Tamara Jansen

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of Canadians calling on the government to address IRCC processing backlogs. Petitioners note that prolonged delays leave applicants, employers and communities in uncertainty. They call for action to end the dysfunction that wastes government resources and to restore confidence in the immigration system.

Mr. Speaker, I have another petition in support of Bill C-218, the right to recover act. Petitioners are concerned with the planned expansion of medical assistance in dying to those whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness. They note that mental illness can be treatable, that recovery is possible and that many Canadians still face barriers to accessing timely mental health care. Petitioners are concerned that vulnerable Canadians could seek MAID before receiving the treatment they so badly need. They therefore call on the government to pass Bill C-218 and permanently exclude mental illness alone for MAID eligibility.

Mr. Speaker, this summer, I got a letter from Harjeet. He wrote, “I've been doing two jobs for the last six years. My wife works too. Even after working that much, it is a stretch.” Think about what six years of two jobs looks like: leaving before the neighbourhood even wakes up, working all day and then heading to job number two while everyone else goes home for dinner. He gets home late. The kitchen is dark. Dinner is in the fridge because his wife has already left for her shift. Then they do it again tomorrow. People like Harjeet are not afraid of hard work. They are exhausted from working harder and falling further behind. That is why our Conservative economic action plan will save Canadian families $10,000. We have identified $150 billion in savings by cutting Ottawa's waste, bureaucracy, consultants and corporate welfare. Harjeet has done his part while the Liberals are costing him more. Our plan will save Harjeet money; theirs will not.

Madam Speaker, I will begin by grounding the end of this debate in remembering young Kiano Vafaeian who lost his life to MAID. He was 26 years old, and 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 that he would never qualify in Ontario, but shockingly, they suggested other jurisdictions he could contact in his quest to end his life. Sadly, he found a willing doctor in B.C., where he received MAID on December 30, 2025, from the now infamous Dr. Ellen Wiebe. He was 26 years old. When I heard Kiano's story, I could not stop thinking about my own little brother Johan. In 2023, he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. He knew he was dying, but he wanted to live. However, the medical staff at the Abbotsford hospital seemed to want to end his life. While lying 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 did not think they would be able to control his pain, scaring him out of his wits, but he still had a will to live. I am very proud of my little brother for standing up for his life, for having the courage and the commitment to make a statement that his life was still worth living, even if it was for only another eight or ten months. He had time to mend fences, make friends with the people at the hospice and say goodbye to his family. This is why Bill C-218 is necessary, because not everyone will have the will and the ability to fight the way my brother fought. Not everyone will have the strength to say no six times. 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 the despair but to protect them while they are vulnerable and help them find their way back to hope. This 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 that the safeguards would be enough. We were told that the system could be made ready. However, 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? However, we do know one thing with absolute certainty: Once that life is ended, there is no tomorrow. When we first debated the 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 mental illness be indefinitely excluded from MAID eligibility. Parliament asked for that review. We now have its answer. 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 one word when there is agreement on the principle. Time is of the essence. The scheduled expansion is coming in March. Let us work together and send the 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. 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 that they need. Give them the right to recover.