MAiD Update
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Summary
On today's show, we're talking about a serious topic: Medical assistance in dying. It's come up in the news lately, and we want to make sure that the Conservative view is put forward, and that you're on the same page as us on what we're discussing.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm
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your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, Co-Orthelix Brock, with new
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content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Please like, comment, share
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and subscribe to this program. Of course, if you can't watch or listen to the program
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in its entirety right this very second, download it and listen to it on platforms like Cast
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Box, iTunes, Google Play and Spotify, you name it, it is out there. On today's show,
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we're talking about a bit of a serious topic today, medical assistance in dying. It's
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come up in the news lately and we want to make sure that the Conservative view is put forward
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and you're on side on what we want to talk about. So, of course, we bring in the experts,
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of course, Michael Cooper, Member of Parliament for St. Albert Edmonton. He is back on the
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show as well as Dr. Stephen Ellis from Cumberland, Colchester. And in the background, you can't
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see him, Teiko Van Papti from Langley, Alder Grove. He's right beside Super Producer Nick
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overseeing what we are saying and doing here. Welcome, gentlemen. Thanks for
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being here. Good to be with you, Jamie. Thanks, Harry.
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All right. So, the government announced a little while ago that they're going to kick the can
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down the road on medical assistance and dying. Why don't you tell us a bit about that? Then
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we'll kind of reverse a bit to tell a bit of the history and then go into the discussion.
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Sure. Well, last week, the Liberals introduced a bill to delay the expansion of made-for-mental
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illness by three years. This is after, this is the second delay. They introduced 11th hour
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legislation last year to put a pause on this expansion. And that is because leading medical
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experts have said, this is not safe. It can't be implemented appropriately because there are
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fundamental clinical issues. And so, in short, yes, the Liberals have kicked the can down the road.
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But at the same time, they have made clear they are moving ahead with this expansion. Mark Holland,
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the health minister, went so far as to say there is a moral imperative to offer death to persons who
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are struggling with mental health issues. I would submit that highlights the moral bankruptcy of
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Justin Trudeau's Liberals. And quite frankly, rather than kicking the can down the road, what the Liberals
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need to do is admit that they've gotten it wrong and permanently scrap this radical experiment that
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literally gambles with the lives of vulnerable persons.
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Isn't that a pretty dangerous path to go on? If you can offer medical assistance in dying to an
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individual suffering from mental health, in some cases, a mental health crisis can be temporary
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to put an end to something that could be fixed. And you see the way the government's dealing with
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its drug strategy, right? In British Columbia, in Vancouver in particular, it's more about access,
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not about the treatment side. We should be looking at that.
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You know, I think very clearly, and one of the things from testimony that was heard on the main
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file is that, you know, psychiatrists and family doctors included who often make these diagnoses can
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be right 2% of the time or 98% of the time. Nobody really knows. And I think it needs to be very clear
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that the science around mental illness and its treatment, and as you may hear us say, irremediability,
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meaning whether it really is unfixable in a less sophisticated term or not, the science around
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mental illness is still in its infancy. The diagnosis is made by talking to people. There's
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no blood test to have. So it's on the basis of one answer or another as to how you determine whether
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the person indeed even has the illness. This is a very complicated subject, and I realize that it's
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emotionally charged. However, we need to be a government, and a conservative government, of
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course, would be responsive to its citizens and understanding the importance of getting decisions
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that are very, very difficult like this right. And that's what a conservative government is committed
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Let's play a video here, which kind of gives us the history. So at the beginning, when this first came
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out, it was inaccessible to those who had foreseen, death was in the foreseeable future. I know,
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Mr. Cooper, you have a more precise language than that, but I think in essence, that's how it started.
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Your video that we're going to play gives a bit of the history. It's about a minute long. Stick with
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us. Super producer Nick is going to queue up cut one. Let's play cut one.
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Canada was set to have this radical expansion of MAID come into effect this year, but fortunately,
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the Liberals delayed implementation by one year after leading experts, including the chairs of
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psychiatry at all 17 medical schools, said that Canada isn't ready for MAID and mental illness.
