Juno News - Trudeau’s MAiD expansion should alarm everyone (ft. Michael Cooper)

00:00:00.000 i want to bring this out of the personal realm and into the political realm here for a moment

00:00:13.240 michael cooper is a conservative member of parliament and joins me now michael good to

00:00:17.980 talk to you thanks for coming on today with you andrew now you're obviously on this committee

00:00:24.200 this special joint committee on medical assistance and dying and i i stress this with my audience

00:00:28.580 a moment ago but i i think it bears repeating here the government has not shown any desire to walk

00:00:35.400 this back they're talking about this as a matter of when and not if correct that was the message of

00:00:42.900 both the health minister and the justice minister mark holland and arit varani when they had a press

00:00:48.100 conference the other day and that anything short of an indefinite pause in our view would be

00:00:56.600 unacceptable because there are fundamental problems with expanding made in cases where

00:01:02.980 mental illness is the sole underlying disorder or condition yeah and i i've shared my own struggles

00:01:09.420 and story with my listeners in the past as a survivor of suicide i have grave concerns about

00:01:14.000 the implications of this for people that are going through now and in the future what i went through

00:01:19.200 in in the past but one of the things i i find so shocking about this is that even before this change

00:01:24.180 has come into effect we have heard so many stories of people that are not eligible under the current

00:01:30.660 laws that are still finding their way through the system so i think already there's a problem here

00:01:35.460 that the government has not shown an eagerness or even interest in dealing with absolutely and uh we've

00:01:42.340 seen many instances of abuse and persons who are vulnerable who have been pressured uh or coerced into

00:01:49.700 uh getting made and uh with respect to made and mental illness uh this fundamentally changes the concept of

00:01:58.580 made uh when the original made legislation uh was passed in 2016 bill uh c14 it was sold as something

00:02:09.540 that uh was tied to someone dying medical assistance in dying uh for persons who had the capacity and who were

00:02:18.180 suffering to make the choice to end their life just a little bit sooner uh this radically changes that

00:02:25.780 into something that would be tantamount to state-sanctioned state-facilitated suicide impacting some

00:02:33.140 of the most vulnerable persons in canadian society now you're obviously in addition to being an mp a

00:02:38.900 lawyer by training so i think you can probably weigh in on this better than some of your colleagues can but

00:02:44.100 the government has effectively said its hands are tied on this that the supreme court made a ruling

00:02:48.180 that said the previous uh regime which is i guess the current regime was too restrictive and they've

00:02:53.060 kind of been forced into that so what's your perspective on that aspect of this it's simply

00:02:58.020 nonsense the carter decision did not pronounce on mate and mental illness this is beyond the parameters

00:03:07.620 of the carter decision uh there has been a law since 2016 and there has not been a single court decision

00:03:16.980 that has struck down the law from the standpoint of restricting maid and mental illness this was a

00:03:24.260 purely political decision made by the liberals in frankly a shambolic and reckless fashion it is what

00:03:33.940 happens when a government and this is a government that has put blind ideology ahead of evidence-based

00:03:42.580 decision making this expansion of maid occurred as a result of a senate amendment that david lametti

00:03:51.460 as justice minister accepted at the last minute the liberals proceeded to shut down debate ram this

00:03:59.220 expansion through with an arbitrary timeline of two years and then said let's study the issue after the

00:04:06.820 fact and uh what experts have said loud and clear to the liberals is that this is not safe this is not

00:04:15.060 appropriate and it will result in persons who could get better to have their lives prematurely ended

00:04:21.860 well you know you're right to point out there michael the problem with the process here because

00:04:25.540 originally people may recall this was meant to have come in automatically after a two-year phase-in

00:04:31.700 period and the government just said oh yeah we'll figure out the details in that two years and and

00:04:36.500 they didn't i mean there was no agreement reached there was no resolution to this now thankfully they

00:04:41.620 they at least delayed it to prevent that initial implementation and here we are again with yet another

00:04:46.900 delay or pause as they put it but they were in a lot of ways going to just let this sneak in

00:04:53.540 that's right and what happened is just before the phase-in uh which was scheduled for march of 2023

00:05:04.260 march of last year 17 chairs of psychiatry representing the chairs of psychiatry at all medical schools in

00:05:11.860 canada penned a letter calling on the liberals to put a pause on this expansion and they identified

00:05:19.380 fundamental problems with uh this and it was only then that the liberals introduced legislation at the

00:05:28.260 last minute last year to put a one-year pause on uh this expansion of made one year later we find

00:05:37.860 ourselves in exactly the same position at literally the same time this year is last with a deadline of march

00:05:47.540 the liberals are bringing in rushed legislation to put a further pause because the very issues that

00:05:54.980 were identified as problematic with this expansion remain the same today and it's why this government

00:06:03.140 i would submit just again if if they do for responsible things you just recognize they got it

00:06:08.340 wrong they made a mistake to go down this road in the first place and put a permanent pause on this

00:06:14.900 trying to kick the can one or two or three years down the road isn't going to change the fundamental

00:06:19.940 problems that exist with this i i mean no disrespect when i i say this michael to your chosen uh profession

00:06:25.620 in politics here but but a lot of what is done in the house of commons and through legislation it has

00:06:31.860 meaning and it has significance but it's not life or death this is literally i mean by design by definition

00:06:38.660 life or death legislation and you know i can just use my own example because it's one i know intimately

00:06:43.860 but other people have come to me when i've talked about this in the past with their own stories

