Check It Out: When Bill C-7 becomes personal

By Joan Janzen

A teacher asked her students to use the word “beans” in a sentence. One girl said, “My father grows beans.” A boy said, “My mother cooks beans. A third student spoke up, “We are all human beans.” And all of those “human beans” have a personal story to tell.

The government draws up legislation for those human beings, but people often don’t pay attention to new legislation if it doesn’t affect them personally. Bill C-7 became personal for one Canadian in particular.

This bill expands Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID), which was previously meant for people with a terminal condition who had been in profound suffering and facing a natural foreseeable death. Bill C-7 removes the section that says a death must be reasonable and foreseeable.

Canadian Andrew Lawton, a senior journalist at True North and host of The Andrew Lawton Show, said the changes may seem insignificant until you consider people with mental illness are now eligible for MAID. It has become a personal issue for him.

“In 2010, I nearly succeeded in killing myself,” he admits. “I had been battling depression for years, very serious. I was in the system; I had been trying to get better. I had been seeing a psychiatrist until not long before my suicide attempt. I was suffering. I had been on antidepressants. I was convinced there was no hope, that life would not get better. I felt what I was going through was grievous and was convinced I’d be better off dead. I didn’t have a reasonable, foreseeable death, but that doesn’t matter according to Bill C-7. I was convinced that life would not get better.”

In 2010, Andrew’s family was by his bedside, praying for him, while healthcare workers worked tirelessly, dedicating themselves to saving his life. “I very nearly didn’t make it,” he said. “The reason I tell this story is because the same healthcare system that worked to save my life in 2010 will facilitate ending a life like mine in 2023.”

He goes on to say there are people out there who have family members who are struggling. Those family members could quietly and secretly go through the process, and their loved ones would never know about it until after they were gone.

“I’m not imposing my values on others. I’m talking about people who do not have the capacity to consent to their own death,” Andrew said. “Their desire to end their life is a symptom. Since when do we appease that symptom by giving them what they want?”

Andrew said it’s difficult recalling that time in his life. “It’s so unrecognizable to the life I live now, and that’s part of why this is such a problem because I did get better. And the life I’m living is proof that it’s possible,” he reasons.

In many cases, there could be hope on the horizon, even if it doesn’t feel like it at that moment in time, which is why he finds Bill C-7 so troubling. He wasn’t alone; in 2021, a chorus of people expressed their concerns to the government. The Senate of Canada attempted to make changes concerning people with mental illness, but the government wouldn’t agree. Eventually, the bill was passed.

Since the changes take effect in three months’ time, Andrew urged Canadians to contact their MP and MLA. He said he’s convinced that if those laws had existed in 2010, he would not be alive today. He would not have had the opportunity to turn his life around, host his own online show and bring issues like this one to the attention of his viewers.

“The message the government is sending is that life is not always worth living. The message they’re sending is that suicide is just a choice,” he concluded.

It was a choice that a Canadian man, Amir Farsoud, had made last month when he applied for MAID after fearing he would lose his housing and become homeless. CityNews had shared his story, which was followed by an outpouring of love from friends and strangers who donated to a GoFundMe started by someone Farsoud didn’t even know.

“I’m a different person now,” he said. “I had nothing but darkness, misery, stress and hopelessness. Now I have all the opposite of those things,” he told journalist Cynthia Mulligan of CityNews.

So remember to contact your MP about the changes to MAID, which will come into effect in March of 2023. Suicide is not a solution, but hope, generosity and kindness are.