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The Story of Bill C-14 – Medical Assistance in Dying, MP Stetski

June 24, 2016

The Story of Bill C-14 – Medical Assistance in Dying

Earlier this year, I said that there were three bills coming to Parliament that would, if approved, fundamentally change our lives as Canadians: medical assistance in dying, the legalization of marijuana, and electoral reform. The first bill, related to medical assistance in dying, has just cleared the House of Commons and the Senate and is now law. Here, with the help of my colleague and NDP Justice Critic Murray Rankin, is a summary of how it got there.

A special all-party committee of both the House and Senate met in January 2016 to hear from experts and develop recommendations on the government’s response to Carter v. Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada had given Parliament until June 6^th of this year to come up with a new law. The committee held 11 hearings, calling more than 60 expert witnesses and reviewing the work of recent studies that together had consulted more than 13,000 Canadians and 100 organizations nation-wide.

In the end, a majority of the committee agreed on 21 recommendations, including that the law should allow competent Canadians who receive a long-term, degenerative diagnosis, such as Alzheimer’s, to make advance arrangements for their future care, including specifying the conditions in which they request assistance in dying. Recent polls have shown that 85% of Canadians support the right to make an advance request.

The committee also found that the Supreme Court’s words on eligibility were clear and should not be altered. The Carter decision included patients with “a grievous and irremediable medical condition” or “enduring and intolerable suffering”.

The NDP pushed for the federal government to work with provinces to develop a pan-Canadian palliative and end-of-life care strategy. While palliative care is not applicable in all cases where assistance in dying may be sought, it is vitally important that the government seize the opportunity to offer every Canadian the quality palliative care they deserve at the end of life.

Bill C-14 was introduced by the Liberal government in mid-April. The bill ignored or rejected more than half of the all-party committee’s recommendations. The most important differences were that:

• Bill C-14 explicitly ruled out advance requests, leaving the matter to a future study with no planned start or end date; and
• Bill C-14 effectively limited access to medical assistance in dying to only patients with terminal conditions by requiring that their natural death be “reasonably foreseeable”.

After being passed at Second Reading, Bill C-14 was then sent for review to the Justice Committee. Over the course of Bill C-14’s consideration at the Justice Committee, a growing number of legal experts testified that, by limiting access only to terminal patients while excluding those suffering with incurable, non-terminal conditions, the bill did not meet the requirements of the Supreme Court. They argued that Bill C-14 would continue to infringe the Charter rights of those patients and was therefore likely unconstitutional.

At the end of witness testimony on Bill C-14, the Opposition parties put forward amendments to improve it. New Democrats tried to amend the bill to allow advance requests—or even just open the door so that the provinces could create systems for advance requests, if they wished. The NDP also proposed to remove the government’s additional eligibility requirements and to instead use the words of the Supreme Court ruling in the law.

The first day of the Justice Committee’s clause-by-clause review ended with every Opposition amendment rejected. By the end of several days of review, a handful of changes were accepted, but most were minor or technical in nature.

New Democrats did, however, broker agreements on two key amendments, which were adopted unanimously. The first added new commitments related to palliative care, care for dementia patients, and appropriate services for Indigenous patients. The second clarified that health practitioners would never be compelled to provide assistance in dying, and that their conscience would be respected if they did not wish to participate.

On the matter of the controversial eligibility requirements, the NDP proposed that the government resolve the argument by referring the matter to the Supreme Court, to decide whether or not it matched the terms of their ruling and respected patients’ Charter rights. The government refused.

Though it was a free vote, every NDP MP voted against Bill C-14 at 3^rd reading, refusing to support the passage of a bill that violated the Charter rights of patients. The bill was passed by the Liberal majority and then referred to the Senate.

During testimony in the Senate, Professor Peter Hogg – Canada’s foremost constitutional authority – stated that Bill C-14 would be found unconstitutional unless the end-of-life requirement was replaced with the broader eligibility criteria of the Supreme Court Carter decision. The lead counsel who won the Carter case, the Canadian and Quebec Bar Associations and court decisions in Alberta and Ontario all reached the same conclusion. The Senate voted to send the bill back to the House with 7 amendments, including the right to seek assistance in dying if suffering from irremediable and intolerable pain.

When Bill C-14 returned to the House, the government accepted some of the Senate amendments, but rejected the key amendment about eligibility. The Liberal government once again used their majority to approve the partially-revised bill, sending it back to the Senate. With the government refusing to back down on the core provision in the bill, the Senate relented and accepted the government’s version of C-14 on June 17th, which was swiftly given Royal Assent and passed into law.

