may recall in the previous reading that this was an issue I brought up. It was clear that in our bill, Bill C-222, we had suggested that the 120-kilometre radius was too far. It would have excluded too many people, particularly those who had to commute through hours of traffic in the GTA. In our bill it was 80 kilometres. If the Parliamentary Budget Officer had run those numbers, he would have seen that more people could have taken advantage of the deduction in our proposal. One of my regrets is that it was not carried through during its time at committee.
I acknowledge and give credit where it is due to the organized labour of Ontario. These are the Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, Canada's Building Trades Unions, the Hamilton—Brantford Building & Construction Trades Council, the people I worked with and the people we are all familiar with, such as the recently retired Pat Dillon here in Ontario. Throughout his entire 20-year career he worked on this. He was dogmatic across all parties that it was something that had to happen because of the general fairness imbued in the bill and the differences identified among the corporate, the Bay Street and the management classes of the country. They got to travel around the world and deduct all of that. That privilege is not extended by the CRA to those who actually build wealth and generate true value in this economy, which is the working class.
I want to make a correction, and will do so even perhaps to my own embarrassment, but it certainly needs to be said in the House. It has been said many times that MPs get to write off their travel. That is not true. An MP's travel is covered by our members' budgets, so it is a very different scenario. I hope that we would ensure that what is good enough for us would be good enough for the working class.
I call again for the same spirit from our new-found socialist Conservative friends who are looking to extend these rights and privileges to the working class. Keep that energy up when it comes to things like dental care and pharmacare. These are things that we, as members of Parliament, have the privilege of receiving and some of us for our entire lives. Let us be clear. There are members in the House who speak about work and working class issues in a completely abstract way, because they have never actually worked in the private sector. That is a fact.
While I do not know the history of my friend from Essex, I am grateful that in his trips to the airport he was able to engage in a dialectical materialism with the working class. It identified that the real-world conditions of the working class and the contradictions of the class considerations provide a general unfairness in how we treat our blue-collar workers compared to the white-collar management class in this country. A person, such as a real estate lawyer or a developer, can fly across the country and write all of that off. However, the worker who actually builds that wealth and who constructs the actual material does not get the same consideration. It is indeed one of the inherent contradictions of our tax code and our general economy.
To go further, to talk about the exploitation of the building trades workers, the hon. member for Essex brought up the notion of affordability in housing. This is an issue that comes up in my community when I am talking to folks about the issues of their housing costs and how far away their ability is, through their wages, to purchase the things they make. This is indeed a perversion of the capitalism and the impacts of capitalism in this country that divorces the working class from the end product of their labour. It is an alienation of the working class. It is an estrangement of labour.
In the example I used, the building a house metaphor, while the cost of building the house varies between provinces and because of factors like materials, currently the housing construction costs range between $120 to $250 per square foot. If we were to average this out, it would be about $185 per square foot or approximately $370,000 to build a 2,000 square foot home in Canada. That is twice as much, and sometimes three times as much, as the average market cost. StatsCan listed the average Canadian house price in 2022 at approximately $704,000.
The average salary I could find of a union carpenter is about $70,000. That means it is 10 times as much, or 10 years' worth of work, for the person who builds the house to be able to purchase the house. The surplus value of their labour goes to people who have never swung a hammer in their entire lives. It goes to the banking class, the Bay Street class, the developer class and those who go to Doug Ford's family weddings and pay to increase their access to construction within provinces like Ontario. The money and the obscene profits that are made never make their way to the working class of this country.
It is the ultra-elite and the well-connected, those who have political ties, those who would seek to keep wages low and recall the Bank of Canada calling to keep the wages of workers low while the costs continue to run amok. It is shareholders, private investors in the investing class in this country, who are the ones taking the surplus value of workers' wages. It is not because workers are fighting for higher wages.
Under this economic system of private ownership, society only has two classes. These are the property class, or those who have access to capital, and everybody else. The workers are suffering from not only impoverishment but also from exploitation and estrangement from their work. That is why this very meagre private member's bill, Bill C-241, is literally the least we can do in the House to acknowledge that there is a general unfairness in our tax system.
I hope the hon. members from the Conservative Party, who crushed this bill some 10 years ago, who now have found their way in supporting this private member's bill, will keep that same energy up and understand it is the working class of this country who creates the value. That is who we should be prioritizing in the policies of the House.
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- Feb/13/23 11:55:07 a.m.
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The member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex is rising on a point of order.
