Statement on Bill C-62

Honourable senators, I wish I could say that I am surprised by where we are on this issue, facing a motion that will have the effect of silencing the voices of those who are experts in this area and denying a voice to those who are suffering from mental illness. They’ve been disappointed and misled, and now they’re being denied the same right their fellow Canadians have to make their own end-of-life choices.

As one of the senators in this chamber who has been a long‑standing member of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, I witnessed first-hand the deliberate mishandling of this issue. I am in many ways sorry to have been part of a process that brings us here and robs so many of hope. Here in the Senate, we are used to a committee process that is fair and rigorous, but unfortunately, that is not always the case in the House of Commons. Committees are routinely hijacked there by the majority, and debate is short-circuited. We in the Senate are the ones left to clean up the mess.

I want to remind everybody that when the Senate sent amendments to this government based on what we had studied and debated, calling for advanced requests and consideration of access to medical assistance in dying, or MAID, for those with severe mental illness, it was the government itself that rejected advanced requests and said that access for those with mental illness would be their priority, their choice and their call.

We studied it. Outside groups and expert panels studied it, and then the government sought a year of delay. Now, just weeks before this delay was to be lifted, they have proposed yet another delay — in their words — until after the next election. This is despite the fact that the majority of witnesses stated clearly that the standards, testing and practitioners are in place and ready. The government has rejected this evidence and offered no new definition of what would constitute readiness. Therefore, once again, politics trumps the lives of those who are suffering and waiting.

Just to be clear, our mandate — what we were asked to do — was to assess in a very specific and narrow way whether the system was ready. Do we have the assessors and providers? Have they been trained? Are there standards so there is fair and equal access across Canada? The answer from 15 of the 15 professionals who were directly involved in readying the system was, “Yes.”

What I find so troubling is that this government says it is a powerful supporter of choice — choice when it comes to gender, a woman’s body and abortion and for many lifestyle issues — but it gives no choice for those who want a say in their end-of-life decision if mental illness is their malady.

MAID is about choice. Nobody mandates it, and nobody can force you, but if you are at stage 4 cancer, you can seek MAID. But if you have suffered from bipolar disorder your whole life and treatment with medication doesn’t work, or you have a dementia or an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, you don’t have a choice. Why? That is choice for some but not for all.

The government has built high fences to ensure safety, to offer reassurance for families and for the protection of the individuals. That matter is settled. We are not here to relitigate access to MAID. This delay, however — the denial of rights for some and the deliberate misrepresentation by government ministers of our mandate and of the evidence and testimony presented — is truly unacceptable. That is why I stand here today — to urge you to vote against this motion for a Committee of the Whole, because job one in the Senate is the proper review of legislation. We study, hear from witnesses, come to conclusions and offer the government of the day our best advice. This is not a forum for ministers to hold another press conference where we have limited questioning, no proper follow-ups and no time for sober second thought. They hijacked the joint committee but should not be allowed to undermine this chamber.

Stan Kutcher, Dr. Mégie and I, supported by Drs. Osler and Ravalia, all attended the hearings and agree that the committee report falsely represented the actual witness testimony — and other testimony that was submitted was simply ignored. Senator Dalphond, in his report, says the whole thing should be referred to the Supreme Court of Canada because there’s such an obvious denial of Charter rights. Our Bloc Québécois colleague, in case you think it was only senators objecting to what took place at committee, said this:

We deplore the fact that, since the Carter decision, the federal government has been dragging its feet when it comes to MA, forcing parliamentarians to work in a hurry to meet often unrealistic deadlines in conditions that are far from optimal from both a methodological and work organization standpoint. . . .

The experts who gave their time and testimony are also angry that their words are being misrepresented by government. I know this is true because I sat through the testimony. They were questioned directly and repeatedly. These witnesses were people like Dr. Mona Gupta — from whom you’ve all received a letter — Chair of the Expert Panel on MAID and Mental Illness who, among others, has been directly involved in the process of developing the regulations and guidelines for MAID assessors and providers. I suggest you take a look at her letter if you haven’t already.

As the others have mentioned, this is the sad fact: Not one individual suffering from a mental disorder who has been waiting to exercise their right to simply apply for MAID was consulted during this process — not one. The government ignores those whose lives hang in the balance. It ignores the testimony of its own chosen experts and then tries to argue that there was a lack of consensus on the issue. In the first place, there will never be consensus on any issue that is so personal and moral — but again, no consensus was sought. We were not looking for consensus. We were asked and instructed to look for the state of readiness and preparedness, and we were told by the providers that the system was ready. The curriculum developed by the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers has, in fact, already been approved by Canada’s formal medical accreditation bodies.

The government seeks to distract with talk about the state of health care and the fact that some provincial ministers say they are not ready. Well, they don’t have to be ready. It’s not about the sorry state of health care in Canada or the politics or preferences of provincial ministers. It’s about whether the system for assessment and provision of MAID is ready to deal with those with mental health issues, and the expert testimony indicated that it is, regardless of how you might feel about this issue. It must be a matter of choice.

For weeks in advance, we witnessed ministers of the Crown seeding the field, publicly sowing seeds of doubt prior to the report being released, even though they had heard the testimony. That’s not misinformation; it’s disinformation.

I urge everyone in this chamber to reject this motion for a Committee of the Whole for Bill C-62 on the grounds that the special joint committee failed in its deliberations to weigh evidence fairly and to present it fairly and failed in respect to its own mandate, which was limited to the preparedness to deliver MAID.

What this motion means is that government is asking us once again to pass a bill without proper study. This is not us delaying a bill. This is the government’s decision to put it off, as they say in their own words, until after the next election.

The government is creating a false panic over timing. We have time to study this properly. The government itself anticipated that time might be needed for that study, because they have added the coordinating amendments in Bill C-62 that are essentially a fail‑safe, that should this bill come into force after the March 17, 2024, date has passed, the proper clauses are repealed and come into effect as though the bill had been passed before the deadline and mental disorders would not be considered a condition eligible to apply for MAID. It’s in the Criminal Code, and it will remain in the Criminal Code. If we were still to be studying this bill on March 18, no one with mental illness as a sole underlying cause would be eligible. So there’s no urgency to do this in one day, just a political imperative.

I repeat, the Committee of the Whole is not a rigorous process. We see it here all the time, being asked to confirm five- or seven‑year appointments in an hour or two.

We must do our job, shine a light on what has gone wrong and let the informed and the impacted voices be heard — in other words, to get at the truth.

It is in the interest of everyone here in this chamber and all Canadians that this institution preserves the integrity of our sworn duty by insisting that Bill C-62 face standard scrutiny and that we ask our committees to do what they do best.

The time is now to be brave, to embrace those who have done so much for each of us. They might be our parents or our grandparents, our husbands or wives, our sisters or brothers, our children or our neighbours — anyone who suffers needlessly. We must do what is right and give them, if they so choose, the right to leave us with dignity, please.