So what happens now? While we applaud all Parliamentarians for the many good aspects of this bill, and for the respectful manner in which much of it was debated in Parliament, we continue to call on the government to immediately refer the law to the Supreme Court so that concerns about its potential violations of patients’ Charter rights can be resolved quickly – without forcing the most vulnerable Canadians back to court.

Wayne Stetski

Member of Parliament

Kootenay–Columbia

For more information, please contact:

Laura Branswell: 250-417-2250 or wayne.stetski@parl.gc.ca

Law Making, MP Wayne Stetski

June 16, 2016

Law Making

One of the major roles for Members of Parliament is to draft laws that impact all Canadians. The reality is that these laws come from a mix of politics and require a thorough understanding of the implications of what is being proposed. Let me explain:

A recent example was Bill C-223, An Act to establish the Canadian Organ Donor Registry, which proposed to coordinate and promote organ donations throughout Canada. This is a critical issue for some of my constituents and has my full support. Had Bill C-223 been approved at second reading, the next step was for it to be sent to the Standing Committee for Health for discussion and improvement. However, before it could get that far, it was voted down by the Liberal majority.  Bill C-223 was proposed by a Conservative Member of Parliament, and similar bills have been proposed by the NDP in past Parliaments. Politics?

Another bill, C-239, provided an example of a situation in which understanding the details is critical to creating good public policy. Bill C-239, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (charitable gifts), proposed to increase the tax deduction an individual is entitled to when they make a donation to a registered charity. I have been a volunteer with, and a donor to, many charitable organizations, so from a political perspective, how could I not support this bill? As the old saying goes, the devil truly is in the details.

The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), which undertakes independent analysis of the financial implications of proposed legislation, found that the implementation of Bill C-239 would cost the federal government $1.7 billion in 2016 and $1.9 billion in 2020. This raises the important question: Which social programs could be cut to make up for the loss in revenue?

The PBO also found that taxpayers who make more than $91,000 in taxable income would benefit the most from Bill C-239, since the only proposed constraint on giving was a donation ceiling of 75% of net income. In short, while implementing this bill would potentially help some charities who have wealthy donors, it would likely not be helpful to charities who rely on donations from the average Canadian, would be very costly to the federal treasury while mainly benefiting the wealthiest taxpayers, and could result in government withdrawal of important services to Canadians.

In the end, Bill C-239 was not supported by a majority of the Members of Parliament. I would like to see government find alternatives to help fund the amazing work being done in our communities by charities – without reducing the scope of the government’s delivery of services to the people of Kootenay–Columbia.

As you can see, law making is not easy, and nothing illustrates that better than Bill C-14, Medical Assistance in Dying. I will update you on it in a separate article once we see where it goes over the next two weeks.

Wayne Stetski                           

Member of Parliament                             

Kootenay–Columbia

 Unit B 111 7^th Ave S Cranbrook BC V1C 2J3

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It ain’t over until it’s over and it’s not over yet, by Gerry Warner

It ain’t over until it’s over and it’s not over yet

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

Politics is an “honorable profession,” East Kootenay MLA Bill Bennett used to say. Too bad he so seldom practised it.

Where does one begin? A good place to start is comments he made in a BC Business Magazine article in October 2014. In it, he donned his “Kootenay Bill” persona and spoke candidly about his career in which he was kicked out of cabinet twice, kicked out of his own party for leading a revolt against the Premier and split the Liberal cabinet to this day.  

After leading the insurrection, Bennett became so toxic that several cabinet ministers told incoming Premier Christy Clark they would quit if she let him back in the cabinet. But this didn’t bother “Kootenay Bill.”

“The vast majority of cabinet ministers hated my guts,” Bennett told BC Business writer Matt O’Grady. “Pat Bell and Shirley Bond told Christy that if she let me back in the caucus they were quitting. Rich Coleman wouldn’t talk to me.”

But this was nothing to what Bennett said in a bizarre news conference Nov. 17, 2010 after former Premier Gordon Campbell announced he was going to resign. Accusing Campbell of being abusive to cabinet members, he claimed there was a “battered wife syndrome in our cabinet.” And if that wasn’t enough, he also accused Campbell of spitting on him during an earlier angry confrontation “He was so angry, he got in my face. He actually spit in my face . . .” he said in the scrum as reporters gasped.

But temper tantrums, profanity-laced expletives and ad-hominen attacks were standard tools of the trade as Bennett practised the “honorable profession.” In 2007, he was forced to resign as Mines Minister after he sent an incendiary email to a Fernie constituent who accused him of favoring outside big game hunters over resident hunters. “It is my understanding that you are an American, so I don’t give a shit what your opinion is on Canada or Canadian residents . . .”

