Juno News - Liberals embrace suicide promotion over suicide prevention

00:00:00.000 As some of you may know, and some of you may not know, I actually don't know what you know,

00:00:13.480 I am a suicide survivor. About 10 years ago, more than that actually, at the end of 2010,

00:00:18.760 I was nearly successful in attempting to take my own life. And as far as the reasons and the

00:00:26.040 circumstances go, they're not particularly relevant to this discussion, except for the

00:00:30.300 fact that I was dealing with, for several years, rather serious depression. So serious, in fact,

00:00:35.560 that I thought that my life would be better served by being over than by continuing. Why this is

00:00:41.800 relevant now is that the Liberal government is entertaining a Senate amendment to a bill

00:00:47.640 expanding access to assisted death. And one of the amendments makes it so that someone whose sole

00:00:52.900 issue is dealing with mental illness could access medical assisted death, could access assisted

00:00:59.220 suicide in the healthcare system. Someone with depression, where we would normally say, well,

00:01:04.720 here are all the reasons you shouldn't end your life would now be given the means to do it. Now,

00:01:09.520 the implications of this on the mental healthcare system are significant. The Canadian Mental Health

00:01:14.060 Association, which is not generally a political body at all, has come out against this saying that,

00:01:18.900 well, we're a recovery organization, we can't accept legislation that views mental illnesses as

00:01:24.900 irremediable, which is really at the cornerstone of assisted death, you have to have something that

00:01:30.220 is not going to get better. Well, to go back to my own story, as a suicide survivor, I was 110%

00:01:37.440 convinced that there was no way my life could get better. And that's why I had to try to take my life.

00:01:43.920 And this is so heartbreaking when I think of how the government is actually going down the road of

00:01:49.460 suicide promotion, rather than prevention, they are fostering what is really a culture that is the

00:01:57.000 one we've been trying to fight against. Think of how many billions of dollars have been spent on mental

00:02:01.860 illness awareness campaigns on different treatment program, expanding access to care. And all behind

00:02:07.700 that is the message to people that, hey, you're loved, we want to help you, we want to reach out and

00:02:12.580 help you. So for the government to turn around and say, as they are saying, in effect, by accepting

00:02:18.420 this amendment, that, you know what, if you want to take your life, you want to kill yourself, that's

00:02:25.040 completely your choice. Have at it, have fun, we'll even help you do it. Now, this is something that

00:02:31.060 would never fly if they had put this in the original text of the bill. But I almost wonder if it was

00:02:36.180 intentional, if this was orchestrated, so that they didn't actually have to have any parliamentary

00:02:40.800 scrutiny over it, if they had put it forward right at the very, right at the outset with this. I want

00:02:46.820 to talk about the process and the implications of this with MP Garnett Janis, Conservative Member of

00:02:51.620 Parliament, who has done a lot of great work on this issue. Garnett, good to talk to you. Thanks

00:02:56.160 very much for coming on today. And I should say that we were actually speaking about this on your

00:03:00.940 show last night on your Facebook page. And I'm glad to be back in our respective normal chairs here

00:03:06.960 with you being interviewed by me. It's good to have you. Well, thank you, Andrew. It's so great to be

00:03:11.100 with you this morning. Now, you've actually wanted to get people to tell their stories. That was part of why

00:03:16.900 you had invited me to go on your Facebook stream last night. And I know you've done this with other

00:03:21.740 people and are continuing to do it. You've launched a website, tellmetostay.ca. What is that?

00:03:27.140 We've reached out to people to ask them to share their stories, their personal stories, related to

00:03:33.120 mental health challenges and how they think C7 would affect them or could have affected them

00:03:38.240 at past moments of crisis. And we've gotten over 70 stories already from Canadians who have personal

00:03:45.380 experiences that they're prepared to share. So we had a press conference with a number of those folks

00:03:49.620 on Monday. We're doing Facebook Lives on my page every night this week, sharing those stories.

