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Results: 46 - 60 of 1164
View Karen Vecchio Profile
CPC (ON)
Yes, and thanks very much.
Truly, this is where I want to come back to the clerk, because I recognize that we're talking about two very distinct things.
When we're talking about electoral reform and what that looks like using a citizens' assembly, that is, when we want to look at where we end at the end of the day, that is one track.
The other track is what we're talking about by doing, truly, an outreach. It's a variety of other options that we have to do here as well.
I guess for me, I know that we will table reports. A lot of times, we'll table a committee report followed by supplementary and dissenting reports. Maybe the clerk can share with me on this, and then I will take the floor back. I look at these two items as very separate. What historically has been done when a committee does one study but has two reports? To me, it just seems like we're going to be calling witnesses in, and if this is what the government wants, we're going to be really focusing on that report. We'll ensure that all of the witnesses are for that report.
I guess my thing is that I feel right now that we're trying to split hairs here. Why would we not focus and put all of our intentions into something that is important to Mr. Blaikie and then water down the rest? Why would there not be two separate studies, rather than two separate reports on one study? I just want to see, historically, if that has been done.
Justin Vaive
View Justin Vaive Profile
Justin Vaive
2021-06-22 12:25
Yes, course, Madam Chair.
To Ms. Vecchio's specific question about the number of reports, it does happen, and does happen frequently enough that a committee will provide more than one report on the same study. Sometimes that takes the form of an interim report followed by a final report, or sometimes it's a report part 1, and that same report part 2. That has happened in the past, especially on, for example, a very big study where perhaps the committee might want to segment out the work that it's doing and focus on one segment in a specific report and then a second segment or other segments in a different report. So that does occur.
Now, to the more general point that you raised just now and also a little earlier in the debate regarding scope and mandate, the mandate of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is found in Standing Order 108(3)(a). The specific provision within that mandate for PROC that makes Mr. Blaikie's entire motion in order is in subparagraph 108(3)(a)(vi) of that, which talks about the review of and report on all matters relating to the election of members to the House of Commons.
Now, on the amendment that Mr. Turnbull is bringing forward, my own personal interpretation—and this would be sort of my own personal advice that I would give to the chair or to any member of the committee—is that, in and of itself, as a stand-alone item it wouldn't fall within the mandate. If you were just talking about designing a citizenship engagement platform, that wouldn't fall within the mandate.
My understanding based on the discussion that the members had today is that it's very much a part 2 to the bigger issue of Mr. Blaikie's amendment, which is to say let's look at creating a citizen assembly on electoral reform and then basically Mr. Turnbull's amendment comes in and kind of says let's focus as well on the mechanics of how that citizen assembly can be built in order to fulfill the broader mandate of looking at electoral reform.
He has also added the other aspect of it, which is that it might also have applicability for issues other than electoral reform.
So the procedural advice that I would give—and by no means does this in any way bind the chair or the committee—would be that it would fall within the mandate of the committee because there is still that link to electoral reform, which is all about methods of electing members of Parliament to the House of Commons, which is in the mandate of the committee.
View Karen Vecchio Profile
CPC (ON)
That's awesome. Thank you very much. I think those are some of my thoughts as well, exactly what you are talking about. I really appreciate your looking at this as these two issues and recognizing that, yes, it would not fall in the scope because it truly is outside the scope of it but by amending a motion we can throw this in here.
I guess from this I would almost be wondering—I'm not putting forward a subamendment or anything like this—when we were doing even the reports on part 1 and part 2 of any of the studies we have done, it was still on a clear point and direction on when we're doing a study on electoral reform [Technical difficulty—Editor] mandate. So is there a way we could separate these two reports so there would be a part A and a part B? Would that also include all the witnesses in part A and part B?