Kootenay Bill always went for the jugular of his political opponents, especially the NDP, against whom he never attempted to hide his distain, likening them to communists or fellow travellers as he did to NDP MLA Jagrup Brar after he returned from a holiday in Cuba. “Jagrup Brar expressed over-the-top- admiration for nanny state communist Cuba,” he fumed in a party release. And then he spread mud over every NDP member. “In this case, Jagrup may well have given us a glimpse into the secret desires of the NDP caucus.”

On another occasion, Bennett took to Twitter to call the NDP Opposition “turds.” But he saved his worst vitriol for his Kootenay neighborhood MLA rival Norm Macdonald, who he taunted with the F-bomb during legislative debate, a charge the normally mild-mannered Macdonald returned in similar fashion. Speaker Linda Reid described the behaviour of both members as “appalling.” Macdonald apologized immediately, but Bennett didn’t apologize until half an hour later and only then when the assistant deputy speaker asked him twice. However, “Kootenay Bill” calmed down the next day and told reporters he was “mortified” by what he said and added he was glad there were no children in the House.

Bennett didn’t like environmentalists either calling them “eco-fascists” when they criticized government plans for the Flathead Valley in the southeast corner of his riding. 

And “Kootenay Bill” wasn’t above using the race card in pursuit of electoral victory as his St. Mary Band opponent Troy Sebastian found out in the 2009 provincial election. The inflammatory ad authorized by the financial agent for his campaign was anything but subtle. “He’s one of us” headlined the ad in bold face type, “who pays taxes,” screamed the advertisement in a sleazy swipe at the fact that First Nations members on reserves don’t pay the same taxes as non-First Nations taxpayers do.

The Union of BC Indian Chiefs demanded an immediate apology and Grand Chief Stewart Phillip said Bennett’s nickname should be changed from Kootenay Bill to “Wild Bill.” But Bennett denied the ad was racist in any way and took to TV to say he wouldn’t apologize.

Time to cut to the chase. Bill Bennett is getting out just in time as years of bullying, take no prisoners politics and hyper-partisanship has made him toxic to any party. Bennett is a political relic, harkening back to the free-enterprise vs godless socialism era for which BC was so justly infamous for many years. But, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently said, “it’s 2015” and political dinosaurs have to go, especially of the Tyrannosaurus Rex variety. 

As well as this, Bennett blew the Mt. Polley mine breach big time, trying to downplay it at first and later lamely acknowledging it was a “disaster” that underlined the lack of safety oversight in his own ministry and the need to make up for years of cutbacks.  Meanwhile BC Hydro keeps upping its rates while swimming in debt and thanks to all the court cases launched against the $8 billion Site C project the dam isn’t yet a done deal.

The proposed $500 million Jumbo ski resort, which Bennett shamelessly shilled for in spite of being a minister, is also dead, killed by the government’s own bureaucracy despite all Bennett’s attempts to promote it.

And most importantly, Bennett has lost the trust of resident hunters in BC over the government’s clumsy handling of game allocations in the province. This may not sound like a big deal in the Lower Mainland, but in the Kootenays and the rest of rural BC it’s like spitting in the eye of a Grizzly, not a smart thing to do.

But despite all this, Bennett still has loyal core of supporters in his constituency, especially in Cranbrook where his tireless work for years getting millions in government funds to upgrade the East Kootenay Regional Hospital is deeply appreciated and justifiably so.

That’s why this writer doesn’t think the public has seen the last of Kootenay Bill. Several years ago when Bennett’s fortunes were at a low ebb he made overtures to run for the federal Conservatives in Kootenay-Columbia when the venerable and populist Conservative MP Jim Abbott was getting close to retirement. But Bennett was resolutely and rudely turned down by the Harper Tories and he has smarted over it ever since.

The next federal election takes place in a little over three years. Bennett is 66, not old for politics.  If I was Kootenay-Columbia NDP MP Wayne Stetski, I’d be looking over my shoulder.

After all, “Kootenay Bill” has some scores to settle.

Gerry Warner is a retired Cranbrook journalist that has covered politics long before Bill Bennett was on the scene.

