Medical Assistance in Dying committee  We had over 200 organizations representing persons with disabilities sign an open letter. This is not a religious rights issue; it's a disability rights issue. While you may feel that you are giving this particular protected group of people a right to die, what they really need is a right to live on an equal basis with others.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  No, they were not, and they're still not really being heard. In the lead-up to Bill C-7, the whole disability community, including us, predicted that we would get to exactly where we are now. Besides the calls that come in to our office and our federation across the country, you can't open up a newspaper without seeing a story or multiple stories every day that are public and in the news about these situations.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  People with disabilities are not vulnerable; they are made vulnerable. They are put in situations of vulnerability based on the socio-economic...and all the things we have already talked about, so I won't repeat that again. I think the question you're asking me is whether or not there are some people with disabilities who want to be able to choose whether or not they can make a decision about dying.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I know the story of both individuals very well. Monsieur Truchon was living his life in the community, but he had a progressive disability. Based on the system they have in Quebec for supporting people with disabilities, he ended up institutionalized. He lived in an institution for five years, fought like heck to get out of that institution and couldn't.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  This is not a choice that we're giving to everybody. Do you not see that this choice is being given to only one group of people who have a very specific set of conditions? Madame Gladu didn't want to have to live in an institution at some point in her life. That's why she wanted the choice.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  There were lots of questions in there. The first is, yes, we've been consulted. I presented to HUMA earlier this week, and we have been involved, obviously, in the consultations around the Canada disability benefit and the disability inclusion action plan. We have been very heavily involved in all of those discussions.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  My ultimate thought on the matter is that when we first—

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Okay, thank you. As far as autonomy goes, our position as an organization and the position in the disability community writ large is that when we brought MAID in, it was restricted to end of life. It was available on an equal basis to anybody whose death was reasonably foreseeable—

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  The conclusion of my testimony is that MAID should not be provided to anybody whose death is not reasonably foreseeable and who is not at the end of their life, because that is the great equalizer that does not single out one group of people who are not dying. Thank you.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I agree that there is more to autonomy than.... In order to be able to make an autonomous decision, you have to be able to do that on an equal basis with others. My point was that when you are living in poverty—unhoused or marginalized intersectionally because of race, indigeneity, gender or other factors—you can't make an equal choice on the same basis as someone else can make it when you are living in those conditions.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  We have been inundated with calls to our offices across the country. People are desperate, and there are a number of reasons behind that. People always say, “Well, give us examples.” We have documented cases, with people's names, people's faces and people's stories, and they're just piling higher and higher and higher.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I am coming to you today from the traditional and unceded territory of the Lkwungen, Songhees and Esquimalt peoples. Inclusion Canada is a national grassroots organization made up of 13 provincial-territorial associations and 300 local associations representing over 40,000 individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families.

Human Resources committee  The fact that the bill includes people with disabilities.... It talks about people of working age with disabilities, so I do believe this is the right focus for the bill. At the end of the day, I really do. We have the Canada child disability benefit. Is it adequate? Should it be increased?

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much for the question. We're a national federation. We have 13 provincial and territorial associations with over 300 locals and more than 40,000 individual members across the country, so it's certainly a nationally broad spectrum of people. We have conducted an extensive consultation within our own federation on this benefit, and we were part of a project funded through ESDC whereby a whole bunch of national disability organizations were tasked with carrying out consultations across the country on the four pillars of the disability inclusion action plan, of which this was one.

Human Resources committee  I don't think any particular organization has been given any specific guarantees. However, what I would say is that we definitely have gotten a very firm commitment—many of us as organizations and individuals with disabilities—that we will be very much at the table with the government in the creation of the regulations.