MPs Mark Warawa and John Aldag host public consultation that draws large crowd on short notice
The B.C. Catholic
LANGLEY
A Langley resident gently held an arm around his elderly wife as he shared his concern about legalizing assisted suicide.
The pair were among about 150 people who turned up for a public consultation on the controversial issue at the Township Civic Centre in Langley Jan. 30.
“Marilyn and I have been married for 47 years,” said Richard Leskin, standing at the podium with his wife, who has dementia, and did not speak. He said she has a Masters degree in education and was a principal in an Abbotsford elementary school when she retired 11 years ago.
“I want to tell you clearly that Marilyn and I, for the public record, both want to live out our full, natural lives.”
Leskin said he worried that “if Marilyn develops something like ALS or cancer … somebody will petition the courts to make sure that she exercises her ‘right’ to euthanasia. If I’m not here to protect her, I believe she would be in grave danger.”
Conservative MP Mark Warawa of Langley-Aldergrove and Liberal MP John Aldag of Cloverdale – Langley City listened to presentations on the topic for more than one and a half hours. They are members of a committee that will report to the federal government on the consultations.
“I turned 80 yesterday,” said Langley resident David Boreham, who used a walker to make his way to the microphone. “Our lives are in the hands of God. We have no right, and neither does anybody else, to take them out of His hands.”
Shelley Wepruk, whose uncle died in 2013, shared a cautionary tale.
“He was a vigorous 80-year-old,” she said. “He was tramping through the bush with a prosthesis and his good leg for 10 days” and had a stroke as he was returning home.
He made it to hospital within the “golden hour.” He could recognize family members and speak with them, although he could not chew or swallow. Doctors offered to connect a feeding tube to his stomach, a move the man’s wife and daughter rejected. Other family members insisted he be fed.
“We asked him repeatedly and continuously: Uncle Matt, do you want to live? He said ‘yes’ every time,” she said. “Imagine what can happen if this new law makes the system even more easy and casual towards the lives of older people.”
Cynthia Sharp, a member of the Catholic Women’s League, said she worried the cost of healing versus the cost of a lethal dose could become a motivating factor to end some lives.
Her husband was sick for 20 years, and she has a grandchild with cancer. “It costs a fortune,” she said. “You’ve got to look at these things and make sure that the monetary side does not come in, ever.”
Neil Dykstra spoke about a close friend with post-traumatic stress disorder who struggled with suicidal ideation. “If she was living in Holland, she would be dead.” He worried about the impact of assisted suicide on suicide prevention efforts.
“We need to be clear on the fact that the Supreme Court did not declare a right to counsel others to commit suicide” or “declare an obligation for anyone to participate in the assisted suicide or euthanasia of anyone else,” said Doctor Williard Johnston.
A new law must clearly state that counselling, aiding, and abetting suicide is still an offence. “If the drafters of law decided they are going to make exceptions to that offence, it should be clear that these are exceptions and not a right.”
Johnston added “coercing” doctors, health care practitioners, or students to participate in assisted suicide against their will should also be a criminal offence.
Margaret Cottle, a palliative care physician for 27 years, said the emphasis should be on improved care for the ill.
“Those of us in palliative care understand that almost every request for physician-hastened death is not about wanting to die. It’s about intolerable suffering,” she said.
“We learned how to fish in the North Atlantic, for heaven’s sake, and to farm on the prairies. We can learn how to care for people well when they are in difficult circumstances.”
Cottle suggested if assisted suicide were legal, something she opposes, it should be done in a separate facility designed for it.
Many speakers, like small business owner David Green, said euthanizing people should not even be on the table.
“We had nothing to do with the time we were born. It was in our Creator’s hands. Likewise, it should be in the Creator’s hands on the other end,” he said.
“Why are we seeking to justify a morally wrong end to a person’s life without having explored to the utmost what can be done through palliative care?”
Not one person came forward to speak in favour of assisted suicide, though the event had been advertised over social media and in both local newspapers.
