Monthly Archives: February 2021

The Daily Beast

SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty ImagesBidens chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci hit back at South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noems harsh criticism of him on Sunday, saying her comments about him at this weekends Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) were not very helpful and unfortunate.Noem, who has received praise from conservatives for largely ignoring coronavirus restrictions and guidelines, got a standing ovation from the CPAC crowd when she boasted about ignoring the medical advice of experts and called out Fauci for supposedly being wrong. Appearing on CBS News Face the Nation, Fauci was asked if that sentiment was an impediment to the nations recovery.Kristi Noem Under Scrutiny for Using State Plane to Fly to NRA, Turning Points Meet-UpsIts unfortunate but its not really helpful because sometimes you think things are going well and just take a look at the numbers, they dont lie, he said. During an interview with Noem on the same program, anchor Margaret Brennan grilled the Republican governor and potential 2024 presidential candidate on her states poor performance with the deadly virus.So for your state, you have, if you look at starting in July, which was after that spring peak, you have the highest death rate in cumulative COVID deaths per million in the country, Brennan said, adding: I know youre conservative and you care about the sanctity of life. So how can you justify making decisions that put the health of your constituents at risk?Noem, meanwhile, brushed off the question, instead telling Brennan that those are questions that you should be asking every other governor in this country as well.FAUCI REACTS: Dr. Anthony Fauci responds to @govkristinoem's criticism at #CPAC that the veteran medical expert is "wrong" on hospital capacity and #COVID19 caseloads: "It's unfortunate but it's not really helpful just take a look at the numbers they don't lie." pic.twitter.com/y9Xz30lsr0 Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) February 28, 2021 Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Liberal and conservative agree: modern GOP isn't salvageable - Yahoo News

Delays in the delivery of vaccines sapped Canadians' esteem for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau but polls suggest there hasn't been a corresponding slippage in support for the Liberal Party he leads.

Not yet, at any rate. Voting intentions often move after other indicators of voter sentiment start to shift. But with recentannouncements aboutmorevaccine shipmentsarriving soon, the Liberals might avoid taking the hit that was coming their way.

As was the case for most governing leaders across the country,Trudeau's popularity soared at the outset of the pandemic. COVID-19's rallying effect tapered off somewhat as the pandemic dragged on, but Trudeau was still polling better at the end of 2020 than he was at the start of it.

News in mid-January that there would be delays in vaccine deliveries, and thatCanada was falling behind ininternational vaccination rankings, coincided with a decline in Trudeau's own personal ratings.

According to a recent survey from the Angus Reid Institute, Trudeau's approval rating has dropped by five points since mid-January to 45 per cent.

Abacus Data found that the share of Canadians saying they have a positive impression of Trudeau fell three points to 36 per cent, while the number of those with a negative impression increased five points to 42 per cent.

The timing probably isn'ta coincidence. Trudeau's repeated assurances that Canada would receive a specific number of vaccines by a specific date put him in danger of over-promising and under-delivering something over which his government had only limited control.

So it isn't surprisingthat after those delays were announced, Abacus reported that the number of Canadians saying that Trudeau has done an excellent or good job procuring vaccines haddropped 15 percentage points.

Lger has also found that public satisfaction with the measures put in place by the federal government to fight COVID-19 has fallen to 56 per cent from 66 per cent before the New Year, while an Ipsos/Global News poll found approval of Trudeau's response to the pandemic down six points from early January to 54 per cent.

Those are some significant drops after what had been a rather steady public opinion environment for Trudeau. But while the Liberals aredown a little, theyhave not seen as much of a shift in their own support.

According to the CBC's Canada Poll Tracker, an aggregation of all publicly available polling data, Liberal support across the country stands at 34.9 per cent, down just 1.2 percentage points since Jan. 27.

Recent polls have shown an inconsistent trend line.

