I am a disabled woman with multiple sclerosis and live in Kelowna, B.C. At times, my disease has been aggressive and it's fairly advanced. I use a power wheelchair. I have severe fatigue and pain that is sometimes severe. However, I have a great quality of life.
Today, I represent Disability Without Poverty. Roughly two in 10 people living in Canada are disabled, but, among those who live in poverty, four in 10 are disabled. Disabled people are overrepresented. There are twice as many disabled people living in poverty than statistics alone would account for. Often, they live in abject poverty, as disability assistance payments are usually as low as half or two-thirds of the poverty line. We know disabled people have been granted MAID because the intolerable suffering they face is caused by poverty, yet there are conditions they would consider acceptable to relieve that suffering.
Here are just two examples of people from B.C.
Sean had ALS and wanted to live at home. He managed to do so for a number of years. When the constant stress of finding the right care on his own became too much, his health authority offered to place him in long-term care four hours away from his 10-year-old son. Instead, Sean chose MAID. He described the funding decisions and institutional offerings advanced by the health authority as a death sentence.
Madeline has post-viral syndrome and has been living with it for 30 years. There are no Health Canada-approved treatments, but she found a combination of treatments that work for her, and they all require her to pay out-of-pocket. However, she has exhausted all options financially and is currently getting by, month to month, on GoFundMe payments. Madeline says that, when the money runs out, she'll have no option but to use MAID, which she has already qualified for. She says she has no wish to die, but she'll be facing an unbearable wall of pain with no quality of life.
No one in Canada should ever die because they live in poverty. Yet, for disabled people, we hasten that death. We provide a state-sanctioned procedure for those disabled people to die. For Sean and Madeline, we have remedies for their suffering that would have been acceptable to them. Sean and Madeline have been vocal in the media about their needs and the remedies for their suffering, but we heard nothing in response to this from the government. Either the government believes that disability accommodations set out in law do not need to be upheld or it does not take its role to oversee MAID safeguards seriously. Sean and Madeline's suffering came from a social condition, not their medical conditions.
I cannot believe that was ever the intention of MAID—sanctioning the deaths of disabled people because they live in poverty—yet we see it happening. I ask that you recognize the safeguards are failing and that you support disabled lives and the Canada disability benefit bill to ensure it lifts all disabled people out of poverty. Implement wide reform to our care systems to give disabled people the care they want. Until these conditions are met, MAID eligibility must be restricted to those who are approaching the end of their life, where their intolerable suffering is due to their medical condition, not the societal conditions under which they are forced to live.
I finish with Madeline's words: “I'm trying really hard not to freak out...but that I'm facing death for something that can be managed is bloody ridiculous, and it makes me so angry. I die when I run out of money.”
Thank you.