Prayer for the Nation June 2021 with guest speaker, MP Kelly Block

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/8c243a_577545aa0709476dadcd8fb13c15be18/file

Join MP Kelly Block as she discusses her private members bill C268, focusing on the conscience rights of medical professionals in this June 2021 prayer session.

Transcript

Transcript unavailable.

Transcript

so um take it away mp block well thank you very much um and thank you for the opportunity to join you this evening it um i i appreciate being able to join with like-minded individuals certainly when it comes to faith and the importance of faith in society and um share a little bit with you about my private members bill which is something that um has been front and center for me certainly over the last um well i would even say number of years but as i you know began to to work on putting together a private members bill over the last number of months it's something that i've been focusing on i'll start perhaps just by commenting on a couple of of things that

were already mentioned firstly i think it is tremendously important for um a nation to understand what their shared values are and uh that is something that i think is really important as well for members of parliament to come to a place when you're serving as a elected representative to know what your values are and to actually perhaps have gone through a values exercise where you have rank ordered them so that when they actually might appear to be competing you know which ones will trump others and so that's something that i was aware of uh before i became a member of parliament in other work that i had done and so um you know that really has underpinned i think

um the different things that i've been involved in as a member of parliament and the other thing i would say as we've talked about perhaps engagement by people of faith or even um you know the church i would say that um i recall hearing from a pastor who said once that society is downstream from faith and politics are downstream from society and what that really spoke to me about was the importance of church in shaping society the church um and the role of the church and i would strongly encourage the church to stay focused on its mandate and uh work at uh changing hearts so that it won't be that difficult for politicians to change the laws and i'll i'll leave it at that and i

will move right into talking about my um private member spell i'll just say a little bit about myself i've had the privilege of representing uh riding here in saskatchewan as a member of parliament for almost 13 years this fall it will be 13 years my riding is a large rural riding which is equal to half the size of the province of nova scotia and wraps itself around the city of saskatoon on three sides just to give you an idea of where it is in the province and over the past 13 years i have had the privilege of serving as a member of parliament uh in the governing party in both a minority and majority situation and as a member of her majesty's loyal opposition in both a majority and minority

situation and as bev could probably attest to each change uh presents challenges as well as the opportunity to learn what new tools we have in our toolbox that will help us in either governing or holding the government to account as we spoke a little bit about c10 earlier i have also had the privilege to serve on numerous standing committees and special committees as well as in a number of positions including serving as our regional caucus chair the saskatchewan regional caucus chair a parliamentary secretary when we were in government and i'm now serving as a committee chairperson for the standing committee on public accounts all um members also have the opportunity

to join various parliamentary associations friendship groups and all party parliamentary caucuses and i while i have joined a number of those over the 13 years that i've been a member i have been most active in the parliamentary pro-life caucus where i am currently serving as uh a vice chair the vice chair i was a founding member of the all party committee on palliative and compassionate care um and i'm serving currently serving as a co-chair of kamforp which is the canadian chapter of the international panel of parliamentarians for freedom of religion or belief or ipp4 and i'm not sure if you're aware of that organization but it is one that my colleague david anderson

was instrumental in forming and i'm certainly happy to answer any questions you might have about that so i i share this not only as part of my introduction to you in terms of what i have been busy with and involved in over the time that i've been a member but also to provide you with a bit of context as to what motivates me and as i said earlier the underpinnings for the reason i am joining you today which is uh also to discuss my private members bill so my private members bill is the protection of freedom of conscience act known as bill c-268 it's a very straightforward bill that seeks to enshrine into law a minimum national standard of conscience protections for medical professionals

while respecting the jurisdiction of my provincial colleagues if passed it will ensure that medical professionals who choose not to participate in or refer a patient for assisted suicide or medical assistance and dying will never be forced by violence threats coercion or loss of employment to violate their freedoms protected in the charter secondly it also serves to protect the rights of patients to receive a second opinion and i believe by doing so it protects our health care system um i should mention that my bill was is not the first bill that has been introduced to address this issue the first iteration was introduced by the late mark warwa in 2016 in anticipation of the

introduction of government legislation which they did and therefore his bill did not progress when the government introduced bill c-14 after c-14 was passed into law that is when my former colleague david henderson introduced his private members bill bill c-418 which died on the order paper when the election was called in 2019. and so when i drew uh number 45 on the order of precedence for private members business i knew immediately that i wanted to reintroduce this bill in the past five years we have passed laws that have the unintended consequence of forcing doctors and medical professionals to provide death to their patients regardless of whether they believe it is