00:03:55.420 We're not going to have enough time to share all of them. But I really salute people who have the

00:04:01.100 courage to come forward and share their personal experiences. And then just on the process side,

00:04:05.720 because I think it is important that the government is trying to rush this through,

00:04:08.740 relatively speaking, in the dead of night, that we had a bill that specifically excluded

00:04:15.660 medical assistance in dying for those with mental health challenges. That was amended by the Senate.

00:04:23.560 And then at the last minute, the government said, yeah, we're going to accept the Senate amendment.

00:04:26.640 They decided to do that in a motion that was published late on a Tuesday night,

00:04:31.920 pardon me, on a Monday night. And then they expected the House to pass it the following day.

00:04:35.560 Just totally outrageous, their expectation that between announcing this change in position in the

00:04:40.780 adoption of the House of Commons, they could push that through within 24 hours. And they kept trying

00:04:46.160 different procedural things to rush this through. And we've said, no, we need to hear from Canadians on

00:04:53.700 this. This is an issue that should at least be studied by a parliamentary committee. This is a

00:04:59.200 dramatic change in how our society would operate, from one in which people with mental health challenges 1.00

00:05:04.660 are offered suicide prevention, to one in which people with those mental health challenges could

00:05:09.840 be offered suicide facilitation by our public health care system.

00:05:14.140 And that is a very important point. And one of the things I raised when you and I were speaking

00:05:19.080 last night is that I'm convinced that if a committee were to hear the stories of people who

00:05:25.660 themselves are survivors of suicide, people that have lost someone to suicide, there's no way in a

00:05:30.480 million years they could actually get on board with passing this. And it almost seems deliberate in

00:05:35.500 that way for this to come about without that process, without the opportunity to hear from witness

00:05:41.000 testimony. Yeah, absolutely. The House of Commons Committee that was studying this, by the way,

00:05:47.100 the House of Commons Committee study on it was quite limited as well, because the whole story of this

00:05:50.960 bill is you have a particular court decision in Quebec, the Truchon decision. Now, we think that

00:05:56.960 should have been appealed to the Supreme Court. But in any event, the government decided to legislate on

00:06:00.900 the basis of that decision. But then they dramatically expanded the issues that were in that piece of

00:06:05.620 legislation. So the Truchon decision dealt with with the issue of reasonable foreseeability.

00:06:09.900 The government removed a whole bunch of safeguards. And they said, we have to rush this bill through

00:06:14.280 to make the court timeline. Well, if you want to worry about the court timeline, then how about you

00:06:18.580 legislate in a way that specifically responds to the court and nothing else, instead of throwing a

00:06:23.020 whole bunch of other issues? And then this is just the continuation of the story, which is the

00:06:26.720 government adding in the mental health piece at this late stage with no House of Commons

00:06:33.000 committee study on that issue at all. And then them again, using the excuse of the court deadline,

00:06:38.440 even though very clearly, they're continually expanding the scope, the Truchon decision had

00:06:43.080 nothing to do with with the mental health piece at all.

00:06:47.400 That expansion is key, because I remember when the very first legislation was put forward,

00:06:53.060 there were all of these safeguards. And most people on the left were understanding that, yeah,

00:06:58.540 you know, we need to have these safeguards, we need to have these restrictions. And those have been

00:07:03.520 continuing to break down. And now with the mental health case that we're talking about now,

00:07:08.800 even beyond things that weren't even talked about things that were actually laughed at when someone

00:07:13.580 would were to bring them up, because I remember I brought this up the first time around and was

00:07:17.120 told no, no, no, it's never that we're never going down that road, that's never going to happen.

00:07:21.040 And you have to be concerned about where it's going to go from here.