  

The Value of Trees

http://www.care2.com/causes/california-discovers-the-value-in-planting-trees-alongside-streets.html

Neighborhoods look a lot prettier when trees line the streets, but the value of these trees goes well beyond the aesthetic… I’m talking cash, even! Researchers estimate that trees planted next to California streets generate approximately $1 billion in benefits for the state.
The Pacific Southwest division of the U.S. Forest Service conducted the study, which was published in Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, to get a firmer grasp on the kind of perks road-adjacent trees offer to the state. The money breakdown went like this:

• Increased property values: $839,000,000
• Energy savings (by offering shade): $101,000,000
• Absorbing rain and preventing flooding: $41,500,000
• Taking pollution out of the air: $18,000,000
• Storing harmful carbon emissions: $10,000,000

Obviously, the figure the U.S. Forest Service quoted doesn’t account for the myriad of other services that trees offer to the planet. Realistically, trees are priceless to our ecosystem, but if it takes applying dollar amounts for more immediate, tangible effects in order for people to see that planting more trees is a good idea, I’m all for it


Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/california-discovers-the-value-in-planting-trees-alongside-streets.html#ixzz4CMoMaJtU

Stay Away from My Young Ones

 

This noisy crow has been aggressively protecting his or her brood in one local garden this week.  As the fledglings leave the nest and get their wings in working order the family take turns in making sure they have safe space in which to learn to fly.  Some neighbourhood dogs have been banished to their homes and gardeners try to talk soothingly to the stressed parents.  A few peanuts let them know that most humans will refrain from hurling abuse or stones and that their young are not in danger everywhere!  The ordeal for everyone will be over soon, we hope.

The cause of the ruckus.

Something to crow about in difficult times, by Gerry Warner

Something to crow about in difficult times

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

Time to lighten up a bit. I just don’t have it in my heart today to comment on a world where people are slaughtered in a nightclub just for being themselves and a presidential candidate tries to spin the tragedy for political advantage or where a British politician gets murdered in broad daylight by another crazy with a gun.

What’s the world coming to? Cancel the question. I don’t want to know.

No, I would like to figure out a mystery in my mundane, mostly boring, little life. It happens almost every day when I head outside for my morning constitutional, a short run and several walks up and down the grotty, old wooden staircase by the Rec Plex connecting Upper and Lower Cranbrook where I live.

Apparently my actions greatly disturb the neighborhood crow that perches on a telephone pole aside my route and when the creature sees me coming breaks out into a veritable cacophony of crow cuss words as I try to run by without disturbing him.

But apparently it disturbs him greatly because no sooner have I jogged by his pole then he launches himself like a feathered missile and dive bombs me as I innocently jog by caw-cawing menacing threats at me in crow that I would be embarrassed to repeat here.

No kidding. It’s like a scene out of Hitchcock’s horror flick “The Birds” with this demented, kamikaze crow wheeling and soaring through the air as he zooms down from the heavens missing my head by mere inches. At least it feels that way. Thankfully, the air-borne assault continues for only a few seconds before the agitated avian returns to his lofty perch and waits for me to come back. I then do my circuit up and down the stairs for 20 minutes or so and jog back only to have my tormenter resume his aerial attacks until I’m safely out of sight at home.

At first I tried simply ignoring the grumpy crow, but to no avail. Then I tried the diplomatic approach, stopping in mid-run to talk quietly and soothingly to my winged attacker but that didn’t work either. Now when I run by I just give him the finger to show my disdain for his aerial bullying.

But this got me to thinking. Have I just come up against a deranged crow intent on enforcing its territorial imperative or is the species known for ill-tempered assaults on those that dare to enter their lofty domain? So I did what we all do in the Digital Age. I turned to Uncle Google for enlightenment and I got it in spades. Crows belong to the bird family corvids, which are the most intelligent bird family and are sometimes called “the birds that think like humans” because they can count, make tools (stick hooks) to catch their prey and recognize human facial features. I’ll say. Maybe I’ll try wearing a mask the next time I go out. In fact, crows brain-to-skull size almost tops the animal kingdom ranking right up there with chimpanzees and dolphins. Crows are known for dropping nuts to break the shell and eat the seed and storing food in up to 200 hiding spots and going back to eat the food that spoils first. They also can talk and in one case a pet crow was taught how to vocalize an operatic aria.

So what am I up against? The Einstein of the animal kingdom? It’s spooky.

Crows are emotional animals too, vocalizing anger, happiness and sadness so obviously I’ve done something to piss this crow off. Does he hate my beard? The sweats I wear or is it the green, hunting cap I wear? Maybe it’s my attitude though I bear no grudge against the crow or any other bird for that matter. It’s a frustrating mystery to me but it certainly beats thinking about the latest mass killing down South or Donald Trump.

So maybe I should be grateful for my crow companion. He’s simply dispensing a bit of morning therapy to me and he really knows how to make a guy’s day.