Our focus is supposed to be on one thing, which would be the electoral reform effort going back to the original motion. We could write something specifically on that electoral reform. Should we not have, perhaps, milestones saying that once this is done then we can take all the information that we have received when it comes to a citizens assembly, and then if we need additional witnesses...? Really, I think the witnesses we call should be electoral experts. When we're getting into what Mr. Turnbull talked about, I believe that, yes, this is a huge study that should.... Like the poverty reduction study that we did in HUMA, this is exactly how this study would end up. If the NDP would like to actually have results and have an election look different and have any of these things, I think this just makes it so [Technical difficulty—Editor] done. [Technical difficulty—Editor] It was so large that it got lost and a year and a half of work was never even noticed, which was really quite astounding.
Those are some of my concerns. How are we going to separate this and ensure that we're getting what we want with the initial motion that Mr. Blaikie has put forward, and how are we going to ensure that this is being done to the best of our abilities as well?
I'll leave the floor there. I cannot support this whatsoever. I just personally feel that it is a great way of watering down something so that they don't have to vote “no” against this and so that they can change the narrative when we go into part 2. That's how I personally see it. I guess the last eight months have made me extremely skeptical regarding these amendments that have been put forward, just because I truly would like to know the intention.
View Ruby Sahota Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mrs. Vecchio.
How the study is formulated and what witnesses are called is all stuff we can.... I understand the concern you would have, but it would all have to go through a process for further study when we do get to it after today.
We could have the subcommittee sit down and look at that. Generally, the subcommittee comes back with a consensus on these things. We have one member from each party on that, so I think those things can be mitigated. Those worries have to go through the committee. It has to be decided by the committee members as to how far one goes on witnesses and even timelines. We could end up having a shorter timeline given to this, if we choose.
The committee does have control past passing this motion. It doesn't mean that the committee loses all control. The committee would still be in control of how they want to see the study conducted. You would obviously have a say in all of that.
View Karen Vecchio Profile
CPC (ON)
Madam Chair, with all due respect, the thing is that we tabled a report just last Friday with not a single key witness that we had requested.
I thought more would come out of the procedure and House affairs committee because, with my former boss who was the chair, I saw some great work being done for years. To you, Ruby, it's no slight. I think you're doing a great job as the committee chair on this, but I also see the political games that are being used. I am looking at this just feeling like I'm in round two of the last few months. I think, seriously, whether we going to get something done or whether this all on where people's narratives want to go. That's just my concern.
As of tomorrow, we're actually going to be rising in the House. We actually do not have the ability to have a procedure and House affairs committee this summer because the government will not sit down and talk about what we will do if we want to have something—we have talked about this—and if we need to have a committee.
Let's say that something does happen and there needs to be a committee meeting. We do not have the ability to do that because we have not sat there. After tomorrow we would no longer have the extension of this where we can do hybrid meetings.
I look at all of these things and I think [Technical difficulty—Editor]. We know that we've had goodbyes and farewells from a variety of MPs on all party sides and all of this type of stuff. I just feel like it's just a political charade right now. Although I would love to come back here and start doing our work in September, I do not feel that we're going to. I feel like today has become a big charade to say that this is what we're going to do.
Those are just some of my concerns. If I really felt that the seriousness of Daniel's motion was key.... Maybe this should be more Daniel's concern. The fact that it's all watered down should be his concern rather than mine, but I just think that we're not going to get anything out of this. We're not going to have the Prime Minister come here. We're not going to have anything because when this government decides it's going to put its foot down and not let a study finish, that's what it does.
The defence committee closed yesterday after months of a study. Do you know why? It was because they didn't want the report to come out.
I look at all of these different things that have happened in this last few months and I'll be honest, I am very disenfranchised with the fact that I think we could do good work. I even look at the motion where I think, Daniel, that I want to know a little bit more about this. I'm not saying I'm a hundred per cent for it, but I am saying is that I'm watching this government water down this motion so that it takes a totally different turn. It's just like the prorogation report and everything else we've done on committee.
Those are my concerns. I'll leave it there.
