WATCH: The full broadcast of The West Block on October 12. Hosted by Tom Clark.
THE WEST BLOCK
Episode 6, Season 4
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Host: Tom Clark
Guest Interviews: Dr. Catherine Ferrier, Mark Kennedy, Jennifer Ditchburn, Dr. David Suzuki
Location: Ottawa
***Please check against delivery
On this Sunday, dying with dignity: now what that means depends on where you stand on the debate on assisted suicide. It is a case before the Supreme Court again, and we look at the arguments.
Promises of new tax cuts on one side, a national child care plan on the other. One year from the fixed election date and it seems that the campaigns are well underway. Oh, and that Chatelaine profile of Justin Trudeau as well.
Then, the right to clean air and water: should protecting the environment be enshrined in our charter of rights and freedoms? David Suzuki joins us.
It is Sunday, October the 19th, and from the nation’s capital, I’m Tom Clark. And you are in The West Block.
Well it is an issue that continues to divide Canadians. Something some are reluctant to even talk about, while others are very outspoken. Physician assisted suicide. Stephen Harper says the issue is not open for debate, but it is in front of the Supreme Court of Canada. Before we delve in, here it is, your weekly West Block Primer:
The heart of the argument is this: laws against assisted suicide violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Why? Well because while able bodied Canadians can commit suicide on their own, disabled Canadians need help.
“We know physicians will be reluctant gatekeepers and only agree to it as a last resort.”
The court’s decision will have an enormous impact, no matter how it rules because behind the legal arguments, there is something even bigger. The deeply personal experiences of those who want to face death.
Last fall, one of Canada’s greatest doctors, Donald Low, terminally sick and in great pain, begged the country to let him die as he chose.
“I wish they could live in my body for 24 hours and I think they would change that opinion. I’m just frustrated not being able to have control of my own life. Not being able to make the decision for myself when enough is enough.” – Dr. Donald Low
A few months ago, a British Columbia woman with dementia decided to take her own life, not wanting to deteriorate further. And she wrote about her reasons:
“I want out before the day when I can no longer assess my situation or take action to bring my life to an end. Understand that I am giving up nothing that I want by committing suicide. All I lose is an indefinite number of years of being a vegetable in a hospital setting, eating up the country’s money, but having not the faintest idea of who I am.”
Some countries have accepted these arguments. Switzerland was the first to legalize assisted suicide way back in 1942, but it took another few decades for the idea to catch on. In the 1990’s, it was Holland and since then, Belgium, Luxemburg have followed suit. It’s also legal in four states south of the border: Washington, Oregon, Montana and Vermont. Quebec was the first Canadian province to introduce legislation to allow assisted suicide, although that law is facing a challenge in the courts.
Well joining me now is Dr. Catherine Ferrier and she works in geriatric medicine. She is also a member of the Physicians Alliance Against Euthanasia. She joins us from Montreal. Doctor thanks very much for being here.
I want to go to the bigger question here because it seems to me that in the open letter that your association wrote about this subject; one of your concerns anyway was that had there been a way for Dr. Low to have ended his own life and end his suffering that that then would have opened the flood gates in your view, to abuses in the wider population. And first of all, is that a fair assessment of your position?
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
Yes. If there was a law that said that we could kill people because they are sick, or old, or disabled, then people who are sick or old or disabled who might not have asked for it will get it.
Tom Clark:
But under what circumstance would that ever happen when somebody who didn’t ask for it would suddenly be killed by a doctor? I mean, I’ve never seen a law proposed that would even come close to that?
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
No of course not, but for example, I work in geriatrics and I see people who are getting old and are getting frail and getting dependent on other people. And I heard a story from Belgium just a couple of weeks ago, about an elderly couple who decided that they wanted to be euthanized together because if one of them died the other one would not be able to manage alone and it would be too much for their children. And their children actually went along with that and shopped around until they found a doctor who was willing to do it. And I’m sure that those children were not evil people, but it has crept into the culture that choosing death for any reason as you are approaching your end of life is just another choice. And I think that that’s a very…
Tom Clark:
Well why isn’t it just another choice?
