Madam Speaker, I want to go back to some of the words of an expert I quoted. Dr. John Maher, who is a clinical psychiatrist and medical ethicist, said that “Psychiatrists don't know and can't know who will get better and live decades of good life.” We had another expert say that they “could be making an error 2% of the time or 95% of the time.”
It is so important to make sure that, in matters of life and death, we are correct 100% of the time. We have to stand up for life.
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Mr. Speaker, it is incredibly important that we provide the support. That should be the focus of the government. What it is undertaking with this process is not a requirement but a rapid and unnecessary expansion. Frankly, it devalues the human person and those who are living with any of the challenges the member opposite mentioned. It is incredibly important that we find ways to support those people to help them heal instead of finding ways to accelerate their deaths.
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Mr. Speaker, this member and his party give carte blanche to a Prime Minister who has been an abject failure in supporting the health care needs of our provinces, and that is whom the member votes to support.
While we have been very clear about our position on improving health care supports, treatment supports and mental health supports, that member is supporting a Prime Minister who has done anything but, and who refused to even meet with the premiers and the health ministers. That is what I am having a hard time reconciling.
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Mr. Speaker, I am having a really hard time reconciling how that member and his party prop up a government that did absolutely nothing to increase health care transfers to our provinces, and a Prime Minister whom he supports, without exception, in a coalition deal until 2025, in which the Prime Minister, the leader of the NDP—
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-39, which would delay, by one year, the Liberal government's goal of extending medically facilitated death to Canadians living with mental illness.
Extending medically facilitated death to vulnerable Canadians living with mental illness is unjust now and it will be unjust one year from now.
The government's MAID policy has been driven by radical groups. Their end goal is state-provided death on demand to anyone for any reason. These groups have almost constant and unfettered access to the Liberal government, and this is clear because this extreme expansion is backed by radicals within the Liberal government and Liberal-appointed radicals within the Senate.
At the MAID committee, one of this sort remarked that MAID should be available for babies. How far has our collective respect for dignity of the human person fallen that such a grisly statement could be made without rebuke? Many have said that we are at the end of a slippery slope, but it is clear that if the Liberals continue to take their marching orders from groups like this, they are nowhere near done.
By law, to be eligible for MAID, a person must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition that is incurable and in an advanced state of irreversible decline. That means that, to qualify, a MAID assessor must be satisfied that the person's condition will not get better. We know it is impossible to predict whether or not a person suffering from a mental illness will get better, so it is not possible to determine irremediability.
Dr. John Maher, a clinical psychiatrist and medical ethicist, said, “Psychiatrists don't know and can't know who will get better and live decades of good life. Brain diseases are not liver diseases.”
MAID decisions in cases of mental disorders will be based on “hunches and guesswork that could be wildly inaccurate”, according to Dr. Mark Sinyor, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and a psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of adults with complex mood and anxiety disorders. He also said that “they could be making an error 2% of the time or 95% of the time.”
The Liberal government is willing to say that Canadians with mental illness will not get better and then will end their lives, which could be wrong 95% of the time. Make no mistake, if the government goes ahead with its expansion of MAID for mental illness, people who would have gotten better will not get the chance, because they will be dead.
Right now, 6,000 people with the most severe forms of mental illness are waiting up to five years to get the specialized treatments they need to reduce symptoms, learn to cope and feel better. Instead of working to better those symptoms, to give people the help they need when they need it the most, the government is striving to offer them death.
When appearing before the Senate, Dr. John Maher said, “Clinical relationships are already being profoundly undermined. My patients are saying: ‘Why try to recover when MAID is coming, and I'm going to be able to choose death?’” He goes on to say, “Some of my patients keep asking for MAID while they're actually getting better but can't recognize that yet.”
We need to offer Canadians hope, and not death, when they are in the depths of despair. Under the Liberal government, a wave of hopelessness has spread to every corner of the country, and we are seeing people seeking and being approved for medically facilitated death because they are poor, because they cannot afford adequate care or housing. It has even gotten to the point that veterans have been offered death instead of treatment and support. We must ensure that the dignity of the human person is respected and considered as a foundational block for our society if it is to be a just society.