View Ruby Sahota Profile
Lib. (ON)
Well, I am pleased to see you're very committed to undertake this electoral reform study. It's good to see that commitment. I'm sure we'll see that commitment from all of the members.
We'll hear from Mr. Blaikie and then go to a vote.
Mr. Blaikie.
View Daniel Blaikie Profile
NDP (MB)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I guess I'd just like to have the opportunity to respond to some of the debate on the main motion.
First of all, I understand the skepticism about Liberal governments very well, having watched the process unfold in the last Parliament, but the question for people who sincerely want to see voting reform is this: How do we keep the conversation alive, how do we keep it going and how do we reach out to people who obviously have very different political interests and different points of view, in order to try to keep pushing this process forward until it succeeds?
As somebody who is personally very committed to seeing Canada adopt a different electoral system than the first-past-the-post system that we have, which I don't think is serving the country well, I respect that there are different points of view on that, but my point of view is that this voting system is not serving the country well and I would like to see it change. That means continuing to have conversations in Parliament, first of all, and in civil society generally and, hopefully, with some new mechanisms in order to bring more people on board to help understand some of the shortcomings of the current system we have and some of the real potential and opportunities that exist in other systems.
We had a process last Parliament. It didn't work. From the point of view of people who want to see genuine voting reform in Canada, it didn't work, so the question is, instead of just trying to do the same thing over again, how do we try to get to somewhere different?
I note that this motion is largely untouched, except for the amendment that we passed for the Conservatives, which just draws attention to the fact that talking about whether or not to have a referendum is an important component of any conversation about electoral reform. It still requires a separate report on the issue of electoral reform.
That report will be mandated to include terms of reference, what the composition of an assembly should look like, a timeline for completion, public reporting requirements for the assembly and speaking to the question of resources for the assembly, including how to support citizen engagement and not just necessarily the people who are in the assembly itself. It gives the committee latitude to ask if there's something left out in the course of their study, and when they hear from experts [Technical difficulty—Editor] to that report. It has to be filed separately. Even if the committee decides that it's not worth going forward with a national citizens' assembly, at least a report is still required so that there's a determinate end to that study and we know definitively what the opinion of the committee is after having looked at that.
All of that stays the same. All of that is intact. That's a process that I would like to see happen. To then say in addition to that, okay, well let's also take some of the learnings that has happened in the course of that study about how citizen assemblies may or may not be used.... I take some of Mr. Nater's point. I'm certainly an advocate for parliamentary reform. Just this morning, I tabled a private member's bill to try to curtail some of the immense prerogative that the Prime Minister has around prorogation. I have a motion on the Order Paper around the dissolution of Parliament as well, and I'm on this committee in part because of my own interest in all things having to do with parliamentary process.
It may be that the committee says there's no value in citizens' assemblies. I would be surprised at that because, as Ms. Petitpas Taylor pointed out earlier, they're being used to great effect in other places, and I don't think that we as elected people.... Simply because we're elected doesn't mean that there aren't other ways of expressing the voice of Canadian citizens in the policy-making process. We are one. We are an important one. Obviously, Parliament is very important, but it doesn't always work very well. I think that anyone who is being honest can see—in fact, there's some evidence of it even in today's meeting—that partisan interests can derail otherwise good policy discussion. We've certainly seen that in this Parliament in all sorts of ways. I'll spare you all the examples.
The question isn't whether we can agree on everything all the time and everybody is going to sing Kumbaya and love each other at the end of the meeting. The question is, can we leave this meeting having taken a concrete step forward towards trying to get back on track in a process that, yes, some may stall and delay? Although I hope not: I hope everybody is acting in good faith. But if I just assume that everybody is acting in bad faith all the time, we won't make any progress at all either.