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Mr. Speaker, while I think my colleague from Hamilton Centre would like to admit he wants to say that the member for Essex is in the NDP, he is a proud Conservative. However, I believe he said he would wear an orange tie to the vote.
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- Feb/13/23 11:55:25 a.m.
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That is not a point of order, but it is a point well taken.
The hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex.
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Mr. Speaker, skilled trades are a key component of Canada’s workforce and are vital to the strength of Canada’s economy. Skilled tradespeople are critical in maintaining essential sectors, like our health, water, electrical and food systems. They literally build bridges and critical infrastructure.
The demand for skilled tradespeople is high. It is expected to remain high over the next decade or more as Canada’s economy recovers from eight years of the Liberal government. For far too long, many blue-collar private sector workers have found themselves to be an afterthought of politicians in Ottawa.
Our country is facing a shortage in over 300 skilled trades, and the numbers are showing that this will only get worse. Each job that is unfulfilled is an uncollected paycheque that could help a family get ahead.
By 2028, Canada will need to have over 700,000 new tradespeople in place. Some of the challenges that we face today are very different from the challenges we will face in the future and are different from what our leaders faced decades ago. We will have new problems and we will need new solutions.
Action must be taken to address the concerns regarding the shortage of skilled tradespeople, which is far beyond the scope of the bill that we are discussing here today, just as action must be taken to fix the concerns of those who proudly work in the trades today.
That is why we are supporting Bill C-241. Every step to promote trades and make the environment less cumbersome and more appealing to new entrants is a step in the right direction. We must support Canada’s workers and the unions that represent them. The inability to do so would hold back local businesses from growing. It would delay roads, public transit and schools. It would make it harder to improve the health care system and would contribute even more to the rising cost of living that families are battling every day.
After generations of being left behind by the government, it is time to earn trust and build the bridges that will get the bridges built.
During the last election campaign, many residents in my riding spoke to me about the importance of supporting Canadian skilled tradespeople. One simple way that we can do that is by allowing travel expenses to be tax deductible.
Why is this a good first step? The answer is very simple. Many of our skilled tradespeople live and work in rural and remote communities. One of my colleagues has made the suggestion of making the range 120 kilometres because, for some people in my riding, it can take them an hour and a half just to get from their home to the shop to get their trucks. Given that my riding is over 5,000 square kilometres, I can say it is actually a very conservative estimate of how long an individual may have to travel to get to work.
In fact, I spoke with one person who worked as a welder in Arkona, which is a small town in a fairly central agricultural community. They told me it was routine for them to get up at 4 a.m., drive an hour from their home to the shop to load up their truck and prep their crew. They drive another hour and a half south to the morning job site, and then drive an hour northeast for the afternoon. After a long and tiring day, they would drive another hour back home to repeat a similar schedule six days a week.
We are talking about support in this bill for those who work some of Canada’s toughest jobs and who are the most essential workers.
Let me put this in perspective compared to other professions where people can receive tax deductions for travel for their jobs.
The Dewalt or Milwaukee white-collar tool salesperson, who has to travel to remote areas to sell the tools to the building trades workers, will get a government-paid tax credit for their travel. However, the blue-collar IBEW electrician or the UA pipefitter, who has to travel to the same remote job site to put in long hours working and using those same tools, does not get any tax relief from the government for their travel.
Tradespeople work very hard to support their families and have to put forward significant out-of-pocket expenses to be able to perform and remain competitive. The government needs to do more to support our nation’s working men and women. Those are the men and women whose jobs are making them have to shower at the end of the day, who are raising families and who are building the future of Canada.
Inflation and the cost of living have taken their toll on tradespeople just as much as, if not more than, they have for nearly every Canadian. Let us take a quick look at the price of gas for someone, like that welder, who travels 400 kilometres in a day.
The average price of gas is around $1.40 per litre right now. Like most tradespeople in rural Canada, they drive a truck. For those members across the floor who have urban ridings, driving a truck is absolutely necessary for rural tradespeople. It is actually an essential tool for the performance of jobs, especially in our rural areas, not something that can be easily phased out to suit the agenda of the finance minister’s friends in the WEF.
This person's truck has roughly a 700-kilometre range, so they need to buy gas twice a week or more. With a 120-litre tank, they are paying over $250 a week or more in gas, and about $16 of that is carbon tax. I think it quickly becomes clear to what a great extent a travel deduction will amount to large savings that will keep these tradespeople in business. If only we could remove some of the other non-essential impediments.