The most recent Lger survey has the Liberals at 36 per cent, unchanged since mid-January, and ahead of the Conservatives by seven points. Both Abacus and Ipsos have the Liberals dropping three points since January, but still ahead of the Conservatives by one and three points, respectively.

The Angus Reid Institute pegged the Liberals at 34 per cent, down a single point since January but leading the Conservatives by three.

While it'snot a positive trend line for the Liberals, it certainly doesn't look like the bottom is anywhere close to falling out for them.

This isn't the first timewe've seen support for the Liberals proving to be more resilient than support forthe prime minister.

According to polling by Abacus Data, the share of Canadians with a positive view of Trudeau plummeted 11 points in early 2018 around the time of his controversialtrip to India. In the same polls, however, support for theLiberals slipped by just three points.

Trudeau's positive ratings tumbled by 12 points between December 2018 and April 2019 during the SNC-Lavalin affair, but the Liberals only suffered a four-point drop.

This is largely because a party leader's ratings and those of the party he or she leads are only linked to a certain point because even if voters sour on a leader, they need to prefer theoptions available to them before they take their votes elsewhere.

The Conservatives haven't benefited from the Liberals' modest drop. The party currently sits at 30.1 per cent support nationwide in the Poll Tracker down 0.5 points since Jan. 27. Instead, it's the NDP that has picked up some of the Liberals'slack.

Polls suggest Erin O'Toole, who took over as Conservative leader in August, has not made a positive first impression with Canadians.

While Trudeau's personal ratings fell, Abacus found that O'Toole's positive score was unchanged at 20 per cent, while his negatives increased by two points to 30 per cent.

The Angus Reid Institute found just 29 per cent of Canadians holding a favourable view of O'Toole (down three points since January), while his unfavourable rating increased four points to 51 per cent just one point behind Trudeau, who benefits from having higher favourables and fewer undecideds than O'Toole does.

O'Toole's problematic personal ratings make it difficult for the Conservatives to capitalize on Trudeau's own worsening numbers a phenomenonthey've experienced before.

The same thing happened to the previous Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer. Drops in support for the Liberals over the India tripin 2018 and SNC-Lavalin in 2019 did not result in big spikes for the Conservatives in part because Scheerhad problems with his own personal poll numbers.

It's clear that the appeal of the alternatives matters and that voting intentions don't always follow the leader.

According to polling by Abacus Data during the 2019 federal election campaign, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh saw his positive ratings increase by 14 points. But by the end of the campaign, Abacus had the NDP down one point from its pre-campaign standing.

Nevertheless, a leader's declining poll numbers should get parties thinking about whether their own support will be next. Had further vaccine delayscontinued to sap Trudeau's popularity, it's likelythat the Liberals would have started to feel the effects more directly.

Instead, new vaccine shipments are imminent and should put Canada on track to reach its targets by the end of March. Any rise in Canada's international vaccination rankings could correspond with a rise in Trudeau's support.

Indications of a potential rebound might already be emerging. Polling by Morning Consult, an American polling outfit that has been tracking the approval ratings of global leaders, recently reported an uptick in Trudeau's approval rating.

It could be a blip. But after a tough few weeks, there's no doubt Trudeau and the Liberals will be happy for any signal that they've made it through in one piece.

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Trudeau's poll numbers took a hit over vaccine delays but the Liberals escaped the worst - CBC.ca

Andrew DeVore, an Amazon vice president and associate legal counsel who manages the companys labor and employment issues, has resigned from the board of the American Constitution Society. His resignation represents a sharp turnaround from a few months ago, when the liberal legal organization voted to renew DeVore for a second three-year term.

ACS, which was founded in 2001 to help create a pipeline of liberal judges and act as a counter to the conservative Federalist Society,faced growing pressure throughout 2020 to cut ties with DeVore and condemn Amazon for its anti-union practices. In the spring, DeVores boss, Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky, had urged colleagues to tell reporters that, among other things, a fired worker who protested the lack of Covid-19 safety protections in a Staten Island warehouse was not smart or articulate.