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And the leading medical professionals said that Canada isn't ready for two fundamental reasons.
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The first is that it is impossible to accurately predict irremediability. Under the law, in order to
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qualify for MAID, someone must suffer from an irremediable disease or illness. In other words,
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one must suffer from a disease or illness in which they are not going to get better, and that they
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are in an irreversible state of decline. Medical professionals said this can't accurately be
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predicted. And so therefore, persons who could get better, who could go on to lead healthy and happy
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lives will have their lives prematurely ended. That pretty much sums it up. It started, as you
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mentioned, from somebody suffering from, say, cancer, where the treatment is no longer offered, to what
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we have now when people are going through mental health. And like we've all said, it's a very dark path.
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Well, these are very, as I said, fundamental clinical issues. As Dr. Ellis noted, irremediability
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being one. Another is it is difficult for clinicians to assess whether someone with a mental illness,
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whether in the context of MAID, they are making a rational request or one motivated by suicidal ideation. And
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that's underscored by the fact that in approximately 90 percent of deaths by suicide,
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persons have a diagnosable mental illness. All of these issues are significant. They're not going to
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be resolved in three years, just as they were not resolved in the past year when the Liberals put a
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one-year pause. So it's why we're calling on the Liberals to not kick the can down the road further,
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but simply scrap this expansion. And how can they be so tone deaf to all this opposition?
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Well, you know what? I think one of the other things that we need to be
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very clear on is that in studies out there, Canadians have made their opposition in a different way,
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perhaps, but saying that 50 percent of Canadians out there with mental health issues are not able
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to access the treatment that they desire to have to help them get better. So when we look at the
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terrible state of affairs of the Canadian medical system and understand that people are not even
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able to access the treatment that they need, how could we possibly say that they have an
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irremediable mental health illness? I agree totally with my colleague, Michael. I think he's done great
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work on this file. But for Canadians to understand these issues, it is incredibly important to have
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a government that just does not support their mental health and to see the fact that mental health
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and physical health are incredibly important to be a productive member of society and have a long
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and happy life. And I would just add, just to provide a little bit of context on the history,
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how did we get here? It started with the Liberals accepting a radical Senate amendment to another bill
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and David Lamedi, who was then Justice Minister, shut down debate and they rammed the amendment and the bill
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through, setting in motion this timeline to implement MAID for mental illness. So on a matter that impacts some of
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the most vulnerable persons in Canadian society but constitutes a significant expansion of MAID,
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the Liberals made the ideological decision to move ahead with this and then decided to study it
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after the fact, which is, and upon studying it, what they've heard loud and clear from leading
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experts is that this should not move forward. So they've gotten it completely backwards in terms
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of how they've approached this issue. And it underscores that what we have with this Liberal
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government is a government that makes ideological decisions as opposed to ones based on evidence-based
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decision-making. But then it also goes into their departments, that kind of vision or their
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thinking. As I've talked about with Blake Richards, our veterans critic before, that veteran who
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wanted a chairlift was offered MAID. Can you imagine the veteran saying, I'd like a chairlift,
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I'm having trouble getting around. And the person on the other end of the phone says, well,
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have you tried medical assistance and dying? And apparently that wasn't the first time Veterans
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Affairs officials have recommended that to veterans. This government is so, I think,
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is so out of touch. It's definitely time for a change. But what do we do now? What's the next steps?
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Well, I mean, the obvious next step is really simple. We need an election here in Canada.
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You know, but that being said, I think that continuing to get the word out with respect to MAID is very
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important. We have had the great ability to do some town halls across the country. There are still
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many Canadians out there who aren't even aware of this expansion of medical assistance and dying.
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And I think that that's, that is incredibly important. And of course, being here on the
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blueprint is a, is a very, very important part of that. But Canadians also need to realize the
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ideological nature of this liberal NDP coalition, that they don't really care about the citizens,
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that they want to move forward with the agenda that they have. And of course,
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the conservative agenda is, is very much different in terms of being responsive to the needs of,
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of those who put us in this office and, and being good stewards of that.