00:07:25.040 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've been a parliamentarian for since 2015. So it was,

00:07:30.500 you know, relatively short time. And yet, and yet, I'm old enough to remember a time when

00:07:35.660 liberals said the safeguards they're now removing, were so vitally important. I don't think the

00:07:41.620 safeguards in the original bill were sufficient. And there were a number of proposals that we would

00:07:46.320 had put forward around that. But some of the, you know, the very basic things like a like a 10 day

00:07:51.960 reflection period, the existing law has a 10 day reflection period, that reflection period can be

00:07:56.680 waived with the agreement of the two doctors involved. So it's not it's not a hard and fast

00:08:03.360 rule, but it's kind of a default position that you would have a 10 day reflection period. This

00:08:07.660 this new version of the bill proposes to do away with the reflection period, it proposes to to reduce

00:08:15.220 the requirements for independent witnesses. And that in addition to creating a situation where

00:08:21.840 people with disabilities, people with mental health challenges are much more likely to be

00:08:26.840 be be moved in this direction. But, you know, the current system still has problems with it. I mean,

00:08:32.640 we already had testimony from people living with disabilities, who were pushed in this direction,

00:08:37.880 who were who who repeatedly had had euthanasia brought up to them, even though they had said they

00:08:44.280 didn't want it. A case of a of a lady being told that she was selfish, because her daughter didn't 0.99

00:08:50.660 want to didn't want to go in this direction. So, you know, people people champion this on the basis

00:08:56.280 of autonomy, but the social context in which that autonomy is is expressed matters a lot.

00:09:01.440 And now with the risk that people and facing mental health challenges could be pressured or

00:09:06.920 encouraged in this direction, or or or even that just the suicide prevention piece would be removed,

00:09:13.140 raises it raises very serious concerns about the direction we're going. And so quickly,

00:09:17.880 from where we we said we were in 2015-16, you know, this would be a rare exceptional case for for,

00:09:25.940 you know, terminally ill people to to where we are now.

00:09:31.800 One of the things when you mentioned the reflection period, as I understand it, in this bill,

00:09:36.440 one of the things that could happen is a same day request that could be fulfilled. Is that correct?

00:09:41.580 Yes. So and and there's there's some different categories. So the so the legislation proposes to

00:09:46.880 divide between the category of death reasonably foreseeable and death not reasonably foreseeable.

00:09:52.400 And the concept of reasonably foreseeability has always been a little bit fuzzy because it doesn't

00:09:58.800 explicitly refer to someone being being terminal. But this legislation removes the 10 day reflection

00:10:08.180 period or or any kind of time associated safeguard for those for whom death is reasonably foreseeable,

00:10:14.480 so called. So it does mean in that case that a person could request and receive euthanasia on the

00:10:21.340 same day. And and I don't think that makes sense. I don't think it makes sense that someone's worst day

00:10:26.280 could be their last, that you could visit a family member in the hospital on Wednesday, think everybody

00:10:31.880 everything's fine, and then come back on Friday to find that, well, this is this was their request.

00:10:36.600 And and so we carried it out right away. I just, you know, I don't think that's sort of in line with it with

00:10:42.380 a with a reasoned consideration of what autonomy looks like, which is people being given the time and space

00:10:47.560 to consider their options over a certain period of time.

00:10:51.160 You talked earlier about suicide prevention objectives, and this is something that's not lost on me.

00:10:56.460 The government has put billions of dollars into this. We have billions of dollars put into this through

00:11:01.320 charitable campaigns and efforts. We've got colored ribbon campaigns for suicide awareness and

00:11:06.500 prevention. We've got committees, councils, ads, all of these things that is trying to that are

00:11:12.500 trying to serve the public by telling people to reach out for help if you want to take your life

00:11:17.720 because of mental illness. And has the government given any indication of how it reconciles these

00:11:25.300 two positions? On one hand, this, I say vastly expanding public discussion about mental illness and

00:11:32.560 suicide. And then this, which is saying that, you know what, if you're dealing with depression,

00:11:36.940 that could be grounds for you to get a doctor assisted death.

