Hon. Yuen Pau Woo: Thank you, Senator Gold, for your exposition. I think you have made a good case for the bill, and I intend to support it. However, I was struck by a comment in the middle of your speech, and I would like to ask you about it.

You referred to the lack of consensus among practitioners around the issue of irremediability and cited that as a reason for the three-year delay. Is it the government’s view that at the end of three years, the psychiatric community will come to a view on irremediability and therefore remove that impediment to the implementation of MAID MD-SUMC?

Hon. Stan Kutcher: Thank you very much, Senator Gold, for that speech, and I think you are absolutely correct in pointing out the challenges of sorting out this very difficult issue, one that is both personally difficult and professionally difficult for me, but also one that is difficult for all Canadians. People in the chamber know that of the nine countries that provide some form of MAID, Canada is the only one that excludes people with a mental disorder.

You mentioned that at this point in time — and you correctly noted that more psychiatrists are being trained — about 2% of psychiatrists have been trained, and that is a very small number. But you neglected to mention to the chamber that only about 2% of Canadian doctors are trained in MAID, and fewer than 1% of all MAID recipients in the Benelux countries are for a sole mental disorder.

We have 2% of psychiatrists that can’t do the work, but 2% of doctors can do the work. This goes to the heart of the discrimination against the people with mental illness. We use one argument that 2% is not good enough, but then 2% is just fine.

Can you help us understand why, if it is okay for 2% of Canadian physicians to be trained, and we can do MAID for physical illnesses, it is not okay for 2% of psychiatrists to be trained?

Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Gold, thank you very much for your speech tonight.

In your speech, you stated that Indigenous groups say that they are not ready for this and that the government was then going to be launching a two-year process of consultation. However, Senator Gold, three years ago at our Senate Legal Committee, we had witnesses representing many different Indigenous organizations, and they were crystal clear then that they weren’t ready. They said this to us both at our pre-study for that bill and at the Bill C-7 subject-matter study at that committee. The reason we decided to call them as witnesses was because there was a clear gap in the House of Commons’ study in that respect.

Many of these Indigenous witnesses told us on behalf of their organizations that they did not want assisted suicide for mental illness as a sole underlying condition. They told us that many of their communities were actually in crisis, and they wanted help for their communities on mental illness and substance abuse — and not easier access to the legal means for suicide.

Given this, Senator Gold, why hasn’t the government started this process of proper Indigenous consultation long before now? And will your government actually listen to what they say this time?