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Randall Garrison

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
NDP

Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke
British Columbia
Voting Attendance: 63%
Expenses Last Quarter: $148,586.11

Government Page

Context: House Hansard - 281 - Feb/13/24

Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Feb/13/24 1:37:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again, while I agree this time with the Conservatives that extending medical assistance in dying to those who have mental disorders as the sole underlying condition is very problematic and should not happen, I cannot understand the Conservatives not supporting moving quickly with the bill we have in front of us, because we face a deadline for when this will come into effect if we do not act.

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Context: House Hansard - 281 - Feb/13/24

Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Feb/13/24 12:33:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, while the member and I do not agree on a lot of things, this is a case in which we do stand together in our concerns about proceeding with allowing those with mental disorders as a sole underlying condition access to medical assistance in dying. My question is this. Given that this is true for, I think, most of the Conservative members, why are the Conservatives not helping to advance this bill as quickly as possible? We are facing this deadline, and this will come into force if we do not take action. Why are Conservatives holding up this bill today?

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Context: House Hansard - 281 - Feb/13/24

Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, NDP)

Feb/13/24 10:28:41 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-314

Mr. Speaker, in the previous Parliament, I was the NDP's representative on the medical assistance in dying committee. I do support medical assistance in dying, but it was the most difficult issue I have ever dealt with, and I agree with my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands that it was probably the most difficult issue most of us have ever dealt with in the House. For that reason, I agree with the minister that we have to proceed very cautiously and very deliberately in any expansion to medical assistance in dying. Today I would rather be talking about removing mental illness as the sole underlying condition, but Parliament dealt with that question with the private member's bill from the member for Abbotsford, Bill C-314, so we cannot do that today. We are placed in the awkward position where the Senate added the provision to the original medical assistance in dying legislation, which I think was very ill-advised. However, we have no choice at this point, I believe, but to support the closure motion to try to get this done so we can prevent the provision from coming into force, when we know clearly we are not ready and when we know some of us have very clear moral reservations about the expansion.

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Context: House Hansard - 168 - Mar/10/23

Mr. Randall Garrison

Mar/10/23 12:30:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, before I came here, I was a member of a municipal police board, and I am quite familiar with the challenges police have, because we leave so many social problems to them to try to deal with rather than providing the services in advance that would prevent these problems from ending up in the legal system. What was most striking to me at the beginning of the pandemic was when I phoned and talked with local police agencies. They were saying that “We have an increased number of domestic violence calls, and in many of those, we know that this will end up in violence, but with the way the law is structured right now, we have no way to offer assistance to those victims until there are bruises and broken bones.” That phrase that I have been using came from one of those police officers who gets sent to those problematic relationships. So, it was from both police and women's agencies that the suggestion came that we needed to move that point where we provide assistance closer to those times when the victims actually need it.

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Member of Parliament

Randall Garrison