So, I'm glad to see that we were able to incorporate an amendment from the Conservative Party into this motion. I'm glad for the proposal by Mr. Turnbull, and I'm happy to support it. At the end of it, we will have an NDP motion with a Conservative amendment and a Liberal amendment pass that allows us to restart a process that was broken in the last Parliament when the government rejected all of the findings, to try and get us back on track towards getting to where we can get out of the first-past-the-post system, a system that—as I said last meeting—is, I think, in no small part responsible for all of the speculation around an election. If the Prime Minister does want an election this summer—and there are a lot of signs that suggest that he does, although I think he would be wrong to call one—it will be because the first-past-the-post system promises him a majority in these circumstances with about 40% in the polls instead of 35%. If that is incentivizing a prime minister to call an election during a pandemic, something is clearly broken, and it's clearly not serving the interests of Canadians well.
There is need for further discussion on that, and there are lessons out of this Parliament and out of the pandemic for how we vote, how we select parliaments and, indeed, how we select governments.
I'm pleased with today's conversation. I want to thank everybody. Despite a little bit of needling, which is par for the course here in Parliament, I think that, overall, we've had a very productive conversation. The motion, ultimately, will be better for it, and I hope that Canadians agree. I hope that Canadians who want to see a change in the voting system will agree. I think that if all parties engage in good faith in the process and the study that's laid out in this motion, we can hope to make some progress. We'll only know at the end of that process whether people engaged in good faith, and Canadians will be able to evaluate for themselves who they think best represented their interest in changing the voting system. However, we'll leave that decision to Canadians. The decision before us today is to embark on this study, and I look forward to making that decision.
Thank you.
Justin Vaive
View Justin Vaive Profile
Justin Vaive
2021-06-22 12:42
Madam Chair, the question is on Mr. Turnbull's amendment.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)
The Chair: Now we go to the main motion as amended.
Justin Vaive
View Justin Vaive Profile
Justin Vaive
2021-06-22 12:44
We'll come back to you.
(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
View Ruby Sahota Profile
Lib. (ON)
Let's have a vote on that amendment and then on the main motion.
(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)
The Chair: Okay, we'll have a vote on the main motion.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)
The Chair: That brings today's meeting to an end. I hope you all have a fabulous next couple of months with your constituents doing things in your community.
Hopefully we will see each other back, who knows, maybe sooner rather than later. I don't know exactly when that will be, but hopefully in September, at least.
I wish you all very well.
The meeting is adjourned.
Trudo Lemmens
View Trudo Lemmens Profile
Trudo Lemmens
2021-06-21 18:40
Chairs and members of the committee, I appreciate the invitation to present today as part of this parliamentary review.
In this polarized debate, where some frame all concerns about MAID as religion based, let me first firmly state that my approach is based on human rights and with respect for the equal rights and dignity of persons who are ill, elderly and disabled and with the recognition of the state's duty to protect against premature death, which is recognized in Carter. It's informed by decades of work on professional regulation, health governance, health and human rights, and end-of-life law.
A review of these new practices from a health governance perspective is laudable. Unfortunately, Parliament put the cart before the horse by expanding the law prior to a serious evaluation of our current practice. Imagine that we decide to allow a novel form of gene therapy for serious and untreatable conditions, but prior to undertaking a legislatively mandated, five-year, solid review of the risk-benefit ratio, we introduce it as a standard form of therapy largely available on demand.
I definitely have concerns about this review, particularly about the premise from which it will start. In any area of policy-making, it is hard to scale back a practice once there is an official, professed confidence in it. It is also hard to change behaviour and expectations once a procedure is promoted and normalized, and to design post-factum structures to uncover problems and to identify lacunae, particularly when a practice leaves so much flexibility and relies heavily on the integrity of professionals committed to the practice.
I urge the committee to take a step back and remember how the B.C. Supreme Court in Carter, which lies at the foundation of our current practice, stated—with references to choice, indeed, but also the best interest of the patient—that “if it is ever ethical...for a physician to assist in death, it would be only in limited and exceptional circumstances.... The concern about imposing stringent limits stems from the consensus that unlimited physician-assisted death would pose serious risks.”
