Roundup: Delaying the expansion of MAiD?

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The day after the House of Commons rose for the winter break, David Lametti and Carolyn Bennett announced that they would be moving to delay the implementation of the expansion of medical assistance in dying for those who suffer solely from a mental disorder, or for mature minors with terminal conditions. The problem? The expansion date is already legislated, so they will need to pass legislation when they return at the end of January in order to make that happen, and they haven’t released any details to opposition parties about what kind of delay they’re talking about.

There are a lot of problems with this announcement. While I won’t repeat most of what I wrote in this column last week, part of the problem is that this perpetuates an unfairness for those who have an untreatable mental disorder but also have another comorbidity who can apply for MAiD while those who don’t have the comorbidity can’t, and in the process, it continues to stigmatise mental illness. That’s why the delay also goes against the Supreme Court of Canada’s finding of unconstitutionality. Meanwhile, everyone who says “mental health is health” but is pulling for this delay is making a hypocrite of themselves because you’re proving that it’s something separate. Additionally, you can’t just say the federal government shouldn’t go ahead with the expansion until more supports are offered because they cannot legislate those supports. Those have to come from the provinces, who are not bound to any federal timetable, and while yes, the federal government is negotiating a dedicated mental health transfer to the provinces, we are back to the problem of negotiating outcomes into that agreement and provinces balking at strings. We can’t divorce the fact that most of the objections to this are either socially conservatives in nature that oppose all forms of MAiD in principle, or it’s from people squeamish about mental illness and who are further perpetuating stigmatisation. I have little doubt that this is going to turn into a meltdown in February once MPs are back, and it’s going to be extremely hard on the system.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 296:

Russian forces are pounding the Donetsk region. Russia has been threatening “consequences” if the US does deliver a Patriot anti-missile system to Ukraine, without spelling out what those are, but part of the problem with America transferring the systems is that they take some 90 personnel to operate and training which they can’t provide on the ground.

Good reads:

  • Trudeau put out a call for questions over Twitter. It’s going as well as can be expected.
  • When asked about US legislation to ban TikTok, Trudeau said that they are monitoring the situation, and that CSE is on the case.
  • Steven Guilbeault is hoping to reach a compromise in negotiations at the COP15 biodiversity conference before it concludes this weekend.
  • The federal government will help resource the search of the Winnipeg landfill for the remains of murdered Indigenous women, and it may have a chance of success.
  • Mona Fortier announced that the federal civil service will have a back-to-work plan for civil servants to be in the office two or three days a week by the end of March.
  • Pablo Rodriguez is calling out Facebook’s intimidation tactic of threatening to cut all news content if they don’t get their way on the online news bill.
  • Water supplies aboard our new Navy slushbreakers are contaminated with lead, because of course Irving did such a great job with them. Unbelievable.
  • FINTRAC revealed its activities over the past three years, and how they are combatting terrorist and extremist financing in Canada.
  • The Senate passed a number of bills, including the late Jim Carr’s private member’s bill, before rising (early) for the winter break.
  • The Senate’s foreign affairs committee is warning Mary Ng that Canada is falling behind other countries like the US in deepening trade ties with Africa.
  • The committee study on the gun control bill is pausing until the New Year.
  • Doug Ford is trying to violate the separation of powers by directly choosing the provincial court’s chief justice, which is not how these things happen.
  • Alberta’s justice minister announced he was “taking jurisdiction back” on firearms prosecutions, but…that doesn’t actually make any sense.
  • Heather Scoffield talks to Omar Alghabra about his ports modernisation legislation and the attempt to make supply chains more resilient on the domestic side.
  • Althia Raj reads into Trudeau’s message to party faithful on Wednesday night, and the fact that he seems to be relishing a fight with Poilievre.

Odds and ends:

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: Delaying the expansion of MAiD?”

  1. Russian forces are pounding the Donetsk region, and the city itself.

    The city of Donetsk is held by Russian forces.

  2. Thank you for saying this so strongly, Dale. One thing I would add, is that not everyone concern-trolling and sabre-rattling about this are social conservatives. Some are ostensibly “progressive” “disability activists” who sound like anti-abortion zealots in how they slag the government as eugenicists and spew offensive hyperbole about Action T4 and the Nazi regime. I couldn’t be more disgusted by them, and their extortionist demands (made of the wrong level of government, of course), and pearl-clutching sensationalism that stretches Godwin’s law to the extreme.

    They seem to think throwing endless money into the social assistance till will solve the problems that make people turn to MAID when everything else has failed. Yet at the same time they go out of their way to sabotage research that could bring about treatments or even a cure for some of the most debilitating conditions because they see it as an existential threat to their sacrosanct “identity.” Public housing programs could give everyone a palatial estate, with a UBI of a million dollars per month, and it still wouldn’t make a paraplegic be able to walk again, or cure hellish-nightmare disorders like schizophrenia or autism.

    The research has not yet found such a Holy Grail breakthrough, and it is cruel to make people wait in agony until it does. Especially since, at the same time, these militant, squeaky-wheel activists don’t even want the research to happen. They insist that everyone who suffers, be made to “reframe their trauma” and point fingers at “ableist society” rather than the disability they are suffering in their body/mind. They don’t like the word because they consider it a slur, but I’m sorry, they’re insane. (I don’t happen to like their made-up euphemism “neurotypical” either.) Left with such hopelessness in the face of untenable suffering and outright stupidity from the loudest quarters wanting it to continue, why should anyone be surprised that some people choose death?

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