We have seen the respect for human life, and especially the lives of vulnerable Canadians, threatened by the current government's MAID regime, and that should be weighed against the standard of a society that is right and just, and that measures whether their actions and policies enhance or threaten the dignity inherent in every single person. This is not a dignity that was invented, imagined or assigned by a government, but it can be affirmed or denied.
What we are seeing in Canada is a government that is willing to offer death before it is willing to offer adequate care, access to timely treatment or even a life that is affordable to live. People are asking food banks to help them access death. It is an absolute disgrace that life in Canada has come to that.
That is why the preferential option for the vulnerable must be in mind as we make any decision in this place. Does this protect, or attack, the vulnerable? Does this enhance, or threaten, the dignity of the vulnerable? Does this lift up the vulnerable, or marginalize them further? These are the questions that have to be asked. When it comes to the Liberal government's MAID regime, I will say that it attacks and threatens the vulnerable, threatens their human dignity and marginalizes them further. How could it not, when death is the solution offered to the problems of the most vulnerable people among us?
Throughout this entire process, the government has tried to silence the voices of marginalized Canadians, especially those living with disabilities or mental illness, but it will not silence my voice here today. It will not silence the voices of Conservatives who stand here united in our opposition to expanding medically assisted death for mental illness.
Death is not an acceptable solution to mental illness and psychological suffering. Our health care system should help people. It should help them find the hope and resilience they need in order to live, and not facilitate their deaths. We continue to be, as we always have been, called to attend to the lives of the most vulnerable people and their preferential option in life. That is to listen to them, to include them, to support them, to lift them up, to help them and to love them, not to end their lives.
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- Feb/15/23 3:11:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, maybe when Canadians are caught breaking the law, the government is okay if they just say “sorry”.
After eight years of the Prime Minister, Canadians do not expect that the Prime Minister will take any action when his ministers and parliamentary secretaries break the law, because he would have to hold himself to a high standard as well, having twice been caught breaking ethics laws. It is a cabinet of serial lawbreakers, with the trade minister, the intergovernmental affairs minister, the former finance minister and even the Prime Minister.
Both the Prime Minister and his parliamentary secretary broke the law. Who is going to resign first?
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- Feb/15/23 3:09:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, another day and another Liberal is caught breaking ethics laws. This time it is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister who was caught using his position to further the interests of a company. Now the Liberals are so brazen in their law-breaking that they have a member of the ethics committee who is breaking ethics laws.
These Liberals think they are above the law. For everyday Canadians there are consequences when they break the law. So why does the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister get to keep his job after he broke the law?
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- Feb/14/23 3:04:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, obviously some members are more concerned than others. Let us be clear. It is our national intelligence service that has alleged that former Liberal minister Michael Chan has direct connections to a spy network from Communist China. That is why he is on its watch list. He also chaired campaigns for the Liberal trade minister. The Prime Minister was warned about Liberal minister Michael Chan and was told to warn the trade minister.
Who is the Liberal trade minister taking her advice from if she is ignoring the PMO and CSIS?
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- Feb/14/23 3:03:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal trade minister had former Liberal minister Michael Chan chair her election campaigns. It turns out Mr. Chan is on a CSIS watch list for alleged connections to a spy network of the Chinese Communist regime, and the Prime Minister's senior staff, including Katie Telford, were told to warn the trade minister to be cautious in her dealings with Mr. Chan. The trade minister refused to answer the question yesterday, so I will ask again.
Why did the minister ignore the warnings from the PMO and Canada's intelligence service about having Mr. Chan chair her campaign, even though he had ties to spies for Communist China?
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- Feb/13/23 2:52:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the media reports have told us that a former Liberal minister, Michael Chan, is on a CSIS watch-list due to his ties to the Chinese communist regime and suspected spies. Chan was hired by the Liberal trade minister to work on her campaign. This is the same trade minister who was just found guilty of breaking ethics laws.
After eight years of this Prime Minister, Canadians have come to expect that the Liberals will, of course, break ethics rules, but why is the trade minister ignoring the advice of Canada's intelligence services?
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- Feb/13/23 2:51:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling to afford to feed themselves, all the while the Prime Minister is treating himself to $6000-per-night luxury hotel rooms and having Canadians pick up the tab. Now we know that he had his officials cover it up.