The committee should be willing to question whether the current practice respects this and what even further expansion would mean. It should do more than review the statistical, largely self-reported data and the limited analyses that have been undertaken. It should take the time to listen to family members who have had bad experiences with the rushed MAID of loved ones and to people who are already struggling in our health care and social support systems, particularly during the pandemic, and for whom offers of MAID are often received as a threat to their well-being.
The committee should hear from Jonathan Marchand, a man with ALS, who complained before the Senate about his lack of health care choices; from the family members of Chris Gladders, who received MAID in shockingly dehumanizing, squalid circumstances; from Roger Foley, who was offered MAID instead of access to good care; from the family of Alan Nichols; and about other more recent cases that are emerging. It should take seriously the voices of people with disabilities who experience the explicit promotion of MAID as a confirmation that our society prioritizes ending their lives rather than providing adequate supports and care.
I urge you to be imaginative and ask how societal and legal endorsements of a broad MAID practice may already be impacting what we think our elderly and people with disabilities should do when they struggle and when solutions to their sufferings are complex and not immediately forthcoming. How will this impact how they think about what they should be doing when faced with old age, frailty and disability?
I urge you to keep in mind the challenging health issues that indigenous people and racialized Canadians disproportionately face, the revolting situation of many of our elderly in long-term care homes, exposed during the pandemic, and the lack of choices for the elderly and people with disabilities. Think about that when exploring the risks of normalizing MAID as therapy for suffering, when critically analyzing the premise in our MAID law that capacity and informed consent procedures are already providing sufficient protection against abuse.
Many of these concerns about the impact of ableism are particularly long-term, but I already have mentioned concrete examples of current concerns. How common are these? I suggest that we need more robust data.
The first Health Canada MAID report, however, should be a wake-up call. In addition to showing the normalization of MAID through the rapid uptake—particularly in some provinces—faster than, for example, in Belgium and the Netherlands, two countries with significantly more investment in palliative care and social support, the report confirms—
The Joint Chair (Hon. Yonah Martin): You have 30 seconds.
Dr. Trudo Lemmens: —some of the concerns with our already broader than strict end-of-life practices. It documents, for example, various factors associated with unbearable suffering that lie at the basis of the more than 15,000 MAID requests. It includes fear of being a burden to family, friends and caregivers in 34% of the cases and loneliness in 14% of the cases. For 53%, it's the loss of dignity, a concept profoundly influenced by ableist perceptions that our MAID practice may stimulate; and inadequate pain control or a fear of pain are cited in 54% of cases, reflecting a possible lack of access to adequate health care and palliative care—and even in some cases existential suffering.
In the question period—
View Mel Arnold Profile
CPC (BC)
Thank you.
I know that the time is very short. On that piece of it, then, one of the questions I wanted to get to is this. Do you feel there has been adequate consultation and information provided to your organizations as to the transfer of licences and in light of the Clearwater deal? Please provide a brief answer if you can.
Claire Canet
View Claire Canet Profile
Claire Canet
2021-06-16 17:44
From the Quebec point of view, there has been no information and no consultation at all about it. However, this is a deal that concerns first nations in other provinces—in British Columbia and Nova Scotia. Martin may be aware of consultations. I'm not aware of any.
Martin Mallet
View Martin Mallet Profile
Martin Mallet
2021-06-16 17:44
I'm not aware of any consultations with industry representatives. We heard from the department and the minister's office that it was in Minister Jordan's hands and that they were currently exploring the question.
View Mel Arnold Profile
CPC (BC)
It really seems that there's been very little consultation for Canadian processors to be able to provide Canadian products to Canadian consumers.
If you have anything further to add, please provide it to the committee, because I recognize that the chair is going to tell me that my time is up.
Results: 46 - 60 of 1164 | Page: 4 of 78

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