00:06:47.220 who've literally said i was at a time in my life you know five years ago 10 years ago 15 years ago

00:06:53.140 where if this were available to me i would have taken it and i would be dead and then you fast forward

00:06:59.140 and life has turned around so the government has not that i have seen and correct me if i'm wrong because

00:07:04.020 you were on the committee proposed a legitimate and useful guardrail or protective measure to ensure

00:07:12.100 that people who are in situations like i was in and like other people have been in will not access

00:07:17.700 this i mean even yesterday minister holland i felt was gaslighting when he talked about oh people who

00:07:22.180 have suffered for decades and tried everything even if that were the test i've not seen that spelled

00:07:28.100 out anywhere in writing that you have to have been going through something for decades and you have

00:07:32.820 to have exhausted all avenues so that's not even a guardrail they've proposed is it not a guardrail the

00:07:39.060 advocates have claimed that that's what would happen but then they oppose legislating it in fact

00:07:46.020 the government provided no safeguards no new safeguards and quite frankly there aren't any safeguards

00:07:53.780 that would make this expansion safe because there are two fundamental clinical and legal issues

00:08:02.660 the first is a clinical and legal one and that is that it is difficult if not impossible to predict

00:08:09.300 irremediability in other words it's difficult if not impossible to predict whether someone

00:08:15.220 could get better resulting in persons prematurely having their lives and which is completely unacceptable we

00:08:23.780 heard evidence from psychiatrists that a mistake or error rate could be as high as 50 percent of the time on

00:08:31.060 the question of your immediate ability and it's a legal 50 percent 50 percent we're talking about a

00:08:36.740 coin toss here basically a coin toss uh another psychiatrist uh they could be uh right not five

00:08:43.940 percent of the time or uh 95 of the time there's just so much uncertainty surrounding it which just

00:08:50.420 underscores the recklessness of this because if the liberals had studied this had they consulted

00:08:55.780 before deciding to do this they would have heard that feedback from uh leading psychiatrists and i would

00:09:02.340 hope that no responsible government would on that basis move ahead with this but this doesn't appear

00:09:07.620 to be a responsible government and but you know the second issue that is uh a clinical one fundamental

00:09:14.340 is that it is difficult to accurately assess when when persons are suffering from mental illness whether

00:09:21.540 their request for made is one that is rational uh in other words but for competent to make that request or

00:09:29.860 whether it is one motivated by suicidal ideation that's underscored by the fact that in about 90 percent of

00:09:38.020 cases of suicide deaths uh those persons have a diagnosable mental illness yeah and and there i

00:09:45.860 mean just to put a fine point on that the request itself could be a symptom which you know under current

00:09:52.020 health care protocols a doctor would have to respond with a measurement mechanism to make sure you're safe

00:09:57.300 instead of you know facilitating this instead of giving you a pamphlet or a referral to someone that can

00:10:02.020 make that happen which is why this is just so so incredibly incredibly disgusting and you know there

00:10:07.780 were questions that minister holman was facing from reporters who i thought were quite good on

00:10:11.940 this generally saying you know you're going to make this a political issue by delaying it closer

00:10:16.420 to an election i don't think and maybe i'm i'm just overly positive or optimistic here i don't think

00:10:23.300 this being an election issue helps the liberals i i have to think that canadians are as repulsed by this

00:10:29.140 as you and i are and i'm wondering if you've got any insight on that in terms of letters you've received

00:10:34.100 or people that have testified before the committee well the overwhelming evidence before the committee

00:10:40.660 from experts in fact just about every leading expert said don't go ahead with this there were

00:10:46.820 nearly 900 briefs uh submitted in the span of about a week which is very high for a committee in fact it

00:10:53.940 might be the most briefs i've had on a committee or a study that i've been involved in uh which shows

00:11:02.100 public interest and concern and most of those briefs submitted by canadians including a number of

00:11:08.180 experts was don't go ahead with this and uh although they like to talk about this in an abstract sense

00:11:17.940 let's talk about what this would really mean who would qualify what does it mean to expand uh made in

00:11:25.220 cases of mental illness when mona gupta who was the chair of the liberal appointed expert panel on this

00:11:33.140 matter was asked what would constitute a mental illness or a mental disorder she said anything listed in the

00:11:41.700 dsm-5 what that would mean is that it could include persons who are suffering from depression who have

00:11:49.620 schizophrenia who are autistic who have uh issues arising from uh drug addictions this is what

00:11:58.660 we're talking about when we're talking about made and mental illness instead of offering persons hope and

00:12:06.180 health who are struggling what this liberal government is doing with this expansion is offering them

00:12:11.540 death and i think that's so fundamentally wrong and i think most canadians would be repulsed by it

00:12:16.420 yeah more canadians learn about it they are yeah and also as a psychiatrist have testified and said

00:12:22.900 diagnostic criteria are not always simple on these things there's a lot of overlap it's not like you

00:12:27.540 can do a a blood test for depression it's not like you can just in a 100 certain way even diagnose

00:12:33.940 someone with this how do you know this is just uh mental illness and not just a phase in life that's

00:12:38.820 brought on by by circumstances so uh absolutely absolutely ghastly i'm glad there is some pushback

00:12:44.980 on this michael cooper conservative democratic reform critic thank you so much michael really appreciate

00:12:49.860 it thanks andrew thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true

00:12:56.100 north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - February 04, 2024

Trudeau’s MAiD expansion should alarm everyone (ft. Michael Cooper)

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