In response, a number of left-leaning groups, including attorneys and law students affiliated with ACS, sent a letter to ACSs president, Russ Feingold, and the ACS board of directors protesting DeVores leadership role and calling for his immediate resignation. But the organization did not call for his resignation and six months later voted to extend his leadership position. At the time, ACS told The Intercept that DeVore, who had served on the board since 2017, was an engaged board member and that they saw him as helping tobring a diversity of experiences to the organization.

In a letter sent toNew York University ACS student leaders on Friday, Feingold confirmed that DeVore had resigned. Andrew is a principled person, his Board participation was exemplary, and we benefited greatly from his service, Feingold wrote. We are grateful for his dedication to the organization.

ACS did not return a request for comment, but their website has already been updated to no longer list DeVore as part of the leadership.

Feingolds letter did not say why DeVore had resigned. But since December, when ACS publicly reaffirmed its support for the Amazon executive, a major unionization campaign at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, has picked up national attention. The company has been fighting the union effort aggressively, including hiring a $3,200-per-day consultant to dissuade the some 5,800 workers there from voting for a union.

ACS has resisted pressure from its membership to speak more forcefully about Amazons labor practices for most of the coronavirus pandemic. In April, amid public backlash to Amazons warehouse conditions, ACS released a statement reiterating its support for workers rights but did not specifically mention Amazon by name. Amazon is listed as a 2020 corporate sponsor on ACSs website, though how much the company has donated to the nonprofit organization is unknown.

I think it was very concerning that ACS as a progressive organization wont make a statement that specifically calls out Amazon and its bad track record, Hooman Hedayati, a member of the Washington, D.C., ACS chapter board told The Intercept in December. It makes me question to what degree theyd really be willing to speak up in support of the labor movement.

In late January, a virtual panel hosted by ACS chapters at Harvard, New York University, and Yale was titled: Corporate Influence in Progressive Legal Spaces: Why Is an Amazon Lawyer on the American Constitution Societys Board of Directors? Among other legal activists, the event featured former Amazon worker Christian Smalls, who was fired last March for protesting warehouse conditions.

Eight daysafter the virtual panel, ACS released its first statement directed at Amazon. The American Constitution Society encourages all employers, including the Amazon Corporation, to respect the right of workers to collectively bargain and to follow the law in remaining neutral as to their employees decision to unionize or not, Feingold wrote in the statement. The upcoming unionization election at an Amazon plant in Alabama is scheduled to occur on February 8, and there have been concerning news reports outlining anti-organizing actions by the company. We are also disturbed by first-hand accounts of mistreatment of Amazon workers, particularly in the midst of the pandemic.

Voting for the Bessemer warehouse union began February 8 and will continue through March 29. It is the first union election for the company in the United States since about two dozen Delaware warehouse workers rejected forming a union in 2014.

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Amazon VP Abruptly Resigns From Board of Liberal Legal Organization - The Intercept

WEBB CITY, Mo. The College Heights Christian boys basketball team came out of the locker room at halftime and simply refused to be denied its first district championship in program history.

After trailing 33-27 at halftime, 3-seed College Heights outscored 1-seed Liberal 42-12 in the second half to come away with a 69-45 triumph in the Class 2 District 12 boys championship game inside the Cardinal Dome at Webb City High School on Friday night.

The district boys basketball title marked College Heights first since becoming a member school of MSHSAA in 1998. It was also the Cougars first time to compete in a district championship game.

College Heights plays Crane in a Class 2 sectional at Carthage High School on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Im really excited for these kids and the school, College Heights coach Eric Johnson said. Just being here had us a little nervous in the first half because weve never been in this situation before. But we didnt really chew them out at halftime. We just told them this is what we need to do better, and they went out and did it.

The pivotal run started immediately in the second half when College Heights opened the third quarter with eight straight points. A layup in transition by Miller Long tied the game at 33-33 less than two minutes into the period, and then the Cougars took the lead on their next possession on a putback basket by Long.

