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Todd Doherty

Conservative on Medical Assistance in Dying Safeguards Act 2026-11-04

Replying to Garnett Genuis (Conservative)

“Mr. Speaker, I want to really thank my colleague for a profound and thoughtful speech, for sharing the story about his mother as an example of somebody who changed their mind, who thought they would want one thing and then, in a moment, wanted something else. I suspect that the love and care that the member and others in his family showed may have influenced her decision to change direction at that point. That story relates to a broader statistic. In the latest reports, 692 Canadians in one year made a request for MAID and then changed their minds. Where does that leave us with advance directives when a person signs a document that allows something to happen to them without them being asked at some future point when their circumstances have changed? Maybe they have adapted, maybe there are new aspects to their life, things they did not think they could deal with that they are dealing with, and they are happy in the midst of them. What should we say to those 692 Canadians in one year who made the choice, like his mother did, to change their minds?”

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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the kind comments. Our leader brought up our former colleague Lisa Raitt and her husband, who is living with dementia. She wonders what would have happened if he had made that advance directive early on. She knows full well that he is fully content. He would not have wanted to go forward with it. All we are asking is to make sure that we, as parliamentarians, do our job and make sure we are looking after the most vulnerable of Canadians, putting those safeguards in place, answering and addressing the questions that the medical community and the experts have. That is our job, not rushing something through in the 11th hour.