Paul Martin

What the Carney Liberals are doing here is far more cynical and sinister than many realize: they are holding people with mental illness hostage in order to "trade" for people with dementia. The Liberals could have voted for @TamaraJansenMP's Bill C-218 to protect people with mental illness. The NDP did. Instead, they voted against it but promised a bill that would eliminate eligibility for those with mental illness as a sole condition but also expand it to those with dementia who have signed an "advanced directive." "Advanced directives" mean a person can be killed without contemporaneous consent. The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities explicitly warned the government against legalizing it. Even the Trudeau government rejected it. It is enormously complex, and will take a long debate. Except the March 2027 deadline expanding eligiblity to people with mental illness is looming. That's five months from now. The Liberals are going to say we don't have time to debate advanced directives because we need to rush the bill through to protect people with mental illness. In other words: Give us people with dementia, or people with mental illness are going to get hurt. They need to keep the euthanasia happy. They don't want to admit unqualified moral defeat. So instead, they're going to play games and bargain with the lives of the vulnerable. It's one of the most disgusting things I've seen in Canadian politics in a very long time.