Long, who finished with 19 points, had 12 points in the third quarter as College Heights outscored Liberal 21-4 for a 48-37 lead into the fourth stanza.

College Heights led by as many as 27 points in the final period before settling for the 24-point win.

The intensity picked up on our end (in the second half), Johnson said. We extended our defense even more that we did in the first half. They were shooting from 25 feet instead of the 20 they were shooting from in the first half.

The physical presence the Cougars established in the paint also wore down the Bulldogs as the night wore on. Big men Curtis Davenport and Hagen Beck standing at 6-foot-5 and 6-4, respectively finished with 21 and 18 points, respectively.

Im not going to lie, this feels awesome, Davenport said. I mean, I was really nervous before the game. I had butterflies in my stomach. I honestly felt like I was going to throw up. You just have to turn it on and use that. Just tell yourself that youre ready to go and ready to face anything that is thrown at you out there.

We didnt have the best first half, but we were going to come out and change that. Our coach, Steve Harrel, told us that were a good third-quarter team and were going to blow the doors off these guys. We went out and outscored them like 42-12 in the second half.

College Heights drew first blood in the game with a 5-0 run that included a triple by Long and a layup in traffic by Beck. But Liberal went on to make five 3s in the opening period Caleb Suschnick accounting for three of the triples as it built a 17-14 lead entering the second quarter.

The shots continued to fall for Liberal in the second period as the Bulldogs went on a 12-4 run to take a 29-18 lead with 3:46 remaining in the half. The surge saw Gunner Miller score five straight points before Kale Marti punctuated the run with a seal and transition layup.

The Cougars refused to go away, however. A quick 7-0 surge trimmed the deficit to four points after a putback basket by Beck. and after a made free throw and another 3 for Liberal, College Heights Ethan Adel ended the half with a 2-point floater to make it a six-point ballgame at halftime.

Contact Jared Porter on Twitter at @JaredRyanPorter.

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Cougars pull away from Liberal in second half, claim first district title in program history - Joplin Globe

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is the largest gathering of conservative leaders and activists in the United States. Hosted by the American Conservative Union (ACU), the event is held each year. As of 2021, CAPC has been organised between February 25 and February 28 at Hyatt Regency Orlando in Florida. Ahead of former US President Donald Trumps address at CPAC on Sunday, a new controversy has gripped the annual event.

Democratic Party leaders and supporters alleged that the stage design of the CPAC bore an uncanny resemblance with a Nazi symbol. The liberal lobby suggested that the US conservatives were indulging in antisemitism by openly displaying symbols that have been historically used for the persecution of the Jewish community.

Former Democratic Senator, Daylin Leach, tweeted, Here is a well known Nazi symbol and the stage design at the 2021 #CPAC Convention. What a wacky coincidence!

Author Fred Guttenberg wrote, .Hyatt, the CPAC stage is designed to be a rune used by the Nazis. Curious if you are okay with Nazi symbols being used on your properties like this?

Others claimed that Hyatt is perfectly happy allowing such a conference within its premises. Filmmaker Morgan J Freeman said, The CPAC stage is designed to be a rune used by the Nazis. Curious if Hyatt is okay with Nazi symbols being used on their properties like this?

International fact-checking website Snopes noted, The shape of the Nazi symbol is eerily similar to the shape of the stage at CPAC. However, we are presently unable to confirm whether this was a deliberate choice made by the event organizers. At the moment, we rate this claim as Unproven.

The Nazi symbol in question is the Odal rune (also called Othala rune) which had been in use prior to Hitlers regime in Germany. It has been in existence since the 3rd century. While it is true that the symbol has been appropriated by neo-Nazis, it is bizarre to suggest the CAPC would invite Jewish speakers, support Israel and embrace Judeo-Christian values. Even the CAPC programme of 2021 hosted 2 Jewish prayer services, purim luncheon, and a Shabbat dinner.