After eight years of the Prime Minister, Liberals are out of touch, and Canadians are out of money. Will the Prime Minister repay Canadians the $6,000-per-night he spent on the luxury suite that Canadians had to pay for?
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- Feb/10/23 12:03:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government House leader would tell Canadians that they have never had it so good. His metric for how well the government is doing is that Canadians are not currently suffering a world war. His word salad will not fill their bellies, but what the actions of the government are doing is filling the pockets of Liberal insiders.
If the minister will not do the right thing and pay Canadians back the tens of thousands she gave to Liberal insiders, then she needs to resign. That is what Canadians demand and deserve.
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- Feb/10/23 12:01:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when there is disorder on both sides of the House, does the member whose party is responsible for the disorder lose her question, if the Speaker has said that I have lost my—
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- Feb/10/23 11:58:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, Canadians have never had it so bad, and Liberal insiders have never had it so good. We can take the Liberal trade minister as an example. She gave tens of thousands of dollars in contracts to her bestie while Canadians were lined up at food banks. She was at committee today and would not answer the question, when I asked her, if she would do the right thing, make restitution and pay Canadians back those ill-gotten gains.
Here is another chance to answer the question. Will the minister repay Canadians the tens of thousands of dollars she gave to her friend?
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- Feb/10/23 11:11:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, Canadians are lined up at food banks and Liberal insiders are lining their pockets. We continue to see it time and time again, with the Prime Minister furthering the interests of his friends, just as the former finance minister, the intergovernmental affairs minister and now the trade minister have done. It is sweetheart deals and hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the case, to Liberal insiders while Canadians struggle to keep the heat on.
Canadians expect better from their government officials and they deserve accountability. Canada's Conservatives will continue to press the government to be accountable to Canadians. We are going to give Canadians that accountability and will continue to call on the minister to resign and repay the tens of thousands of dollars she gave to her insider friends.
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- Feb/8/23 3:08:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, Liberal insiders have been lining their pockets while Canadians have been lining up at food banks. McKinsey, one of those insiders, is the very same company that helped turbocharge opioid sales. It was involved in government corruption scandals the world over and, of course, helped the Government of Saudi Arabia track down and punish its opponents. That is the company that the Prime Minister gave $120 million of taxpayer money to.
Will the Prime Minister finally take responsibility for giving Canadians' tax dollars to a corrupt company, or will he get out of the way so—
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- Feb/3/23 11:33:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the question is this: Who is lying? The Prime Minister said that Dominic Barton was his friend. Dominic Barton said that he is not the Prime Minister's friend, and I do not blame him. I would not admit that was a friendship either.
McKinsey is a company that helped track down and punish Saudi dissidents, people who were critical of their government there. McKinsey is a company that helped supercharge the opioid crisis and that paid bonuses to pharmacists who were responsible for overdose deaths.
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- Feb/3/23 11:32:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government is very unsure and we get new numbers often. I expect that we will get a new higher number on Monday. However, we will be unsure if we can take the government at its word, because it continues to shovel money out the door to its insider friends at McKinsey. Public servants said that they have been treated to some colourful presentations, but not much else. After eight years of the Liberals, they are more than happy to keep shovelling that money, with no value to Canadians.
The question still stands, and we did not get the final and full answer: Can the parliamentary secretary tell us how much money they gave their insider friends at McKinsey?
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- Feb/1/23 3:08:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, now it is time to respect taxpayers and Canadians and have some ministerial accountability across the aisle. That means resignations of ministers who break Canadian laws. It is not a surprise from the Prime Minister because he has twice been found to have broken the ethics laws of this country to help out his buddies and Liberal insiders.
After eight years of this Prime Minister, people can bet that, if they are a Liberal insider, things are looking pretty great, but this is not so for the rest of Canadians. Therefore, when will the Prime Minister and the Liberals finally put Canadians first and put the corruption and law-breaking aside?
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- Feb/1/23 3:07:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Prime Minister, Canadians have never had it so bad, but Liberal insiders and high-priced consultants and friends of the Prime Minister have never had it so good.
We can just look at the Minister of International Trade. While Canadians were lined up at food banks, she had her BFF lined up to receive lucrative contracts that turned out to be illegal. That is a record fifth ethics violation for the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet.
Canadians want accountability. When will the Prime Minister ask for that minister's resignation?
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