Rees Johnson: What Hume and Smith understood as being compassionate changes in the 19th century. This is really important when we think about how is deployed in it the context of in voluntary euthanasia. So, 1936. according to Marjorie Garber, there a is shift within the discourse of compassion...There is an intermingling also of pain and pleasure. By 1876, he who relieves suffering and pain in others can feel good about having done so.

I just wanted to highlight the gravity of the situation from the prison perspective, for example. [The use of MAiD] is really just forcing people to kill themselves. 1/5 What happens is that death by incarceration is a practice that is common, despite the death penalty has been abolished but people are still dying in jail, actually. 2/5

Rain Hye @ra1nydayzzz : So this question is, in what ways do institutions engage in death-making?

Megan Linton @pinkcaneredlip : Death-making is an important concept which talks about how institutions and normal, everyday practices result in violence and ending of the lives 1/11 Megan Linton: of people. And so, institutions, through both of those examples, but there's so many different examples we know are made to end the lives of people. 2/11

We have created a system such that people are explicitly targeted by the state for criminalization and institutionalization. That's what our country was founded upon and it is an ongoing practice 1/7 and a practice that people are set up to be put within, whether that is through our education system, which streams people to special education, and then pushes them off to the side and fails to reimburse them to move into other career paths or college programs. 2/7

As we are thinking about these questions and as we get into the ones we're gonna discuss later on, a lot of the things that are coming out, like how are we going to fund these initiatives? Where are these resources coming from? 1/7 I find it really important to call particular attention to the fact that the wealth of this quote-unquote nation, the wealth of Canada is a direct result of the exploitation of Indigenous folks and indigenous nonhuman beings, 2/7

The way in which institutional warehousing, whether in a long-term care facility or in a prison system, often robs humans of the ability to see each other as community. 1/4 I think that often comes in the form of, one of the questions that was asked by the moderators was "why are certain folks targeted?" And I often think about the visual legibility and that takes a lot of forms, there's class, whether you are speaking are nonspeaking, 2/4

Literally, the doctors in jails are literally committing violence against sick people, disabled people on a regular basis. They are murdering them. They are murdering them! The doctors in prisons are murdering people or making their disabilities worse. 1/5 When you get further traumatized inside and injured, you come out into the community and sometimes they try to force you into a long-term care homes, even if you can live by yourself. 2/5

I was just talking to my friend earlier today, he told me, there's a disabled comrade who is fighting very hard inside against all of the violence that he faced at the hand of the prison system. 1/4 For example, not bringing them to appointments that he needs to for his healthcare stuff. The guards not willing to push his wheelchair in jail, just to bring them to another area. So they put on the paper that he refuses to go to get showers and stuff. 2/4

The other people who did not end up in [care] homes, they also get criminalized and end up in prison, you know? And this is what it is. 1/4 When you look around you in prison, even the most hardened, tough, quote-unquote criminals, they look around and say, "all of these folks should be out, even the people who engage in the most gruesome things." 2/4

Your chance of dying from COVID-19 as an older adult, at least, the information I have, if you lived at home, was about 73 times less as compared to if you lived in long-term care institution or in an retirement home. 1/4 So it's dramatically - you are much safer, even from a infection control perspective, living at home. So what is the reason it's not happening? 2/4

Disproportionately, we are spending on institutionalization, which is fundamentally ableist and absolutely wrong, and it is not in line with the wishes of people who are actually going to end up in these institutions. 1/5 When you look at people with disabilities and when we look at older adults, nobody wants to end up in an institution regardless of the level of care that is provided, regardless of whether it is a government-run institution or a for-profit institution. 2/5

Sarah Jama @SarahJama_ : The first question would be, can you explain what some of the realities of life in institutions are? And the second one is, what are the ways people are targeted by the state or institutionalization or criminalization? 1/7 Dr. Amit Arya @AmitAryaMD: As a someone who works in long-term care facilities on a regular basis, I can really just say that the entire system is designed at a extremely flawed way at this point in time. 2/7

We have to remember that we live in a settler colony under a regime that perpetrates genocide, and that in itself is something that should not be acceptable to anybody walking on this land, you know? 1/4 It should be a general subject that is going to be taking over everyday life that people are doing everything on a daily basis in order to deconstruct these realities that are affecting people in these genocidal ways 2/4

I also want to take some time, I do not mean to suggest that everything about disability needs to be celebrated, but there is some real beauty and what is conventionally viewed as a disability or as being neurodivergent, 1/4 for myself, at least, and many like me who are very creative and very open-minded. The reason I raise that, so much of the time when we have these conversations we enter into them in a place of -- it is damage centered and for a good reason. 2/4

Yonah Martin: What can the federal government do to care for Indigenous youth instead of offering MAiD?

Conrad Saulis (Wabanaki Council): I believe that there’s such a vacuum of youth programming in support to Indigenous youth, 1/ Saulis: one of the groups that we’re working with is an Indigenous group based out of Cape Breton – Unama’ki – in Nova Scotia. They struggle and are challenged to find any kind of funding to support them to be able to have the conversations that they want to have. 2/

I think that when we’re talking about MAiD, it’s such a foreign concept in the First Nations world, from my experiences growing up on the reserve, from all the work that I’ve done and all the work that I continue to do. 1/8 As I said to a previous question, conversations are always needed, always required. I think the necessity of governments to understand, as well as medical service providers, to understand what the values and morals and perspectives are. 2/8

Conrad Saulis (Wabanaki Council): There needs to be a lot of caution and concern though, with regards to moving forward with anything that speaks to or is about MAiD and Indigenous peoples. 1/6 Sam’s comments about the social indicators are things that can be misleading, because Indigenous people have such a vastly different quality of life, substandard quality of life. 2/6

Rene Arsenautl: What do you think of these psychiatrists, they say they can distinguish between someone who is suicidal, who wouldn’t have access to MAiD, and the opposite case?

Conrad Saulis: The measures are of cultural differences, First Nations, Metis, Inuit – 1/6 Saulis: our cultures are vastly different than mainstream society, than European society. We live in your society, we live under your terms and conditions. We’d love to be living on our terms and conditions. 2/6

Conrad Saulis of the Wabanaki Council: I am with the Wabanaki Council on disability, we work to support Indigenous persons with disabilities living on our traditional and ancestral homes, Wabanaki lands. 1/3 We work closely with a key partner, the Mawitam’k Society, a non-reserve group home providing services to persons with disabilities. 2/3

Dominique Viens: What type of abuse do you fear? What worries you?
Samuel Ragot (Quebec Intellectual Disability Society): What we hear, & it’s tragic, but we sometimes hear parents who are aging, who have children, who may be in their 50s, who have an intellectual disability 1/4 Ragot: and they have few-to-no services and they wonder what will happen to their children when they, themselves die. Sometimes we hear parents who tell us, look, if I could request MAiD for my children, I would. 2/4

The [Quebec Intellectual Disability Society] is also very concerned about the possibility of authorizing substituted consent for incapacitated person at all stages of MAiD applications. […] 1/7 We therefore call on the legislator not to allow substituted consent for those who lack capacity to consent. 2/7