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
Why isn’t it?
Tom Clark:
Yeah.
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
Well one of the foundations of our society is that you don’t kill another person. And one of the reasons that is a foundation and that one of the reasons for example that Canada took away the death penalty a few decades ago, is that it’s so easy to make a mistake. And in the case of the death penalty, you’ve got a trail; you’ve got the whole thing. In a case of a sick, older person in the hospital or not so older, there are so many things going on. There are the fears. There’s the isolation. You know most people who choose euthanasia in places where it’s legal, it’s not because they’re in pain, it’s because they’re afraid for the future.
Tom Clark:
Again, what’s wrong with that? Why is it better for an institution, whether it’s an institution of laws or an institution of government to have control over somebody’s body rather than the person themselves?
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
Well we don’t have control over people’s bodies.
Tom Clark:
Well you do true laws. Sure you do.
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
We’re just doing the best we can and we’ve set an outer limit which is you can withdraw treatment. You can control pain and unfortunately, medicine is not that good at withdrawing treatment at the right time in controlling pain as well as we can. There are people who know how to do it. The technology exists, but it’s not as widespread as it should be. So a lot of people have miserable deaths, not because we couldn’t have done better, but because the resources were not there for that person. And the outer limit is, you can stop everything, but you can’t kill people. And I think that’s the only outer limit that can keep things from getting out of hand. And that’s been proven in the countries where it’s legal.
Tom Clark:
So this is a moral argument as far as you’re concerned, that the line you don’t cross is that moral line about taking another life, but we all know that that’s been done by physicians for years, maybe for centuries.
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
Well I’m not so sure about that to be honest.
Tom Clark:
Well I can tell you, it’s true.
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
Well if it’s true, it’s exceedingly rare.
Tom Clark:
The point is this, that you referred to the job or the duty of a physician, among other things, is to comfort.
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
That’s right.
Tom Clark:
But what happens when comfort is allowing somebody to go, to leave the pain behind and to have some dignity in the last minute or two of life.
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
And what is so dignified about having somebody kill you?
Tom Clark:
Well, you keep on using the word kill, and I understand why you’re doing that, but doesn’t comfort sometimes mean doing the right thing? We do it with our pets all the time.
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
Yeah, we euthanize pets when they are no longer of use to us and they’re suffering. I don’t think that people are in the same category as pets. And even if people are no longer of use, they still have a value and that’s what we need to respect.
Tom Clark:
Well you know the court case, and I’m interested in your view on this, because the court case is a little bit narrow. It says that there’s a fundamental right whereas an able bodied person can commit suicide, a disabled person needs help to do it. It seems to me that that’s an essential question of fundamental right, that a disabled person does not have that an able bodied person does have in this country.
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
You know disabled people have the right to do all of the things that able bodied people do, but they can’t do a lot of them. And that’s just the way it is because of their disability, and because our society does not choose to give them access. Certainly we’ve made strides in that an in fact, the disability community for the most part is opposed to euthanasia legislation because the rhetoric that they hear is you know if I got to the point where I needed somebody to dress me to take me to the bathroom, all of those things, I’d rather be dead. And they say we are being unjustly targeted by this lobby.
Tom Clark:
Dr. Ferrier, a fascinating discussion and one I think that’s going to go on for some time regardless of how the court rules. I thank you very much for your time today.
Dr. Catherine Ferrier:
Thank you.
Tom Clark:
Well that’s certainly one point of view. We did speak with somebody on the other side of this debate. Wayne Sumner with the University of Toronto and you can find that interview on our website: www.thewestblock.ca.
Well coming up next, forget break week, party leaders spent time away from Ottawa in full campaign mode. We’ll break down their promises right after this.