A similar travel deduction is already available for corporations and self-employed workers in other industries. Passing Bill C-241 would equalize the playing field and incentivize tradespeople to take contracts farther from home, which would be beneficial for smaller communities that have trouble attracting skilled labour. More tradespeople travelling would help generate more spending, which is especially beneficial for smaller and remote communities.
Many tradespeople travel long distances for work, and I am talking about leaving their homes and flying somewhere, sometimes even to another province, across the country or to northern areas to get to a job site. Often they are gone from their families for long periods of time, sometimes even months at a time. I cannot imagine being away for months at a time without being able to see loved ones.
Those of us sitting in the chamber know what it is like to leave our families to come to work for just a week. Imagine leaving our families for weeks. I know I would miss my family if I were gone for weeks, and I know from talking to some of these workers over the last number of weeks that it is a hardship on them. It is a struggle for their families to be apart. Sacrificing time with their kids, spouses or partners in order to try to provide good incomes to support their families can be very difficult, but they make sacrifices every day.
Imagine someone being responsible for paying their own transportation, accommodation and meals to get to a job site, while having to travel with their own tools. There is no other option to receive a tax credit to help offset any of these travel costs. Workers are more likely to take jobs closer to home, and not necessarily in their trades, when they are not compensated.
Travelling as a tradesperson is extremely hard on families. A tradesperson would be able to use some of their tax credit to fly home to see their family, for instance for a long weekend, or even fly their spouse and family to be with them for a period of time in the town where their job site is. Imagine the economic spinoff of that in those small towns.
This bill is not controversial. This bill would help keep families together. It is a pro-worker, pro-jobs, pro-paycheque and pro-worker-mobility bill, all of which is needed to keep Canada going. I am pleased to see that this drive is being acknowledged and even supported by other parties in the chamber.
Despite our differences, I think we all want to keep Canada going and we all want to do what is best to support our Canadian workers. We want to encourage young people to follow their passions, enrol in skilled trades and move beyond the tired mentality that the only way to succeed in life is to acquire multiple degrees.
Do members know that a Red Seal certified tradesperson makes over $68,000 a year? With years of experience, depending on available jobs, they can make well over $300,000 a year. That is comparable to or even exceeds what is expected from a university master's degree. Unfortunately, only one in 10 high school students is considering a career in trades. Something needs to change, and I look forward to a productive discussion about what can be done to make improvements.
Starting with the bill we are debating today, Bill C-241, I have heard, from the NDP side, some suggestions that the travel distance be lowered to 80 kilometres. From the Liberal benches, the ask has been made to have the bill include greater deductions for tools and equipment. I have heard a number from the Bloc say they will take the bill as is and support it.
All of this is fantastic, not only for workers but also for my colleague, who I know has been very open and transparent in his excitement. I will echo his excitement on behalf of my constituents. This bill would have a tremendous impact on tradespeople and their families. Let us roll up our sleeves, get it done and bring it home.
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The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.
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moved that Bill C-39, An Act to amend An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-39, an act to amend an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding medical assistance in dying. This bill would extend the exclusion of eligibility for receiving medical assistance in dying, or MAID, in circumstances where the sole underlying medical condition for MAID is a mental illness. The main objective of this bill is to ensure the safe assessment and provision of MAID in all circumstances where a mental illness forms the basis for a request for MAID.
An extension of the exclusion of MAID eligibility in these circumstances would help ensure health care system readiness by, among other things, allowing more time for the dissemination and uptake of key resources by the medical and nursing communities, including MAID assessors and providers. It would also give the federal government more time to meaningfully consider the report of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, or AMAD, which is expected this week.
My remarks today will focus on the legislative history of MAID in this country. I want to be clear that medical assistance in dying is a right, as affirmed by the Supreme Court.
In its 2015 Carter v. Canada decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the sections of the Criminal Code prohibiting physicians from assisting in the consensual death of another person were unconstitutional. In response, in 2016, our government tabled former Bill C-14, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other acts regarding medical assistance in dying.
The basic purpose of the bill was to give Canadians nearing the end of life who are experiencing intolerable and unbearable suffering the option to obtain medical assistance in dying. The bill was passed two months later, when medical assistance in dying, or MAID, became legal in Canada for people whose natural death was reasonably foreseeable. It included procedural safeguards in order to ensure that the person’s request for medical assistance in dying was free and informed, and to protect the most vulnerable.
In 2019, in Truchon v. the Attorney General of Canada, the Quebec Superior Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to restrict the availability of MAID to individuals whose natural death was reasonably foreseeable. One year later, in response, we introduced a second bill on medical assistance in dying, the former Bill C-7, an act to amend the Criminal Code regarding medical assistance in dying.
