Andrew Lawton MP: If Bill C-218 does not pass, people will die.

Speech by Andrew Lawton MP (Elgin - St. Thomas - London South) in support of Bill C-218, the bill that was sponsored by Tamara Jansen MP (Cloverdale - Langley City) to amend the law and prevent MAiD for Mental Illness alone in Canada.

• Guide to supporting Bill C-218. (Link).
• No MAiD for Mental Illness (Link).
  

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise and speak to Bill C-218.

In less than a week, it will be 15 years since I almost lost my life to suicide. I overdosed. I was in the hospital for seven weeks. For much of it, I was on life support and had to be resuscitated multiple times. Over Christmas, my parents did not know if they would have me as their son, moving forward. It was the culmination of a very dark time in my life that spanned many years, a time in which I felt at multiple times, although not as seriously as I did that horribly dark and sad December day in 2010, that I would be better off dead than alive.

 
There are many reasons I am so proud to be standing here in this chamber, but one of them is knowing where I have been and where I came from and the fact that there was a time in my life when I never in a million years would have believed that I could ever have the life I have now: a career that I am proud of, an amazing wife whom I love so dearly, these tremendous colleagues and friends I work with every day, and this trust that has been placed in me by the people I represent. None of that would have been possible had I been successful when I attempted to end my life.

 
I think of my own experience and the experience of many others like me when I reflect on the fact that in just 15 months' time, someone who was in the place I was in 15 years ago will be able to have not only the state's permission but the state's help to end their life by suicide. In March 2027, the criteria for medical assistance in dying are expanding, so someone with only a mental illness, with no physical ailment whatsoever, will be eligible for MAID.

This is a profound expansion and a fundamental inversion of the message that we have spent so much money and so much airtime and so much effort and energy telling Canadians for years, through countless campaigns aimed at ending the stigma surrounding suicide; through more programming, funding and resources to support people with mental illness; and through campaigns telling people that they are better off alive, that they do have a future. They are efforts that we all extend in our own lives to those around us to give messages of hope to those who need it. To put a fine point on this, and to make it personal, because it is personal, if the laws that are coming into force in 15 months had been there 15 years ago, I would probably be dead right now. I say that with full gratitude that I am not.

 
I did not want to extend a cry for help. I actually had access to resources and treatment. I had a support system. I had a family who loved me. I had these privileges that so many others who struggle with mental illness did not have. Even with all of those available to me, I felt like there was no future. The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel did not exist. I did not want to get better. It was not that I had not tried; I had not tried enough, clearly. However, I felt like I had done my time. I felt like I had put in enough effort to try to get better and when I did not, I had made my decision that I was going to end it. It was not impulsive; it was quite rational, actually. I decided it weeks out. Believe it or not, as silly as it sounds, I had it on my calendar, and I scheduled the day because I had appointments and meetings before it that I did not want to miss, as though that makes any sense at all, as though it would matter if I missed a meeting, given that I was planning on not sticking around.
 

This is how, when a person is struggling with mental illness, as I was so very seriously, it plays tricks on them. By design, a mental illness is a distortion of the person's ability to see clearly and think clearly about what they are in the midst of. It clouds their judgment. If I had ever gone to a health care worker and said, “I am planning to end my life,” they would have not just a moral but a legal obligation to stop me. They would have legal authority to detain me, because that is how sacrosanct it is that people have a right to recover, that they have a right to live and that medical practitioners must do no harm and protect them from harming themselves. We have a duty to help people.
 

I talk about my own story, and I have heard so many others like it. After my colleague from Cloverdale—Langley City introduced her bill, I launched the “I got better” campaign, in which I shared my testimony and invited Canadians to share their own. I would like to share some of those in the House today.
 

A lawyer from here in Ottawa said that they wondered if they would have used MAID if it had been available when they were in their darkest days, or if they would use it in the dark days yet to come.
 

A man reached out and said he struggles with personal family issues and mental illness. He has very bad days. He has tried attempting suicide before, and he is worried that he will not be stopped in the future if he has more of those dark days and MAID is available to him.
 

On a more positive note, a woman who was in an abusive relationship for 22 years and wanted to die said, “If MAID had been around then, I would not be here now, and I am damn happy it was not.” I will ask members to pardon the unparliamentary language. She continued, saying, “I am happy now. I have had a fantastic career caring for seniors. I have grandbabies and kids I love. I have a wonderful husband now who means the world to me.”
Another woman said she wanted to end her life many times, but looking back, she is so happy she has a life now where she is happier than she ever was before.
 

I will share one more about a woman who described two years of agony, with damage to her liver, hospitalizations, dozens of failed medications and a compilation of diagnoses without any real clarity, but she was given a second chance. She had been labelled as chronically unstable and told she had a poor prognosis, was unable to thrive independently and would likely revolve through the system for the rest of her life. She had attempted suicide several times.
 

There was one doctor who would not give up on her. As she said, “Recovery takes one person, not one pill. It takes one person who believes in you and forces uncomfortable treatment onto you for the sake of the future life that's awaiting you.” That woman went to university, became a social worker to help others, is happily married and, more importantly, is happy.
 

None of these stories could ever be guaranteed if we were to do what the government is doing in 15 months, which is to license giving up on people at their most vulnerable moments, at their darkest and lowest points.
 

Of those who die by suicide, 90% are people who have diagnosable mental illness. Physicians have testified before Parliament and its committees that suicide is often contemplated and planned over a long period of time by people who would very easily, as I am confident I would have, go to a doctor to make a rational, logical case that they have tried all of the treatments and they believe that they are better off dead than alive. There was a consensus among psychiatric experts who have testified and spoken about this elsewhere that there is no clear way to separate suicidal ideation as a symptom from a request for a health care practitioner to help in ending one's life.
 

Dr. John Maher testified before Parliament that 7% of those who attempt suicide die by suicide. That means that 93% of people who, at one or multiple points, want to end their life eventually get over that. The success rate of MAID is 100%. By design, this is a policy that will give up on people.
 

There are very few things in this chamber that we can say are genuinely life-and-death issues. This is one of them. A few weeks ago we saw that, in 2024, MAID accounted for 5.1% of the deaths in Canada. That is a 1,520% increase over 2016 when it became legal. We are seeing a massive expansion to people who, in the vast majority of cases, will get better. About 50% to 60% of people with mental illness will actually recover with no treatment, and that number is even higher for people who do have treatment available.
 

I would not be here today had I been successful. I would not be here today had I not gotten over the darkest, worst feelings of my life, which anyone could encounter. That is something I believe needs to be understood by those who believe this is an abstract question of legal theory and legal rights. These are real people. There are faces to this. If Bill C-218 does not pass, people will die. We have a right and a duty to stand up for those who need it. I will be proudly supporting this bill, and I thank my colleague so much for introducing it.