Madam Speaker, it is always a true honour to stand in the House of Commons and represent the beautiful riding of Peterborough—Kawartha.

I believe that what we are talking about today, which we have been talking about for almost a year to the day, is actually one of the most important pieces of legislation this Parliament will ever discuss and decide on. If people do not know about it, I can promise them with certainty that it will either either impact those who are watching or someone they know.

What we are talking about is MAID, medical assistance in dying. The Liberals have put forth the notion to extend MAID to people with mental illness. Members heard me correctly. It sounds absurd because it is absurd. It is the worst message we can send to somebody who is in despair: that they are not worth saving. The worst message we, as legislators and policy makers, can send is that someone's life does not matter. I do not think I can name a member of the House who does not know somebody who has had, or who has not themself had, battles with mental health.

The government is saying it would put forward legislation that would not put more resources, money or time into better understanding mental illness, which includes substance abuse, through which 22 people a day in this country are dying from overdoses, but would offer MAID. This must disturb us. This must make us get up. This must make us speak loudly. I do not care where people sit on a political spectrum; the bill before us is the legislation people should be deciding their vote on, because it is a huge statement of what we as Canadians stand up for.

I want to read this: “To be eligible for MAID under the Criminal Code, a person must have a ‘grievous and irremediable medical condition,’ which is defined as ‘a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability’ that has led to an ‘advanced state of irreversible decline’ and intolerable suffering.” It is impossible to determine irremediability in individual cases of mental illness. Many experts have been clear that MAID for mental illness cannot be implemented safely.

Dr. John Maher, a clinical psychiatrist and medical ethicist said, “Psychiatrists don't know and can't know who will get better and live decades of good life. Brain diseases are not liver diseases.” As my colleague from Cumberland—Colchester, who is a medical doctor, has attested to multiple times, we cannot say with certainty what is going to happen to someone. We do not know what tomorrow is. I am going to read the most powerful letter into the record, because I think it is critical for everyone to hear it.

I also want to say that in February 2023, just a year ago, 30 legal experts from across Canada wrote an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister and Liberal cabinet ministers to dispute the claims that the then justice minister had repeatedly made, which were that his government was bound by the courts to expand MAID and to make it available for persons whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness.

This is hard to comprehend, and I spent hours trying to decide why they would want to do this. My 14-year-old said to me on the weekend that if someone is in a state of mental illness, like bipolar disorder, and is in an extreme low, they cannot make a decision that is right for them. That is the whole thing; they need help. With the legislation before us, someone could, in that state, ask for MAID. On what planet does that make any sense? It does not.

I am going to read a letter into the record. It is extremely powerful. Kayla has been writing to me since the issue first came aboard, and she has been very vocal in letting me share her story. I shared her original letter, and now that she knows the government wants to extend MAID yet again instead of throwing it out, she wanted me to read this letter to every member of the House of Commons:

“Hello, Michelle.

“I am thrilled to hear that MAID for people with mental health disorders as their only condition will not be put into place next month. However, it is deeply disturbing to me that the Liberals think time to get this right makes it better. What will be the difference in 2027? They will still be offering death to people who may very well live long lives with improved quality of life.

“In my own darkest moments I also thought things would never get better. I thought I would be sad and scared and hallucinating for the rest of my life, but they did get better, and offering MAID to people like me when in their worst moments is robbing them of the opportunity for things to get better. It is robbing people of the opportunity to receive help. It is robbing them of the opportunity to heal.

“It is also disgusting to me that death would be offered as a solution to people with mental health disorders when the resources for people with mental health disorders, at least where I live in Ontario, are in shambles. People are living on the streets with addictions. People are coming to myself to help them get help knowing that I have been through my own dark mental health struggles, and I am at a loss for where to send them. Wait lists are long, and while I know of some early psychosis intervention programs, people who have been struggling past early adulthood have nowhere to go but the hospital where they can't stay forever.

“I want to tell you about my dear uncle. He lives with paranoid schizophrenia. He recently hit rock bottom. He lived on the streets for over a year, and not for a lack of my family trying to help him. He almost died of pneumonia. Every time my family would take him to the hospital and try to get him help for his mental health, he would be released. Then he would get arrested and return to the hospital only to get released again. This went on for years. I understand a normal hospital doesn't have resources for him, but the point is no one knew what to do.

“But back to MAID. This idea needs to be scrapped. Offering death as hope to people in mental health crises is despicable. Just because it is a needle does not give people more dignity. It denies the dignity that already exists in every single human life. Just because the government hands you the knife while smiling doesn't change the fact that they are handing you the knife to kill yourself.

“Our lives are not useless or lesser just because we struggle with mental health disorders and it is time the current Canadian government started to believe that.

“Thank you, Michelle.

“Kayla.”

Can we please give Kayla a round of applause for her bravery? She has spoken up so many times about this, and in genuine distress.

I heard my colleague across the way, the Liberal member for Winnipeg North, say that he struggled with this because it is so personal. He said that this was what his constituents wanted. My response to him would be: I would like to see the data. I would like to see a referendum that this is what his constituents want, that they would rather MAID be offered than support to resources in understanding how the brain works, why the brain does what it does and what is mental illness. I challenge him right here, right now, to give me that data, because I can say with certainty that the families I know, the children I know who are on wait lists over two years long, do not want to be offered death. They want hope, they want treatment and they want solutions.

It is insane that we are even having this discussion, “Well, we'll just extend it.” Do members know what the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions said in the House? She said that it is not a matter of if any longer; it is when. This is such a deep ideology that the Liberals cannot even say, “Okay, all right, we get it. We heard from the 30 experts. We have heard from the people. This does not make any sense and there is no science here. We will pull it back. This was a mistake.”

There is no shame in admitting there was a mistake. We are here to make people's lives better, not worse, absolutely, without a doubt, not this message of, “You know what? Yeah, it is not going to get better. So, here, sign this paper. We are going to give you MAID.”

For those who are watching and have voted Liberal and are loyal, I plead with them to look at this. This is the most disgusting piece of legislation that has ever been put on the floor of the House of Commons, and we must invest in mental health and treatment.

Michelle Ferreri

$469,988.00