44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 13, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, my colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River is well aware of my great respect for him. However, in listening to his speech, I found it riddled with confusion.
I wondered whether he read the expert panel's report on mental illness as the sole underlying medical condition. I believe that our thinking may not be quite so different. I think that his practice has shown him the need to take care in adopting such an approach. However, in reading the report, he will see that there are many precautions in place and very specific guidelines.
Indeed, just because there are not very many mentally ill people experiencing tremendous suffering does not mean we must not move forward. One person experiencing unimaginable and intolerable suffering is, in my opinion, one too many.
I would like to know my colleague's thoughts on this.
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Madam Speaker, I have not in fact read the report. At the moment, the problem is that we have 10 provinces and three territories that are all expected to come up with the appropriate safeguards, and I do not think any of them have actually publicly come forward with those safeguards.
I would further suggest that it ought not be the colleges of physicians and surgeons that are put in the position to have to put those safeguards in. It is up to us, the elected representatives who are accountable to the people, who ought to be the ones making those decisions, not the colleges of physicians and surgeons.
I would agree with the member that one person who stays in suffering is too many; however, I would also suggest that one person whose life is taken prematurely because of an overly liberal approach to MAID and the pain that that causes, particularly to the family, ought to be something we consider before making any decision that would allow that to happen.
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Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague quoted one of his favourite sentences, and I would like to hear his comments on the following sentence: Perfection is the enemy of the good.
Are we not letting people suffer as a result of the constant desire to set limits and constraints? Is the Conservative Party not falling into a trap? Instead of protecting life, they are protecting suffering.
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Madam Speaker, the minister seems to be of the opinion that, if we just let people warm up to the idea, it will somehow become a good idea.
What I am saying is that this is not something that should be offered to Canadians this year, next year or the year after that. Offering medical assistance in dying to someone who is suffering with mental illness is not the right move forward. The member is quite right in saying there are rules within Bill C-7 that certainly do not contemplate this massive expansion, rules that apply to someone who is near death or has a reasonable foreseeability of death. Those rules are not made to apply to someone who is suffering with mental illness.
I would argue that all of us in this place should agree to do better and to fight, hand in hand, for those who are suffering with mental illness.
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Mr. Speaker, there are doctors who see their role and have a role of helping people who are suffering from terrible sickness, an irremediable medical condition, to end their life without pain, and we have voted for that and we supported that. However, I have seen no consensus from the medical community that people who are depressed should be able to have assisted dying and no medical consensus that children should be able to. That consensus does not exist.
The only place that consensus exists is in the unelected, unaccountable Senate, and I would not take its advice on anything, yet the government did. The reason we have this legislation is because a bunch of unelected, unaccountable senators, people who flipped pancakes for the Liberal Party and Conservative Party fundraisers over the years, decided that if one is depressed they should be able to die. Not on my watch. Forget it.
So, yes, we have had a lot of talk, but we have had no review that Parliament was promised. This government did not do that job. It would rather listen to the Senate than actually do the hard work of reviewing this legislation and getting down to what is happening. Is it working or is it not? Why, in God's name, are we talking about expanding it when we have not addressed what we were committed to under the previous provisions of this legislation?
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