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So Michael, you were put on the committee right at the beginning in 2015, 2016. How have you
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witnessed the, the liberals and their, the mindset through this each and every
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process that we've seemed to find ourselves going through?
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Well, at the time I warned and others warned about a slippery slope. And that was more or less
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dismissed by the liberals. And what we have seen in the time of now seven years is a major slippery
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slope, uh, that has come to fruition. Um, when Bill C-14, the original made legislation became law,
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what was contemplated was, uh, a procedure that persons who were at the end of their life,
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who were suffering intolerably, who had the capacity to consent, could make a decision to end
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their life just a little bit sooner. Now you can debate and argue the merits of that, but we had a
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Supreme Court decision and that was what parliament contemplated. Uh, to then move as the liberals did to
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removing the criteria that death be reasonably foreseeable, and now to move to the next step
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of expanding MAID in cases of mental illness. What we are now dealing with in terms of the concept
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of MAID is something very, very different from what parliament initially contemplated. What we are
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now talking about is something that is tantamount to state-sanctioned, state-facilitated suicide.
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Let's queue up cut two because we have video on this and, uh, actually talking about basically what you
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just said, the slippery slope. So let's hear it in the words of Doc Ellis. Play cut two.
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Now what are we doing? You don't need to influence doctors because the liberal government is giving
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away opioids for free. And then don't worry Canadians, because when you're addicted to these opioids
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that this liberal NDP coalition is giving you for free in their crazed experiment, what are they going
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to do? They're going to kill you. Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. To continue to allow the propagation of
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medical assistance in dying, the euphemism by which it's now become known from a procedure which was
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destined for those who had uncontrolled pain with a reasonable foreseeable death, now onto folks who have
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suffering because of homelessness perhaps, because they can't find a job.
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I think there was an instance of someone in Mississauga, the director of a food bank in Mississauga,
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someone searching for information on MAID because they couldn't just cope with life because
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the liberals have made the, you know, food, housing, everything so unaffordable.
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Well, I mean, as you all know, these are the considerable difficulties facing Canadians nowadays,
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is the terrible affordability crisis. We know that many Canadians are $200 away from insolvency
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every month, and it's only getting worse for Canadians. You know, the point I was attempting to
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make, and just to be clear for Canadians, is that substance use disorder is classified as a mental
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illness as well. It is in the DSM-5, the Diagnostics and Statistical Manual, fifth edition,
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which would be the basis for making a decision about what is a mental illness and what the criteria
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are, etc. And so when you look at that difficulty, then clearly people who are suffering with drug
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addiction in the vernacular could be eligible to have MAID. And again, there are many other instances,
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and that goes along with what Michael said, with respect to the terrible slippery slope,
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which we've found Canada on, which we believe is our job to make Canadians aware of it and to stop
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that decline. We're almost out of time, but of course, the guests always get the last word,
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as both of you know. Michael, why don't you take the floor? Well, the only good news of this three-year
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delay is that it's not happening now, and as a result, there will be an election between now and
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the end of that three-year extension. And so Canadians will have a choice. They can vote for
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Justin Trudeau's radical liberals who want to offer death to persons who are struggling with mental
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illness, or if they can elect a common-sense, conservative government led by Pierre Pauliev that
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will give Canadians who are struggling with mental health hope instead of death.
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Well, thanks very much, Jamie. And just to be very quick about this, I think that
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Canadians are now ready for a government that's going to axe the tax, build the houses, fix the
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budget, and stop the crime. And when the next election comes, then we expect all of you out there
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to be voting for us and to do those things exactly. Thank you very much. Dr. Stephen Ellis,
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Member of Parliament for Cumberland-Colchester, also Michael Cooper, Member of Parliament for St.
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Albert-Edmonton. In the background, the supervisor, Takeo Van Papta Langley-Aldergrope is his writing.
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And of course, as the doc says, we would like more and more voters to look to the Conservative Party,
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but in order to do that, they need to get this message out. Please like, comment, subscribe,
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Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government,