I want to begin by remembering young Kiano Vafaeian who lost his life to MAiD
Kiano was only 26 years old.
He had lived with Type 1 diabetes since he was four. After a serious car accident as a teenager, he also struggled with his mental health, and later he lost vision in one eye.
In 2022, when he was just 23 years old, Kiano sought MAiD in Ontario. His mother, Margaret, fought desperately to keep her son alive.
And she succeeded.
For a time.
But Kiano had become obsessed with getting MAiD. He continued to request it from Ontario health until they told him straight out he would never qualify in Ontario but shockingly suggested other jurisdictions he could contact in his quest to end his life. Sadly, he found a willing doctor in British Columbia, where he received MAiD on December 30, 2025 from the now infamous Dr Elen Wiebe.
He was 26.
And when I heard Kiano's story, I could not stop thinking about my own little brother.
In 2023 he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. He knew he was dying but wanted to live. But the medical staff at Abbotsford hospital seemed to want to end his life.
While laying on a bed in the hallway on the oncology ward he was asked, not once, not twice, not three, four, or five times but six separate times if he wanted MAiD!
They were relentless.
They pressed him saying that they didn’t think they would be able to control his pain, scaring him out of his wits, but he still had the will to live.
So that final time he gave them a big Hell No!
I’m very proud of my little brother for standing up for his life…..for having the courage and commitment to make a statement that his life was still worth living, even if it was only for another 8 or 10 months.
He had time to mend fences, make friends with the staff at Hospice, say goodbye to his family.
This is why bill C 218 is necessary.
Because not everyone will be able to fight the way my brother fought. Not everyone will have the strength to say no six times.
And when someone is sick, frightened, depressed or unable to see any hope for tomorrow, surely the responsibility of our medical system is not to reinforce their despair, but to protect them while they are vulnerable and help them find their way back to hope.
That is particularly true when we are talking about mental illness.
For years, Conservatives have warned that expanding MAiD to people suffering solely from mental illness crosses a line we should not cross.
We were told the safeguards would be enough. We were told the system could be made ready.
Yet the implementation has been delayed again and again, while the fundamental question remains unanswered: how can we declare that a person's mental illness is irremediable when we cannot reliably know that they will never recover?
But we do know one thing with absolute certainty: once that life is ended, there is no tomorrow.
When we first debated this bill, members told us to wait for the Special Joint Committee to do its work.
Well, it has.
The committee heard the evidence and recommended that people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness be indefinitely excluded from MAiD eligibility.
Parliament asked for that review. We now have its answer.
And if the concern with Bill C-218 is the wording and the use of the term “mental disorder” instead of “mental illness”, then let us fix the wording at committee.
We are prepared to work with the government at committee to make the technical changes.
A bill should not be defeated at second reading over technical wording when there is agreement on the principle.
The scheduled expansion is coming in March. So let us work together and send this bill to committee.
The measure of a compassionate society is not how efficiently it helps people die. It is whether, in the moment when someone can no longer see the value of their own life, the rest of us are prepared to see it for them.
Our answer to suffering should be care. Our answer to despair should be hope. And when someone believes there is no possibility of recovery, Canada should never be the one to agree with them.
That is why I am asking my colleagues to vote for Bill C-218.
Give Canadians the time, the care and the hope they need.
Give them the right to recover.
Kiano was only 26 years old.
He had lived with Type 1 diabetes since he was four. After a serious car accident as a teenager, he also struggled with his mental health, and later he lost vision in one eye.
In 2022, when he was just 23 years old, Kiano sought MAiD in Ontario. His mother, Margaret, fought desperately to keep her son alive.
And she succeeded.
For a time.
But Kiano had become obsessed with getting MAiD. He continued to request it from Ontario health until they told him straight out he would never qualify in Ontario but shockingly suggested other jurisdictions he could contact in his quest to end his life. Sadly, he found a willing doctor in British Columbia, where he received MAiD on December 30, 2025 from the now infamous Dr Elen Wiebe.
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| Tamara Jansen (CPC) |
And when I heard Kiano's story, I could not stop thinking about my own little brother.
In 2023 he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. He knew he was dying but wanted to live. But the medical staff at Abbotsford hospital seemed to want to end his life.
While laying on a bed in the hallway on the oncology ward he was asked, not once, not twice, not three, four, or five times but six separate times if he wanted MAiD!
They were relentless.
They pressed him saying that they didn’t think they would be able to control his pain, scaring him out of his wits, but he still had the will to live.
So that final time he gave them a big Hell No!
I’m very proud of my little brother for standing up for his life…..for having the courage and commitment to make a statement that his life was still worth living, even if it was only for another 8 or 10 months.
He had time to mend fences, make friends with the staff at Hospice, say goodbye to his family.
This is why bill C 218 is necessary.
Because not everyone will be able to fight the way my brother fought. Not everyone will have the strength to say no six times.
And when someone is sick, frightened, depressed or unable to see any hope for tomorrow, surely the responsibility of our medical system is not to reinforce their despair, but to protect them while they are vulnerable and help them find their way back to hope.
That is particularly true when we are talking about mental illness.
For years, Conservatives have warned that expanding MAiD to people suffering solely from mental illness crosses a line we should not cross.
We were told the safeguards would be enough. We were told the system could be made ready.
Yet the implementation has been delayed again and again, while the fundamental question remains unanswered: how can we declare that a person's mental illness is irremediable when we cannot reliably know that they will never recover?
But we do know one thing with absolute certainty: once that life is ended, there is no tomorrow.
When we first debated this bill, members told us to wait for the Special Joint Committee to do its work.
Well, it has.
The committee heard the evidence and recommended that people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness be indefinitely excluded from MAiD eligibility.
Parliament asked for that review. We now have its answer.
And if the concern with Bill C-218 is the wording and the use of the term “mental disorder” instead of “mental illness”, then let us fix the wording at committee.
We are prepared to work with the government at committee to make the technical changes.
A bill should not be defeated at second reading over technical wording when there is agreement on the principle.
The scheduled expansion is coming in March. So let us work together and send this bill to committee.
The measure of a compassionate society is not how efficiently it helps people die. It is whether, in the moment when someone can no longer see the value of their own life, the rest of us are prepared to see it for them.
Our answer to suffering should be care. Our answer to despair should be hope. And when someone believes there is no possibility of recovery, Canada should never be the one to agree with them.
That is why I am asking my colleagues to vote for Bill C-218.
Give Canadians the time, the care and the hope they need.
Give them the right to recover.
6 comments:
Thank you so very much for standing against increasing MAID! You spoke so well. May God greatly convict those who believe that ending life is better than encouraging and helping people live!
Absolutely true. 👏👏💪💪
What a powerful testimony! Thank you and God bless you and your family!
Well said!!! 🙏
I am hoping. and praying for the success of this bill🙏🙏🙏
Thank you for your efforts to protect us, the Canadian public, who are feeling more and more vulnerable to a government and medical system we have previously relied on to protect and support us as we journey through life. It is not the right of a governing body or a medical representative to encourage death. We need help, hope and an unquestioned or challenged “ right to live”.
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