PJ Media further pointed out, Even the connection to this symbol is extremely tenuous. The CPAC stage looks slightly like theinverseof the symbol, but it seems organizers set up a stage for multiple speakers and panels, as CPAC has hosted this week. In previous years, CPAC stages have often had two wings on the right and left, with two pathways by which speakers enter the stage. The wings allow for multiple panellists on either side of the stage.

Moreover, the document that most Democrats had been citing to suggest the resemblance of the Odal rune with the stage design at CAPC also features symbol such as the Celtic cross and Schutzstaffel (SS) bolts. These symbols were primarily associated with Christianity and Ireland, before being appropriated by the Nazis.

The Chairman of the American Conservative Union, Matt Schlapp, dismissed the allegations levelled at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He tweeted, Stage design conspiracies are outrageous and slanderous. We have a long-standing commitment to the Jewish community. Cancel culture extremists must address antisemitism within their own ranks. CPAC proudly stands with our Jewish allies, including those speaking from this stage.

His tweet received support from a Jewish conservative Josh Mandel. He wrote, As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, & as a proud American, Marine & Jew, I find these attacks on CPAC to be outrageous & grotesque. Taking a dig at the liberal bandwagon, he added, Thank you Matt Schlapp, Mercedes Schlapp, Daniel Schneider for being proud Christian Zionists & such great friends of the Jewish people.

Earlier, the liberal bandwagon tried to cancel Hyatt Regency Orlando for hosting a Conservative Political Action Conference by trending #boycottHyatton Twitter. However, the luxurious hotel chain stood its ground against the ecosystems cancel culture. In a statement, Hyatt spokesperson emphasised, We take pride in operating a highly inclusive environment and we believe that the facilitation of gatherings is a central element of what we do as a hospitality company.

We believe in the right of individuals and organizations to peacefully express their views, independent of the degree to which the perspectives of those hosting meetings and events at our hotels align with ours. Our own values support a culture that is characterized by empathy, respect and diversity of opinions and backgrounds, and we strive to bring this to light through what we do and how we engage with those in our care, Hyatt added.

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US: Liberals outrage over supposed Nazi symbol at CPAC ahead of Donald Trumps address, Jewish conservatives rubbish allegations - OpIndia

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'It can be especially difficult to tell whether a desire to die is a symptom of the illness, or a rational response to it'

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OTTAWA Canadas medically-assisted death regime potentially took another giant leap forward this week after Justice Minister David Lametti announced the government will support a Senate amendment to eventually allow people suffering solely from mental illnesses to qualify for it.

The amendment to Bill C-7 still needs to pass a final vote to become law, but the Liberals only need one party to support it, and it appears likely theyll get it from the Bloc Qubcois.

The governments move followed an intense, extensive and sometimes emotional debate in the Senate over whether excluding mental illnesses from medical assistance in dying (MAID) would be found unconstitutional.

Those in favour of the amendment argue a Charter ruling against the exclusion is inevitable, and the government is saving litigants the time and expense of getting it overturned in court. They also argue that waiting longer on this will only extend the suffering of those who want expanded access to MAID for themselves.

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But those opposed contend that its wrong to assume how the Supreme Court of Canada would rule, and that the government has pre-empted its own parliamentary review on the matter. They say the government is now preparing to make a huge change to assisted dying law without putting it through the full legislative process in the House of Commons.

There was no full discussion at the House level about mental illness because it was not in the bill, said Trudo Lemmens, the University of Torontos Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy, in an interview. Here we have an unelected Senate introducing this huge bomb.

Lemmens was one of the expert witnesses who criticized Bill C-7s expanded access to MAID in testimony at the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee. But other experts who argued in favour of the bill are happy to see the Senate get its way.