Break
Tom Clark:
Welcome back. Well if the federal government follows its own law, we are exactly one year away from the next federal election. And it sure looks like it. This week, past week, the Conservatives announced tax cuts are coming, much sooner than expected. Tom Mulcair unveiled a major part of his party’s platform: a national child care plan. And Stephen Harper was seen in Quebec touting an oil and gas agreement with Quebec that hasn’t even been finalized yet. And Justin Trudeau, yeah we’ll get to him in a minute, but joining me now to unpack the politics, Mark Kennedy, the parliamentary bureau chief for the Ottawa Citizen and Jennifer Ditchburn of the Canadian Press. Welcome to you both.
Fixed election law: October 19th, 2015, that’s apparently when the next election is happening. Just wondered, this is new world for us because this is the first time the fixed election law has actually had some effect, but because it’s now sort of an American type of world, are we into perpetual election campaigns as they are south of the border? And for the next 12 months Jen, are we going to see everything through the prism of, is this going to help me or hurt me in the polls?
Jennifer Ditchburn:
Absolutely, you’re feeling it right now. And if you track where the leaders are going, which ridings they are picking to spend their time in, it looks like a blueprint for the actual campaign. Stephen Harper for example, on Friday was in Sault St. Marie. He was talking with the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. This is a core constituency for the Conservative party. There was the announcement on additional fitness tax breaks for families and so on. So you really see that they’re plotting their strategy. They’re going to ridings they think that matter around the greater Toronto area and so on. So definitely, this fixed election date was actually already on the books the last time around, but that sort of flew out the window, so I think there is still a possibility. There is still a possibility we could early.
Tom Clark:
I did say if, the government follows its own laws.
Jennifer Ditchburn:
Apparently…I noticed the word apparently, but yes, definitely feels like an election.
Tom Clark:
But Mark, what happens to politics now in this next year. I mean the second part of my question is, is the prism always going to be in front of us, that it is not about policy, it’s all about votes. It’s all about which riding you can win and which constituency you can win over. Are we into that for the next 12 months?
Mark Kennedy:
Yes we are. I mean they will talk about policy and they’ll say it’s for the good of the country, but it’s also…It’s essentially for themselves. It’ll be for the good of themselves. The difference here is that really for the first time in our country’s history, they know for the next year. I’m sure they have a plan, each of their parties and they will work it back month by month by month and they will know where they will be that month, what they’re doing that month, what their objective is that month, and it’s all heading towards October 19th. Now what does this do for policy? I suspect we’ll learn bit by bit what they think is best for the own constituencies. I mean, as I say, we’ll have an economic update later this month. We’ll have a budget sometime in the winter or spring. You wait until the summer of 2015. You know, we’ll certainly be into a campaign then.
Tom Clark:
Yeah and you know the interesting thing too is that the events that are happening right now, some say that this is the perfect positive storm for Stephen Harper. You’ve got Ebola. You’ve got ISIS. You’ve the economy may be on a precipice, oil prices collapsing and so on. Is this possibly a turnaround moment for Stephen Harper?
Jennifer Ditchburn:
A lot of the things you mentioned though could go either way, right?
Tom Clark:
That’s right.
Jennifer Ditchburn:
Could the Opposition argue that hey, you’ve had a kick at the economic can for all these years and we’re still in this bad position, or you’re not focusing enough on the knowledge based economy versus the oil and gas and extractive industries. Ebola, if there is some sort of crisis in Canada that could go badly for the Conservatives. And you mentioned ISIL, I mean depending on how that mission unfolds, really, it’s hard to tell whether this is going to be a positive or a negative for the Conservatives>
Mark Kennedy:
There are risks and benefits. Listen, now what Stephen Harper has to guard against and worry about every night that he goes to bed, is the desire for change that happens every time a government goes to the polls after it’s been in power for nearly a decade. So what’s the antidote to the desire for change? The notion that he would put forward that I am trusted hand. I can be here to guard the economy. I’m best on the foreign stage, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So if there are crises that are emerging, he would use that to his benefit. We’ll see whether it works.
