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Trevor McGowan
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Trevor McGowan
2021-07-20 14:54
The press release announced a set of issues that would be considered as part of the consultations. It announced an intention to release draft legislative proposals in the near term. I believe the language was that they would be “forthcoming”. It put out the ideas under consideration in terms of how best to define a genuine intergenerational business transfer. Shortly, there would be a release of draft legislative proposals, which would provide—of course, as they would be legislative in nature—more specificity as to what those would look like. That release would be followed by another consultation period before, ultimately, final proposals were released. That would provide for a number of rounds of public consultation on the best way to define a genuine intergenerational business transfer.
That's coming out of yesterday's release.
Trevor McGowan
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Trevor McGowan
2021-07-20 14:56
As has been noted, there was an announcement to put out draft legislative proposals shortly, and then a commitment that, whatever effective date those proposals could take, it would not be before November 1, 2021. It's difficult to provide a timeline in terms of putting together a set of draft legislative proposals of this complexity.
I can speak to the general timeline for budget proposals, if that would be a helpful comparator. Often, in the federal budget, which is released in the spring, in March-April, the government will announce its proposed measures. For income tax measures it is common after the release of a budget announcement for there to be a summer release of draft legislative proposals. Those draft legislative proposals would go out for comment, often for a period of 60 days, before measures can be introduced into a fall budget bill.
While of course it's impossible to predict with any certainty the timeline for this measure, that's not an uncommon timeline for at least some budget measures, if that would be a useful comparison.
Trevor McGowan
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Trevor McGowan
2021-07-20 14:57
That depends on the specific rules for civil servants to interact during the part of the caretaker period after a writ has been dropped. Obviously, we would continue to analyze submissions.
I don't know whether Miodrag or Jenifer know the specific rules for caretaker-stakeholder engagements on consultations.
Miodrag Jovanovic
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Miodrag Jovanovic
2021-07-20 14:58
I don't have much to add to Mr. McGowan's statement. I think that's it. As long as it's internal work, we could focus on analyzing submissions that we may continue to get during that period. The question would be after that. If there was a need to reach out, we would need to be mindful of the caretaker convention.
Trevor McGowan
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Trevor McGowan
2021-07-20 15:13
That is certainly the intent behind yesterday's release. I think yesterday's release provides a bit of a framework for the development of issues that will provide a general idea until draft legislative proposals are released in the near term. We've already started hearing comments on the conditions in yesterday's release. That dialogue will continue through to when draft legislation is released. There will be another round of consultation on the draft legislative proposals. The measure itself will not apply before November 1.
Ultimately, as said in the press release, there's an intention to release final draft legislative proposals afterwards. There are a number of steps in the consultative process where stakeholders would be engaged.
Justin Vaive
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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.
Justin Vaive
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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
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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])
Trudo Lemmens
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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—
Claire Canet
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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
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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.
Colin Sproul
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Colin Sproul
2021-06-16 18:08
I would say absolutely not. That's my view, and it's the view of my members, and as proof, I would point out that the minister appeared before the Senate standing committee last night and said that very thing. She was quite proud of the fact that she'd had zero consultation on the deal with the commercial fishing industry. As I said in my earlier statement, when communities adjacent to resources lack a voice in regulatory regimes around them, they invariably lose, be they indigenous or non-indigenous. I think it's important to point out that what's best for indigenous leaders may not be best for indigenous fishermen. I'm concerned about the outcomes for fishermen on the water.
Lynn Jones
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Lynn Jones
2021-06-16 17:30
Always, for me, it's to consult—because somebody has mentioned this in a different aspect—the communities concerned. They've been dealing with the land and that environment all their lives, and they might not do things the way you normally do things. They have different ways of getting together, different ways of talking and different ways of judging. It's a matter of putting people at a table and having them come up with strategies and ways they want to deal with their communities. Government has this terrible, terrible way—and I worked for government at one point—of thinking that it has all the answers in that it's the government's way or the highway. However, in actual fact, the most success we have had is when we put these communities together and they work through and come up with the best strategies. We could do that with this environmental racism bill.
In fact, as an aside, we're doing it with our Black Lives Matter fund, where the communities themselves are saying what they require and what their needs are. It's the most successful way.
Lynn Jones
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Lynn Jones
2021-06-16 17:32
I could say so much. When we started on environmental racism through the ENRICH project, I still remember.... This is the truth. When I was bringing up the flooding issues in our community and was told that flooding was not an environmental racism issue, that's where we started. That was a gap. Even in the definition, there's this big, packed, long definition of environmental racism. My community wouldn't get their heads around those fancy definitions, but they know what happens when the flood waters come through their homes. They lose homes. They have prepared for generations, so they know all about that. There are so many gaps that, as we work through this—and I work on these concerns—the community's getting involved more, and the community is able to address its own concerns.
I'm concerned about some of the things around Quebec and issues that have been brought forward, but I'll just leave it. I won't go there.
Lisa Gue
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Lisa Gue
2021-06-16 17:35
Just to come back to this point—and I know we've emphasized it a lot—the data collection requirement in this bill is going to be very important to help inform prioritization, to the extent that that needs to happen. I agree with Dr. Jones' earlier comments as well, that the purpose of a strategy is to be broad and broadly applicable. I think this bill very well sets out a broad scope and then also provides the tools with the requirement, again, for data collection and assessment to help to define priorities.
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