The 1988 election was a referendum on free-trade and the 2004 election was a referendum on marriage; is this election a referendum too?

The polls continue to show an entertaining horse race between the three leaders — some days they are all within a nose of each other, and sometimes it seems that one is too far behind to catch up, but then weeks later, they are all close again. What excitement! And, what a farce!

This election seems to be a race to get away as quickly as possible from the tough issues. Need evidence? Two of the four leaders who were invited refused to participate in the woman’s issues debate. If the debate had happened, the hardest questions would probably not have been asked or answered, but the leaders should have shown up. Some tough questions you could ask your local candidates: What do you think about Planned Parenthood's sale of baby body parts? Will you work to defund Planned Parenthood? What about the deliberate killing of baby girls? Will you work to end this practice in Canada?

The big question that the leaders wish would go away, and which the media seems just as happy to forget about, is the issue of assisted suicide. We will probably look back at the 2015 election as a referendum on assisted suicide, and, quite possibly, euthanasia.

The big parties have shown willingness to step away from the issue, and local candidates are quick to say that “it is a complicated issue,” or “it is a personal subject,” or... But, will they give a clear answer on what they believe? Ask them!

One candidate from the Conservative Party has made a very clear statement, and it is very worrying. Stephen Fletcher is a quadriplegic MP who has recently written a book entitled Master of my Fate. He wants the issue to be talked about during the election — which is good — but sadly, he is in favour of assisted suicide. This shows that we cannot assume that Conservatives will be strong on this issue! Some of them might be strong on one side, and some on the other.

This will make it very hard for Parliament to do anything about the issue; it is very likely that we will end up with a similar situation to our current abortion law — which is that there is no law. In both cases, it was an activist Supreme Court that struck down our laws. In 2010 a concerned Parliament voted strongly against a motion to legalize euthanasia. The vote was 230 against and 57 in favour. But, the Supreme Court told Parliament this past February that Parliament made the wrong decision. Of course, what is not said is that the Supreme Court does not have the authority to override Parliament. Now, we need Parliament to tell the Court that the Supreme Court was wrong because Parliament does not recognize that the right to die as part of the right to life.

We must elect Members of Parliament who truly care about this issue and have the fortitude to stand against our activist Court to ensure this decision is not taken out of the hand of our elected Parliament.

The CHP has a clear position and we need more CHP Candidates sharing this position. We need our members to talk to others, and sign up more members during this long, opportunity-filled campaign!

Action Items

• Consultation on Legislative Options for Assisted Dying - The Consultation
• For Ontario residents

For further reading:

• Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Alex Schadenberg, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: Mixed signals from the Netherlands and Belgium about euthanasia.

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