Jennifer Ditchburn:
And it’s worked in the provinces too, the incumbent governments, right?
Tom Clark:
Right. Well there was something else that happened last week that caught everybody’s attention that was Jean Chrétien wrote quite a lengthy thoughtful article about why he’s supported Justin Trudeau’s stance on the fight in Iraq and Syria. And a lot of people said that may have turned around what looked to be a very bad week for Justin Trudeau into a not so bad week, but also raised the question, if there was a cogent argument to be made in support of the Liberal position, why did it come from Jean Chrétien and not from Justin Trudeau?
Mark Kennedy:
Oddly enough, you know a couple of weeks ago, the day before the prime minister put forward his motion in the House on Iraq, Justin Trudeau did deliver a fairly lengthy, fairly comprehensive speech on the dangers of going to war, but it all got overshadowed in his “joke” about pulling out CF-18’s. So that is why he is now in the doghouse. Will this help Justin Trudeau? He can now come forward and make some of the similar arguments that the former prime minister is making and we’ll see whether or not it helps him. I honestly don’t know if it will.
Tom Clark:
Jen, I’m dying to get to this with all of us, but the Chatelaine article on Justin Trudeau, when everybody says well it’s just another big fluff piece out there. And if you read it, it’s pretty fluffy. We don’t go into great detail about deficits or debts, or policies or anything like that. Give me your take on this, who loses out of this?
Jennifer Ditchburn:
Well first of all, I went and read it very closely, the magazine piece again for the second time. Yeah some of its fluffy, but actually, some of it’s kind of negative. It portrays him as very image conscious. That the photographs they were taking were all sort of constructed in the mind of Trudeau and his wife. Some of it was just not flattering, so I think people who are sort of jumping on this as a just puff piece. Not all of it was very puffy.
Tom Clark:
But even if it’s a puff piece, is this an example of the new politics of reaching out beyond the traditional forms of communication?
Mark Kennedy:
You bet it is.
Jennifer Ditchburn:
Well of course. And look at the prime minister did a whole piece with Hockey Night in Canada about the jerseys…how many hockey jerseys he has. I mean if that’s not the definition of a puff piece. The justice minister did the front page of Hello Canada with his family.
Tom Clark:
And Tom Mulcair did the rip off of The Talk.
Mark Kennedy:
Precisely, politicians know, and there are various constituencies for votes. Parts of that constituency are women in this country. Okay, how do you get to them? You may not necessarily get the best message to them through a scrum on Parliament Hill or even appearing on your show Tom. They might think, as did Justin Trudeau possibly and Tom Mulcair appearing on that show, that the best way to appear relaxed and get their message out to them is to appear straight through that forum. And it’s going to continue. Get ready for it and get used to it.
Tom Clark:
So are we being a little pinched nosed then about politicians going to other forums? Because the outrage seemed to be palpable around this town anyway.
Jennifer Ditchburn:
Yeah and I think we have to sort of remove ourselves. We exist in a pretty rarified area. There are people that are reading that magazine for pleasure. Chatelaine has had a sort of feminist bent over the decades. So I don’t think we’re necessarily tapped into the audience that the Trudeau’s or the Liberal party was trying to get at when they agreed to do that interview.
Tom Clark:
Mark Kennedy of the Ottawa Citizen. Jen Ditchburn of the Canadian Press. Great to have you on as always. Thanks very much.
Well still to come, clear air, clean water. Should access to it be a right under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? David Suzuki will explain why he says yes to that coming up next.
Break
“The human brain invented an idea called the future.” – Dr. David Suzuki
Tom Clark:
That of course is David Suzuki and he’s travelling across this country on what could be his final major tour. It’s called the Blue Dot Tour. The message: Canadians need to rise up and demand protection for the environment and have it enshrined in this country’s Constitution.
Dr. David Suzuki joins me now in studio. Good to have you here David.
Dr. David Suzuki:
Good to be here.