in their patients best interest and bills c14 and c7 created a federal standard for medical assistance and dying and assisted suicide but did not for conscience protections and so i introduced my bill in response to calls from disability rights groups first nations and the ontario medical association as well as many hundreds of medical and mental health professionals to protect conscience rates and as i pointed out there was a lot of heavy lifting done before i introduced my bill by my former colleagues and so i really it really was built on the work that they had already done at the end of the day i believe ensuring that i at the end of the day ensuring that conscience rights are

protected is the responsibility of parliament and the government of canada and this bill protects the doctor-patient relationship by ensuring that doctors and other medical professionals are always able to recommend and provide the care that they believe is in is is best for their patients um so that's my bill in a nutshell it gives you a little bit of the history of the bill and and certainly um what i believe about the importance of um protecting conscience rights for medical professionals and so um i will leave it there and uh seek to answer any questions that you might have for me does anyone have a question for mp block well in regards to the um the fact you know that this is more

like coming from a medical issue then can the uh this law have that then kind of jurisdiction over the provincial uh if i recall back when mark warwick passed this i remember sitting in some of the committee meetings and um the various colleges of surgeons from various provinces you know some differed on their views about this and some were very hardline some were were in agreement um how does that work i just wanted to ask that question yeah so i i did have we know that manitoba already has um a law in place to protect uh conscience rights for medical professionals and certainly i think um there are other provinces that are looking into it um i would just say that um

my bill respects the role of the province in the provision of health care um and that is why it amends the criminal code which is a federal um piece a federal act um the the acts both acts that were introduced to legalize uh euthanasia and medical assistance and dying uh uh amended the criminal code which is why i focused on the criminal code and in fact i would have to say that i you know strongly encourage provincial governments to further um protect conscience rates for medical professionals using provincial legislation and regulations okay very good we have a question in here from jan if this law is passed can this be expanded to cover nurses and other medical professionals in

regards to all facets of abortion and termination of pregnancy that is not my intention my bill is solely focused on medical assistance and dying and so i you know i don't have an answer for that because i would be speculating in regards to anything that anybody else might seek to do in the future okay very good any other questions i have a question okay um is is there um oh now i lost it i'll think about it again sorry okay i i have a question and b block um i wonder if you could explain to everyone what will happen to the bill if an election is called your bill yes okay so i'm not sure if you're aware but i uh the first hour of debate on bill c 268 took uh what took place on may 27th

which meant that the second hour was scheduled actually for june 23rd so this coming up week the second hour in which i would have a five-minute response to all of the speeches that were given during those two hours however it was moved off the calendar because of changes that that happen to the parliamentary calendar uh towards the end of a session and uh so i will not the second hour of debate will not take place prior to us rising now next week if we do not go to an election next fall it will be the first private piece of private members business dealt with when we do resume parliament in september however if an election is called my bill will die on the order paper just as

david anderson's did in 2019. i remember i remembered what i was going to ask um do you have any stats on whether um physicians and medical professionals um have left practiced or moved countries because of of this possibility in canada where their their conscience rights are going to be violated yeah so i am i have in my consultations in preparing for this bill um what i came to understand is that um without conscience rights many medical professional professionals are advising that they may choose to leave their field or the profession altogether i've received a number of emails um you know i will just email to i will just read to you one email without giving away any

um personal information um and here's what one person wrote to me as a practicing physician i am terrified of the moment when when not if a patient asks me to do what is morally unacceptable to me i am not able to participate in made in any way but actively fear professional consequences including termination of my license should i refuse this uncertainty leaves me planning on an escape route from the practice of medicine should the culture become hostile to those of us who believe that participating in the process in any way including referral is equivalent to actually performing made and so i've heard from a number of medical professionals that this is the case uh

testimony that was included in my um launch i did a uh a facebook live press conference um on the day that i was introducing my bill and so had a number of physicians uh speaking to some of those very issues and saying that now more than ever there is a need for a protection of conscience rights in the medical profession i i would assume that this is also something that's hitting our medical colleges where you know students interns uh could be exposed to this as well is that is that a fact already or is it so i have had questions about whether or not this bill would extend to protecting students who are enrolled in medicine in medical colleges what i can tell you is that would be an area

absolutely for the provincial government to take a look at um post-secondary education is false under the jurisdiction of the provincial governments and and i think that's where um provincial legislation would definitely uh be able to address this issue very good just this is the last question because we know you need to go um from the on the opposition side of this bill what are the arguments that they are proposing against this bill yeah you know that's that's a very good question i think you know one of the biggest arguments uh that uh that i've heard is a concern that access to made will will um be you know be uh difficult accessing made and uh what i can share with you

