There is an erroneous assumption that liberal voters in their B.C. and Ontario ridings would want to vote for former Trudeau cabinet members Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould. That is not too likely. What most often happens in a situation such as this is that they will pick up enough disgruntled liberal vote to defeat the official liberal candidate and allow a conservative or NDP candidate to take the riding.
But that is often the best outcome from their point of view. For people who want to make something of their life, a four-year stint in the far corner of parliament, away from the real action, might pay well, but is a boring prospect.
Philpott and Wilson-Raybould took their initial cabinet jobs in the Trudeau government quite seriously. One example of their work was Bill-14 – the assisted dying act that was past by the last parliament. The fact that most liberals considered it a weak and ill-considered bill failed to worry them.
What should worry them is the ruling by a Quebec superior court judge the other day that invalidates sections of theirs and Quebec province’s medically-assisted dying acts as being restrictive and unconstitutional. This is the first step in the act being sent back to the federal parliament and the Quebec national assembly to be reconsidered and fixed. That is what happens when the job has not been done properly. The process starts over again.
The court ruling was a victory for progressive Canadians who saw the acts as a poor substitute for what most see as the need for peace and dignity at the end of life. As written and supervised through parliament by Philpott, a medical doctor, and Wilson-Raybould, a senior lawyer, the act failed Canadian needs.
Voters in Jane Philpott’s and Jody Wilson-Raybould’s ridings need to remember that these people let us down.
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Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
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