Former Bill C-7 expanded eligibility to receive MAID to persons whose natural death was not reasonably foreseeable. It did so by creating a separate, more stringent set of procedural safeguards that must be satisfied before MAID can be provided. The government proposed, and Parliament supported, these stringent procedural safeguards in recognition of the increased complexities of making MAID available to people who are not otherwise in an end-of-life scenario.
Some of these additional safeguards include a minimum 90-day period for assessing eligibility, during which careful consideration is given to the nature of the person's suffering and whether there is treatment or alternative means available to relieve that suffering. This safeguard effectively prohibits a practitioner from determining that a person is eligible to receive MAID in fewer than 90 days.
Another additional safeguard is the requirement that one of the practitioners assessing eligibility for MAID has expertise in the underlying condition causing the person's suffering or that they must consult with a practitioner who does. The assessing practitioners must also ensure that the person be informed of the alternative means available to address their suffering, such as counselling services, mental health and disability support services, community services and palliative care. It is not enough just to discuss treatment alternatives. They must ensure the person has been offered consultations with relevant professionals who provide those services or care. In addition, both practitioners must agree that the person gave serious consideration to treatment options and alternatives.
The former Bill C-7 extended eligibility to medical assistance in dying to people whose death is not reasonably foreseeable. However, it temporarily excluded mental illness on its own as a ground for eligibility to MAID. In other words, the bill excluded from eligibility for medical assistance in dying cases where a person's sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness. That temporary exclusion from eligibility stems from the recognition that, in those cases, requests for medical assistance in dying were complex and required further review.
In the meantime, the Expert Panel on MAID and Mental Illness conducted an independent review of the protocols, guidance and safeguards recommended in cases where a mental illness is the ground for a request for medical assistance in dying. The expert panel’s final report was tabled in Parliament on May 13, 2022.
The Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying also completed its parliamentary review of the provisions of the Criminal Code relating to medical assistance in dying and their application, as well as other related issues, including mental health. We eagerly look forward to the special joint committee’s final report, expected on Friday, February 17.
I would also like to highlight the excellent work of the expert panel, ably led by Dr. Mona Gupta.
This temporary period of ineligibility was set in law to last two years. It will expire on March 17 unless this legal requirement is amended by law. This bill would do just that, and proposes to extend this period of ineligibility for one year, until March 17, 2024.
As I stated at the outset of my remarks, this extension is needed to ensure the safe assessment and provision of MAID in circumstances where a mental illness forms the sole basis of a request for MAID. It is clear that the assessment and provision of MAID in circumstances where a mental illness is the sole ground for requesting MAID raises particular complexities, including difficulties with assessing whether the mental illness is in fact irremediable and the potential impact of suicidal ideation on such requests.
That is why, when some Canadians, experts and members of the medical community called on the federal government to extend the temporary period of ineligibility to make sure the system was ready, we listened. We listened, we examined the situation carefully and we determined that more time was needed to get this right.
As for the state of readiness of the health care system, I would like to take a moment to highlight the great progress that has been made toward the safe delivery of MAID in those circumstances. For example, standards of practice are being developed for the assessment of complex requests for medical assistance in dying, including requests where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition. Those standards of practice will be adapted or adopted by clinical regulatory bodies and by clinicians in the provinces and territories. These standards are being developed and will be completed in March 2023.
In addition, since October 2021, the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers, or CAMAP, has been developing an accredited study program for health professionals. Once completed, that program will include seven training modules on various topics related to the assessment and delivery of medical assistance in dying, including on how to assess requests for medical assistance in dying, assess capacity and vulnerability, and manage complex and chronic situations. That program should be finalized and ready to be implemented next fall.
This progress was achieved through our government's leadership and collaboration with the health system's partners, such as the provincial and territorial governments, professional health organizations, our government's regulatory agencies, clinicians and organizations such as CAMAP.
The Regulations for the Monitoring of Medical Assistance in Dying, which set out the requirements for the presentation of reports on MAID, came into force in November 2018.
These regulations were recently revised to significantly improve the collection of data and reporting on MAID. More specifically, the regulations now provide for the collection of data on race, indigenous identity and any disability of the person. The revised regulations came into force in January 2023, and the information about activities related to medical assistance in dying in 2023 will be published in 2024 in Health Canada's annual MAID report.