Thats how the process works when you have the House and the Senate, said Jocelyn Downie, Dalhousie Universitys James S. Palmer Chair in Public Policy and Law. She said the Senate is fulfilling its role to scrutinize the constitutionality of legislation. The Senate is saying its not going to force people who are suffering to go to court yet againwe have a constitutional obligation not to approve things that we believe violate the Charter.

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The Senates amendment would have seen MAID expanded to mental illnesses in 18 months, but Lamettis proposal extends that to two years to give the government time to convene an expert advisory panel and develop protocols and safeguards. The move may not need any new legislation to proceed, though that remains to be seen.

To understand why the amendment provokes such strong debate among experts, it first requires understanding how we got to this point.

The main impetus for Canadas MAID law is the 2015 Supreme Court of Canada decision R. v. Carter, which ruled that an absolute prohibition on assisted dying violated the Charter (specifically the section 7 rights to life, liberty and security of the person) and couldnt be saved as a reasonable limit. The ruling overturned a previous Supreme Court ruling in 1993.

After winning the October 2015 election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus Liberal government introduced Bill C-14, which responded to the Carter ruling and allowed MAID for cases where natural death was reasonably foreseeable. At the time, the justice minister responsible for the legislation was Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Out of 176 Liberal MPs who cast votes on Bill C-14, only four voted no. One of them was Lametti, who said he believed the bill should go further in who could access MAID. As a professor of law in Canada for 20 years and a member of two Canadian Bars, I also worry about passing legislation that is at serious risk of being found to be unconstitutional, Lametti wrote in a Facebook post at the time.

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When it enacted Bill C-14, the Liberal government also committed to two studies. One was to have the Council of Canadian Academies review the scientific evidence in three contentious areas of MAID: requests by mature minors, advance requests, and requests where a mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition. The reviews were released in December 2018.

The other study was a parliamentary review of the legislation to begin five years after it was adopted. This review has not yet started, but Lametti has proposed it begin within 30 days of the new bill being adopted.

In September 2019, Quebec Superior Court Justice Christine Baudouin ruled that Bill C-14s reasonably foreseeable death restriction was unconstitutional, in a case known as Truchon. In other words, the judge ruled that people who were intolerably suffering but not considered to be near death still had a constitutional right to be eligible for MAID.

Instead of appealing the Truchon decision, Lametti who was named justice minister in January 2019 said the government would accept it and draft legislation in response. Lametti has since told Parliament that he believes the government would have lost the appeal.

Critics of expanding MAID access believe this was a fundamental misstep, because it means we have to guess at how the Supreme Court would have ruled on whether its unconstitutional to restrict MAID to people close to death. The Carter decision did not explicitly address this; it addressed the absolute prohibition on assisted dying.

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A fundamental problem here is that we are reacting to one judgment by a lower court judge who has given a certain interpretation of the unconstitutionality of the existing law which was enacted with a lot of debate only five years ago, Lemmens said. There are certainly strong legal reasons to have clarification from the higher courts about this.

The new legislation, Bill C-7, removes the reasonably foreseeable death restriction, but in doing so it opens up a can of worms around the issue of mental illnesses. Before, you were potentially eligible for MAID if your natural death was reasonably foreseeable, whatever the underlying condition. In removing that restriction the government had to clarify its stance on mental illnesses, and so it put a specific provision into C-7 that excluded cases where mental illness is the sole underlying condition.

There are certainly strong legal reasons to have clarification from the higher courts about this

Experts disagree on whether medical assistance in dying can ever be safely made available in such cases, Lametti told the Commons justice committee last November in explaining the provision. While those with mental illness can suffer unbearably, unpredictable illness trajectories mean there is always the possibility of improvement and recovery, and it can be especially difficult to tell whether a desire to die is a symptom of the illness, or a rational response to it.

Downie and other experts have argued strenuously that this provision would inevitably be found unconstitutional.

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In its brief to the Senate, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association which was the driving force in getting the MAID prohibition overturned in Carter argued that there is plenty of legal precedent to indicate the government would lose such a case on Charter grounds.