Tom Clark:
Let’s go to your central idea: the idea that the right to clean air and water be enshrined in the Constitution. So let’s imagine a world where that’s already happened. What happens on day one? What changes in his country as a result of that?
Dr. David Suzuki:
Well it means any area you are we hope that we can turn on the tap in any house and know that the water will be clean because that’s guaranteed to us in our Constitution. It means that if you live in an area like Chemical Alley down near Sarnia that your right to breathe clean air and drink clean water will be the highest priority that comes before a plants ability to dump stuff into the air. That if a plant wants to set up shop next to you; it has to be absolutely that your right to clean air and clean water isn’t interfered in any way.
Tom Clark:
Is it possible though that this could create paralysis and that sort of never ending battle between economic development and environment, but let’s say it’s not a new plant, let’s say it’s an existing plant. Are we into an era, under your plan, where plants would get shutdown? What about the oil sands?
Dr. David Suzuki:
Well we have to reassess everything we’re doing and think about the oil sands. Right now, we use air, water as if it’s free. I mean there is not even a price to pay for dumping whatever we’re doing into the atmosphere or into the river. That’s considered an externality to our economic considerations, but once you enshrine it, then the right to a healthy environment, the right to clean air, clean water, clean food, achieves a position of primacy, just like the right to vote. We take that into consideration. We’re not saying you don’t develop anything, but it means that you’re going to have to ensure that however you do it, the absolute priority now is to make sure it doesn’t impede the water, the air, and the food of all Canadians. So it changes the focus then of that development. Right now, it’s ooh, here’s an economic opportunity. We can make money by doing this and we’ll use air, water and soil as if it’s free. Now it says no. It’s not only not free, it’s critical to the health of all Canadians. So you’re going to have to design your technology differently.
Tom Clark:
Some people might say we already have environmental assessment laws on the books that if you’re going to build a plant like that, you’ve got to jump through those hoops anyway.
Dr. David Suzuki:
No, no…
Tom Clark:
Why is that not good enough?
Dr. David Suzuki:
Too often, those assessments come in very late and the burden of evidence that something may go wrong is then on the litigants, the environmentalists who have to prove that there is a case to be made. This way, the primacy of clean air, clean water is always there because it becomes a constitutional right. Now you might think well that’s a looney idea, but the reality is over 110 countries in the world have guarantees of this kind in their Constitution. And when you look at their environmental record; much better than the record that Canada has.
Tom Clark:
But to get where you want, a constitutional amendment, seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the population, the last time we tried to reopen the Constitution of this country, it was a disaster. No politician wants to do it. It raises the question, why not try and seek an attainable goal that would have real affect as opposed to chasing something that a lot of people would say to you, this just ain’t ever gonna happen.
Dr. David Suzuki:
Well this is a problem that we’re constantly being told, listen Suzuki, you’ve got to be realistic, the economy is the bottom line. When we deal within the frame set by the economy, where corporate profit and corporate interests have to be an equal part in the discussion, we’re going to lose every time.
Tom Clark:
But this is a political reality though not a business reality.
Dr. David Suzuki:
Okay, but the political reality is I think we still live in a democracy. And in a democracy, the guys that are over there working are working for us. I thought they are public servants. We elect them to serve us. And now what I’m doing is I’m appealing to Canadians to tell the people we elect to office what we want. And what we want is a future for our children, in which they are guaranteed clean air, clean water, and clean soil. Now is anyone there against clean air, clean water, and clean soil? If they are, let’s hear about it. But I think it’s up to Canadians to use a democratic process and impose our will on the people that are there to carry out what we want.
Tom Clark:
The always passionate Dr. David Suzuki, thank you very much for being here, David.
Dr. David Suzuki:
Thanks for having me.
Tom Clark:
And that is our show for today. We’re always eager to hear from you. Here are the addresses: www.westblock.ca, also on Twitter. Thanks for joining us. I’m Tom Clark. Have a great week ahead and we’ll see you here next Sunday.
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