00:11:43.220 Yeah, there's there's a lot to unpack there. And, you know, has it been discussed? Has the government

00:11:49.640 considered the implications of this? You know, if they if they thought about it, they certainly haven't

00:11:55.300 talked about it, because this has had very limited debate so far. And the government is trying

00:11:59.720 everything they can to justify rushing this through without that kind of consideration

00:12:05.040 and discussion. Andrew, one of the concerns I have is that is that people who are struggling

00:12:11.100 with with mental health challenges are experiencing suicidal thoughts, maybe less likely to seek help

00:12:18.160 if they're concerned that that visiting their doctor might might might actually not be not lead to them

00:12:27.840 being, you know, encouraged to live, but them being offered the option of of death. I think

00:12:34.960 that this undermines what we want to see, which is people in those crisis situations,

00:12:40.160 reaching out to to support structures that can kind of help them through some of the things they're

00:12:47.720 experienced. Let me just go to a bit of a civics question here. You have talked about the fact that

00:12:53.960 this really bypassed the House of Commons committee and the rabid pace at which this was accepted by

00:12:59.640 the government in the House from the Senate recommendations. What's the next step on this now?

00:13:05.840 Yeah, so so on the civics side, the way our system works, bicameral system, every bill has to pass both

00:13:12.420 the House and the Senate in identical form. So a bill can start either place. More often, legislation starts

00:13:20.040 in the House of Commons. It's adopted in a certain form. It goes to the Senate. If the Senate adopts it, then it

00:13:25.320 goes to the governor general and becomes law. If the Senate amends it, then we have a then it's referred

00:13:34.520 back to the House of Commons and we have a motion on Senate amendments. And typically in this in these cases,

00:13:39.560 as we see right now, the government has a motion which agrees with some of the Senate amendments.

00:13:44.920 Maybe doesn't agree with some of those amendments and modifies others. So in this case, it says the

00:13:51.080 government respectfully disagrees with A and B, agrees with C, proposes the following changes to D and E,

00:13:59.160 you know, something like that. That motion will be debated in the House of Commons. That motion itself

00:14:06.200 could be amended. So the motion on Senate amendments could be amended. And right now we have a conservative

00:14:10.720 amendment which seeks to change the government's motion on Senate amendments in terms of which

00:14:17.520 amendments they're agreeing with and not agreeing with. Typically, in some form, the government's

00:14:24.480 motion on Senate amendments will pass and then go back to the Senate. Because if the government agreed

00:14:29.840 with all of the Senate amendments, then we'd be done. But if the government agrees with some and disagrees

00:14:36.320 with others, then we still don't have agreement. So then it goes back to the Senate. And then the

00:14:41.120 Senate considers whether to adopt the House of Commons kind of revised version or to, in effect,

00:14:52.720 make a counter proposal. So you can think of it sort of like a negotiation between the two

00:14:57.760 chambers where each one has to debate and then conclude on a position and then send that position

00:15:04.560 back and forth. Now, there are some complex procedures in the standing orders if we get to

00:15:11.200 a point where there just seem to be irreconcilable differences. In the time I've been a member of

00:15:16.800 parliament, it's kind of at most gone one, two, three, four. House, Senate, then a House motion to

00:15:23.040 concur some and others and then back to the Senate for final agreement. That's what happened actually with

00:15:27.600 Bill C-14, the original euthanasia legislation. And we'll see how this unfolds on Bill C-7.

00:15:38.160 But in a minority parliament, with some indication that some liberals are uncomfortable with the

00:15:45.040 direction of the government on this mental health issue, it's really important for people to seize this

00:15:50.080 moment now to talk to their MPs and to ask them to rethink this facilitated suicide for the mentally

00:16:00.000 ill proposal that has been added on to C-7 at the last minute. Well, I appreciate the explanation

00:16:07.440 there and also your work on this conservative MP Garnet Janus. Always a pleasure, Garnet. Thanks for coming on.

00:16:12.640 Thank you, Andrew. Appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:16:16.640 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - March 10, 2021

Liberals embrace suicide promotion over suicide prevention

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