As one example, it pointed to a 2016 Alberta Court of Appeal decision (Canada v. E. F.) where the three-judge panel ruled the Carter decision did indeed grant MAID eligibility to people suffering from mental illnesses. But the decision came before Bill C-14 was enacted, and it was not appealed to the Supreme Court.

Carter set the floor and not the ceiling of what is constitutionally required to respect the rights of all Canadians. This means that while Parliament may extend the rights to physician assisted dying beyond what the Court required (for example, by permitting nurse practitioners to provide MAID), it cannot restrict those rights, said the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association brief.

Even so, one of the people still arguing that excluding mental illnesses is constitutional is none other than Lametti who, of course, cant really say otherwise given that he put C-7 before Parliament in the first place. It is my opinionthat the mental illness exclusion is constitutional because it serves a protective purpose and is narrowly crafted, Lametti told the House of Commons on Tuesday, even as he accepted the Senates amendment to drop it (albeit with a two-year delay.)

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Lametti has also spent the past few months repeatedly explaining to MPs and senators why the government believed it had to exclude mental illnesses in Bill C-7 until the issue is studied further.

Conservative MPs pointed out this contradiction in their response to Lamettis announcement.

What the government is now proposing by adopting the amendment proposed by the Senateis that the peoples House, the House of Commons, should adopt in a single day something that the government had up until now said was not its policy, something that is clearly very complex and requires further study, said Conservative MP Garnett Genuis on Tuesday.

Lemmens said he believes the Council of Canadian Academies review of the scientific evidence a review that he participated in gave the government good reason to hold off on expanding MAID access to people with mental illnesses. (The review did not advocate any specific policy, instead just summarizing the state of knowledge.)

These are extremely detailed reports, and the evidence around this is very complex, Lemmens said. It remains hugely controversial in the very few countries that allow this.

He said he is unconvinced the Supreme Court would find this exclusion unconstitutional, and that Parliament particularly its elected chamber should do a full study of the issue and leave itself the option of deciding not to move forward.

Downie, who also participated in the Council of Canadian Academies report, argued that Parliament does still have this option, but the burden on changing the law is now shifted. Instead of it being on individuals who have to take the government to court, the government now has two years to decide if it doesnt want the exclusion.

Parliaments not great at, on its own initiative, making reform in this kind of an area, Downie said, citing abortion laws as another contentious area that Parliament doesnt go near unless the courts force it to. They tend to have to get nudged. So you dont want to leave it at the discretion of Parliament to take it out after two years. You want to make it be that if they want it, they have to put it back in.

Email: bplatt@postmedia.com | Twitter: btaplatt

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Why Liberals' move to expand assisted dying laws to cases of mental illness prompts intense debate - National Post

Q+A host Hamish Macdonald and Liberal MP Katie Allen were brought to tears on the show as a discussion took place about Australia's failing aged care system and the fears of Australians who will one day have to enter it.

Ms Allen ended the show in tears as she spoke about her father's battle with dementia in response to a question about assisted dying laws.

"He couldn't speak for the last year of his life, he couldn't walk, his only words that were left were 'thank you'," Ms Allen said through tears.

"It's a terrible disease, so I think people [need to be] able to have the choice, and the control, and the laws in Victoria have been, I think, I have to say well handled and I think that we need to have this sort of conversation, particularly for dementia."

It was the same topic, albeit in a much younger man than Ms Allen's father, that saw Macdonald's facade crack earlier in the show.

The Q+A host was interviewing 56-year-old audience member Timothy Granger and his daughter Prudence-Rose.

Mr Granger had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease five years ago at age 51 and revealed his fears about what the future held for him should he need to spend much of the rest of his life in palliative care.

"How are you doing?" Macdonald asked.

"Going well," Mr Granger responded before adding: "Sorry, I have a little bit of problem with speech, sorry, what was your question?