is that uh the canadian medical association stated that conscience legislation would absolutely not impede access to made there is a study that was done by mcgill um that showed that 71 of medical students uh right now would be willing to administer made and that um protecting conscience rights would not deprive canadians of their access to made and so i think that's been probably the one of the biggest arguments although again you know we only had one hour of debate so far on this issue these would be arguments that i think have really come forward prior to my me introducing this piece of legislation but i think it just follows through from previous iterations of it

excellent well thank you mp block before you go we'd like to pray for you and so rob would you could you pray for mp block as she leaves it's okay to call you kelly you definitely should feel free to call me kelly absolutely i i used to work for a member of provincial parliament here in ontario and it was not i was not to call her by her first name not in public so so anyway thank you kelly well both friend and i want to pray for you so lord we thank you that um kelly's been able to take the time now and just draw aside and share this this bill this this that you've put on her heart but also on david anderson mark warwick lord we know that this is being long-standing and we we pray god that

more and more father that this still will not be forgotten lord if election is called we pray that someone else if not kelly will still pick up this same same call that this would be pressed in on lord we believe that our rights our freedoms are so so valued and important in our nation and god we pray when that when that right comes into jeopardy here of our own um physicians uh lord and even medical professionals lord we pray god that the warning flags will go up the canadians will become concerned that lord that will pressure their mps that this is not this is a precedent setting issue that we need to stand firm on and god i pray now your grace on kelly

i thank you father for the the research she's done and i pray lord that uh father that lord that this would become something of a a reality provincially but across our nation where we will see our the rights of our physicians protected that lord none of them will be running off and leaving our nation because of this sort of thing but sword lord who have made a commitment to stand for life that lord we we agree with that commitment we know that you stand for life that you are not behind a person taking their own life and god we pray that we would have therefore uh lord your empowering around this bill lord that we will see this become something that is sustained in our nation

we ask in jesus name and father we thank you god for for kelly and the fact that she's picked up this um probably at your prompting god um and that father that it will wake up the consciences of of the nation that people will become aware god i thank you for all the organizations that protect life who promote life um from campaign coalition for life to canadian the canadian physicians for life and many others god who are standing in agreement with her who back her up who who share this bill and implications that that um are involved god and so father i ask god that whatever you want to do through this god we stand with kelly in it yeah god that your people will will stand in faith trust

for everything god we ask for the waking up of the conscience of this nation god their seared consciences father wake them up to see where these things could go god whether by accident or intent that people will see what this means and begin to think about it god because your holy spirit is prompting our nation to not go down a direction that could harm our country and our citizens so father we thank you for her god we thank you that she's going to get time uh with her family amen and uh thank you for all that support she has and her faith in you and we trust god that everything she does um you will you will give her the faith and the courage to stand in jesus name yes thank you amen

so thank you kelly like this is we can share this with many many others absolutely and so it's it's really important we've been uh praying for this for the last few years at least and uh so really glad that you're taking that stand oh thank you thank you again for the opportunity to join you thank you so much for your prayers i covet those and i certainly appreciate your support and um yeah i would just uh again recognize i know that there are individuals who have been um working to address this issue for years and uh praying into it four years and just really appreciate that commitment and that steadfastness to um you know to continuing to pray and again just thank you so much for the

opportunity i want to wish all of you on this call who are fathers today a very happy father's day uh thank you for uh your commitment to your families and uh and uh for the very important role you play in our society and uh just bless you and uh thank you as well uh to the national house of prayer uh for for the work that you are doing thank you well thank you mp vlog kelly thank you so much i know you have you you want to see your dad thank you for coming this evening and we really appreciate it and we just we will continue to pray and uh and i'll reach out i i'll tell you dealing with your office has been wonderful josh is fantastic he is he is a good he's a good a fine

young man like i said i was a constituency office manager and uh it's good when you see good talent you know i on that i have been blessed with uh tremendous staff uh all individuals of faith and that brings a a certain component to a to a to an office that i've been truly blessed to be a part of so thank you for for saying that the last thing i would leave you with is um there are there is a way to sign a petition on this issue um you need to visit um dot www.savesecondopinions.com and i think we've got some information posted there on my bill and uh encourage people to just continue signing petitions because you know we there's still work to do there's awareness to be built

and um anything you can do to do that is most appreciated amen that's fantastic um we'll put that in the chat for those who don't have it will so you can click on that and sign up that is fantastic thank you kelly thank you we wish you a happy summer but i know it'll be probably a precursor to election and so happy door knocking and all that and we also pray that you get a lot of volunteers and so thank you thank you very much okay