Veterans Affairs can discover nothing in its recordsdata to recommend {that a} former member of the navy — a paralympic athlete — was provided medical help in dying by a division worker, the division’s deputy minister informed a Home of Commons committee on Monday.
Paul Ledwell informed the veterans affairs committee that the division has examined over 400,000 particular person recordsdata as a part of its inside investigation of allegations that veterans have been provided — or have been pressured to just accept — assisted deaths.
Christine Gauthier — a former member of the Canadian navy and an ex-paralympian with a extreme spinal cord injury — shocked MPs on the committee final week by testifying that the Division of Veterans Affairs provided her the chance for a medically assisted demise.
Ledwell mentioned the division carried out a particular evaluate of Gauthier’s case file in response to her testimony.
“There is no indication within the recordsdata in any correspondence, in any notation, based mostly on engagement with a veteran of reference to MAID,” Ledwell informed the veterans affairs committee.
“If the veteran has materials, any indication of that, we once more — as we have invited for different veterans — would welcome seeing that, reviewing that and making that a part of our investigation.”
Gauthier, who competed for Canada on the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics and the Invictus Video games that very same yr, spoke earlier than the identical committee final Thursday. Testifying largely in French, she mentioned the veterans division provided her help in dying and that she wrote registered letters to each Prime Justin Trudeau and Veterans Affairs Minister MacAulay about it.
The committee requested for a duplicate of her info. In a subsequent media interview, Gauthier mentioned the provide of medically assisted demise was made verbally in a 2019 dialog with a Veterans Affairs worker. She mentioned she made a word of it in her private recordsdata.
She informed CBC Information Monday she was shocked to listen to the division’s denial. She produced a duplicate of a letter by which she raised her issues, including that she would anticipate it to be positioned in her division file.
“Do I consider them after they say they haven’t any proof of their recordsdata? No,” she mentioned.
In preparation for her testimony final week, she mentioned, she took word of how the division had acknowledged solely 4 suspected circumstances of Veterans Affairs staffers recommending MAID. She mentioned she mentioned to herself, “Effectively, there’s greater than 4.”
MacAulay informed the committee final month that an inside investigation discovered that one division worker is believed to have inappropriately counselled as many as 4 veterans on the opportunity of ending their lives with a physician’s help. The matter has been turned over to the RCMP for additional investigation.
The minister caught to that line earlier than the committee on Monday, saying the division continues to be solely conscious of 4 circumstances. He urged different former members of the navy who might need been equally pressured — together with Gauthier — to contact the division straight to allow them to be included within the ongoing investigation.
“I indicated fairly clearly that there was 4 circumstances involving one case supervisor. Completely unacceptable, completely unacceptable,” MacAulay mentioned. “Veterans Affairs doesn’t present MAID companies in any respect.”
Gauthier mentioned her letter to the prime minister’s workplace was acknowledged and she or he despatched the same letter to MacAulay.
However on Monday, the minister flatly denied ever having heard from her about medically-assisted dying.
“To begin with, there’s been a sign made that I obtained info that anyone wrote to me indicating that the that MAID had been mentioned with them … That’s not the case,” MacAulay mentioned.
Gauthier, who mentioned she’s been battling the division for 5 years to acquire a wheelchair ramp or raise, added she nonetheless has the postage slips confirming supply.
MacAulay was requested in regards to the disconnect between Gauthier’s testimony and his personal. “I can solely take care of the info I’ve,” he responded.
Conservative MP and committee deputy chair Blake Richards mentioned he is conscious anecdotally of eight separate complaints from veterans. A few of these veterans, he mentioned, are reluctant to belief the division due to the way in which they have been handled previously.
“You have been conscious of this case again in July of 2021, [and] clearly did not take note of it,” Richards informed MacAulay through the minister’s committee look. “You retain telling us that there is 4. We all know there may be greater than 4, and no doubt.”
Following the committee assembly, Richards mentioned any veteran watching the testimony “would have been extremely disenchanted.”
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