I think we can all agree that substantial progress has been made. However, in my opinion, a little more time is needed to ensure the safe assessment and provision of MAID in all cases where a mental illness is the sole basis for a request for MAID.
I want to be clear that mental illness can cause the same level of suffering that physical illness can cause. We are aware that there are persons who are suffering intolerably as a result of their mental illnesses who were waiting to become eligible to receive MAID in March 2023. We recognize that these persons will be disappointed by an extension of ineligibility, and we sympathize with them. I want to emphasize that I believe this extension is necessary to ensure the safe provision of MAID in all cases where a mental illness forms the basis of the request for MAID. We need this extension to ensure that any changes we make are done in a prudent and measured way.
I want to turn now to the more technical part of Bill C-39 and briefly explain how the bill proposes to extend the mental illness exclusion. As I stated earlier in my remarks, former Bill C-7 expanded MAID eligibility to persons whose natural death was not reasonably foreseeable. It also included a provision that temporarily excluded eligibility in circumstances where a mental illness formed the basis of the request for MAID. Bill C-39 would delay the repeal of the mental illness exclusion. This would mean that the period of ineligibility for receiving MAID, in circumstances where the only medical condition identified in support of the request for MAID is a mental illness, would remain in place for an extra year, until March 17, 2024.
I want to reiterate that we need more time before eligibility is expanded in this matter. We need more time to ensure the readiness of the health care system, and more time to consider meaningfully and to potentially act on AMAD's recommendations. This is why I urge members to swiftly support the passage of this bill. It is imperative that it be enacted before March 17. If it is not, MAID will become lawful automatically in these circumstances. It is essential that this bill receive royal assent so that this does not happen before we are confident that MAID can be provided safely in these circumstances. I trust that all colleagues in this place will want to make that happen.
The safety of Canadians must come first. That is why we are taking the additional time necessary to get this right. Protecting the safety and security of vulnerable people and supporting individual autonomy and freedom of choice are central to Canada's MAID regime. We all know that MAID is a very complex personal issue, so it is not surprising that there is a lot of debate. It should go without saying that seeking MAID is a decision that one does not make lightly. I know from speaking with members of the medical community that they take both their critical role in the process and their professional duties toward patients extremely seriously. I trust that medical professionals have their patients' interests at heart, and this sometimes involves supporting their patients' wishes for a planned, dignified ending that is free of suffering.
Once again, I strongly believe that an extension of the exclusion of MAID eligibility in this circumstance is necessary to ensure the health care system's readiness and to give the government more time to meaningfully consider and to potentially implement the AMAD recommendations. I remind the House that those recommendations are expected just one month before the current mental illness exclusion is set to expire. Therefore, I implore all members to support this bill.
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Mr. Speaker, today we are seeing an admission of a process that was far too rushed. Just two years ago, the Minister of Justice appeared at a justice committee one morning and said that there was not a consensus on how to move forward with expanding medical assistance in dying to those whose sole underlying condition is mental illness. However, later that day, after the Senate had amended the legislation to include mental illness, the minister suddenly said in the House that he was confident there was a consensus. The minister's own charter analysis of Bill C-7 said that those whose underlying condition is mental illness needed to be protected.
Therefore, we see evidence now that 70% of Canadians are opposed to this expansion. We know that many Liberal members are voicing their concerns. Will the minister consider delaying this expansion indefinitely, so that those who are suffering with mental illness, such as our veterans with PTSD, are protected?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his work on this file.
What is different now, two years later, is that we have done a great deal of work. The expert committee, led by Dr. Mona Gupta, thinks we are ready to move forward with the protocol it has developed, as do a number of professionals and professional bodies across Canada, but there is not unanimity. That is why we are proposing a one-year extension so we, along with medical professionals and Canadians, can internalize what the next step will be.
Let me point out that we all have a duty as parliamentarians to not participate in exaggeration or misinformation. What this bill would not do would be to allow a person suffering from depression or anxiety to immediately get MAID. This is for a small fraction of individuals who are suffering intolerably from long-standing mental disorders under long-standing care of medical professionals and who want another option. That is what this is about. It is not about people who are contemplating suicide.
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Mr. Speaker, in a debate as sensitive as this, we would expect every parliamentarian in the House of Commons to lend some dignity to this debate and demonstrate a strong sense of responsibility.
Last week, in the middle of question period, on the topic of mental disorders being the sole underlying medical condition, the official leader of the opposition said to the Prime Minister something to the effect that there were people suffering who were destitute, living in poverty and struggling with depression, and that all this government had to offer them was medical assistance in dying.
