Catholic Vancouver October 23, 2023
Fast disappointed as Liberal MPs fail to deliver on MAiD opposition
By The B.C. Catholic
Abbotsford MP Ed Fast says he is “profoundly disappointed” that Liberal Members of Parliament who assured him privately that they opposed euthanasia for mental illness failed to come through during the House of Commons vote.
Fast’s private member’s bill, C-314, which would have stopped the expansion next March of Canada’s euthanasia regime to include mental illness, was defeated after second reading in the House of Commons Oct. 18 by a 167-150 vote.
The vote would have been very different “if the Liberals had actually thought about their values and followed their conscience instead of kowtowing to the prime minister,” Fast told The B.C. Catholic in an interview. Only eight Liberal MPs broke party ranks to vote in favour of Bill C-314.
The Liberals did announce that they will reconstitute the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying to review the safeguards in the legislation.
During oral question period preceding the vote, Health Minister Mark Holland said no one in the Commons “does not have people they love who are deeply vulnerable and have been in a state of mental health crisis.”
Holland said it’s important that the government “examine the best way to deal with those circumstances.”
Recalling the committee will allow the government to “look at this process and look at how to responsibly deal with these issues in a way that respects and protects vulnerable people,” he said.
All parties supported recalling the committee with a deadline of Jan. 31, 2024, for any further recommendations.
Fast said the decision to bring back the committee leaves much to be desired because it “will not be able to study the merits of MaiD. It will only study the safeguards.”
“This will not be a re-evaluation of MaiD for the mentally ill,” he said.
Fast also commented on news stories in recent days raising the spectre that MAiD could be offered to drug addicts by connecting their substance use to mental illness, a comparison that alarms those who advocate for the addicted.
“This demonstrates how easily MAiD can be abused and adapted to fit the ideology of those who are tasked with providing MAiD assessments,” Fast said.
The developments add weight to arguments that Canada is advancing on a path toward eugenics that it turned away from decades ago. “How quickly a utilitarian approach to human life can lead to an environment in which eugenics becomes a reality, said Fast. “A slippery slope indeed!!”
The next step is to wait and see what the committee does, and Fast believes the truncated timeline given to the committee signals a desire to push past this issue as quickly as possible.
“They want to move ahead with their ideological commitment,” he said. “They want this to be worked out really quickly without too much scrutiny.”
One silver lining is that Fast’s private member’s bill garnered some cross-party support, with all 24 NDP members voting in favour of Bill C-314. Fast said he is pleased they “took the vulnerability of the mentally ill seriously.”
With Canadian Catholic News files