I would like my colleague to share his thoughts on these types of comments that, in my opinion, will prevent us from having a calm and productive debate not only from a theoretical perspective, but also with respect to the situation with the bill and what it really covers. In short, we are talking here about misinformation.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and comment.
The criteria for receiving medical assistance in dying in situations where the person is not at the end of life are very strict and rigorous, particularly when it comes to the subject we are considering today and in cases where mental illness is the only factor.
A person cannot automatically get medical assistance in dying just by requesting it. It is much more serious than that. Our practitioners, the medical community and those who provide medical assistance in dying take their responsibilities very seriously.
With regard to the comment made by the leader of the official opposition, I completely agree with my colleague. That shows a rather jaded attitude toward a subject that is very complex and morally difficult for many people. We therefore have to be respectful about it, even in our discussions.
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Mr. Speaker, like the minister, I have been here since 2015, so I have seen the entire legislative journey of medical assistance in dying, and I have also been the NDP's member on the special joint committee, both in the last Parliament and this one.
Back when Bill C-14 was passed, there was a requirement in that act for a statutory review of the legislation. We did have Bill C-7, and the government did accept the Senate amendment, even though it was contrary to its own charter statement on the matter. It was only after that that we established the special joint committee, which was then delayed by the 2021 election and did not get up and going until May of last year.
In the context of that, I think the Liberals have, in some instances, put the cart before the horse before we have had the appropriate review, but I would also like to hear his comments because there is a crisis in funding for mental health in this country. We have had the Canadian Mental Health Association talk about this. I would like to hear from the justice minister that his government can make a commitment to bring mental health care funding up on par with that of physical care. There is a real crisis, not only in my community, but also in communities from coast to coast to coast. I think that is going to be an important component of this conversation.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his work on the special committee, and we look forward to the recommendations of the special committee. One of the reasons to have a delay is precisely to take what that special committee might recommend better into account.
Mental illness is an illness, and I strongly support initiatives to better resource the encadrement, the support we are giving to people suffering from mental illness. It is something that our government has recognized.
We put $5 billion into the system a number of years ago. However, when we did that for mental illness, we found that we could not guarantee that the provinces would actually spent that money on mental illness. In the current set of negotiations between the Minister of Health and his counterparts, as well as the Prime Minister and his counterparts, we are trying to build some accountability into that system, but we definitely do agree with the need to invest in greater mental health resources, particularly in this case. We want people to be able to live a dignified life with the supports they need to accomplish that.
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Mr. Speaker, some have opined that the extension sought today is potentially for re-debating the issue of mental health as a sole and underlying condition for MAID. I am wondering if the minister could outline why that is not the case.
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Mr. Speaker, we passed the law in 2019. Part of the parliamentary process was the interactions between the House and the Senate. We came to a compromise at the end of that process with the Senate to include mental illness as a sole criterion with a two-year delay.
We felt at the time that this could be done in two years. COVID intervened and an election intervened, but we do feel that a great deal of work has been done, in particular, by the expert committee. However, in order for everyone to internalize those recommendations, and for faculties of medicine, provincial and territorial bodies, and expert groups to build out the didactic materials, we need another year, but this is only a year extension. Of course, this would also give us time to look at what the special committee reports on this particular area, as well as evaluate other suggestions it makes.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
I wish to recognize the life of Danilo Covaceuszach. I just saw his obituary in the Kamloops This Week. May eternal light shine upon him.
In reference to that last answer from the Minister of Justice, it really is incumbent, in my view, that the Minister of Justice listen to the people of Canada, and people in my riding have been asking that the minister reconsider this. His answer to the parliamentary secretary says to me that he is not prepared to do so. This is amidst the charter statement from his own department saying that this has inherent risks and complexity. Given that, is he saying unequivocally before the House that there is not going to be any reconsideration of this before the next year?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his work as a critic and his work on committee.
We are in a far different place than we were two years ago. We have now done a great deal of the work, particularly at the federal level, on mental illness as the sole criterion for seeking MAID. As I said, a number of leading experts feel that we would have been ready next month to have moved forward. We are trying to be prudent and to allow others to internalize the learning that has been developed over the last two years.
I mentioned before, and I will repeat it again, that this is a small fraction of people who are in the non-end-of-life scenario. Indeed, the people in the non-end-of-life scenario generally are a small fraction of those who seek MAID. It is not the case that somebody will simply be able to get MAID by going to their doctor and saying that they are contemplating suicide. That is not the case, and we are misleading Canadians if that is what we say.
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