"I wanted to know how you're doing," Macdonald said.

"You're living at home with your beautiful wife, your wonderful daughter. How do you feel about the prospect of one day going into an aged care facility?"

Mr Granger's responded before his daughter Prudence-Rose stepped in and shared her fears.

"I think what makes it scary is he's so much younger," she said.

"He's going to be potentially going in there in his 60s or sooner, which we really want to avoid but if that occurs, how can he live his best life in these facilities that aren't really set up for him at his age?

"There are more people getting diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's."

Macdonald then asked how Mr Granger felt when it comes to possibly entering a home sooner rather than later and having that conversation with his family.

"That's going to be difficult and probably it's going to be hard for them as well," Mr Granger said.

"I'm scared. I think it's not something you think is going to happen so soon," Ms Granger added

"We would like to be able to support him for as long as we can, the reality is we probably can't.

"We also have financial concerns. We'd like to be able to put him in a facility that will support him and his needs but I don't know if he could afford that or if we would get in.

"And I'm just witnessing that, especially tonight, listening to everything that everybody is saying and it's really scary."

It was then that tears rolled down the host's face.

Macdonald said after the show that the tears came in part because he had met Mr Granger previously and that it was the situation that Mr Granger finds himself in that sparked the emotion.

"I've met Tim previously, so I was already somewhat familiar with the situation he is in," Macdonald told the ABC.

"He has a beautiful warmth and a great sense of humour, I was really looking forward to catching up tonight.

"In truth, we can spend hours talking about the statistics and the data and the sad history of aged care in Australia, but stories like Tim bring the realities home to us all.

"When Tim speaks, you can imagine this was you, you can imagine this was your partner or your father. It is impossible not to be moved by Tim's story.

"He's a father, a husband and a lovely human, faced with some extraordinarily difficult circumstances. I'm really pleased there's a space for Tim and people like him to have a voice in such an important national conversation around aged care."

Another man with early-onset dementia, 62-year-old Trevor Crosby, said he would do anything to avoid aged care.

"I'd avoid it like a plague for starters, after that I'd continue to find an alternative," Mr Crosby said.

Mr Crosby then asked if the government after the royal commission might move swiftly to implement fixes, similar to how they did for the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Does the future hold any hope for me and my dementia mates, all 472,000 of them?" He asked.

His question was met with a negative answer by Professor Joseph Ibrahim of Monash University's Department of Forensic Medicine.

"Will there be the speed of action that we saw with COVID? No, there won't be, " Professor Ibrahim said before laying blame at the feet of both government and the Opposition.

"There's no track record demonstrating government's willingness to do that. There's no demonstrated action from the Opposition to hold them to account.

"There was a Senate inquiry in 2005 about the plight of young people in nursing homes.

"A promise was made that young people, those under 65, wouldn't be in nursing homes and it remains a problem 15 years later."

Dik, Brian and Vera's families paid top dollar for them to live at a "lovely" nursing home, but damning reports from the aged care regulator and allegations by a group of trainee nurses tell another story.

Asked by Macdonald if those with dementia's fears were justified, Mr Ibrahim responded in the affirmative.

"Yes. For the average patient that I see, the person in low socio-economic group that has no money, that's a pensioner, they're terrified," he said.

"They can't stand up for themselves. They do not get listened to and don't know where to go and they're scared to prosecute a complaint."

Throughout the episode, other harrowing stories of neglect in aged care homes were shared, including that of an audience member's friend being left to sit in what she described as a "urine-soaked chair".

And Lea Hammond appeared from Perth to share the details that led up to her father, Brian Hunter's, death late last year, when he was left with severe sunburn after aged care staff left him on the roof of a building.

"I just feel it's criminal that these actions have actually injured and taken my father's life from him," Ms Hammond said.

Those two tales were just the tip of the iceberg as Mr Ibrahim spoke of his disgust at the amount of sexual abuse that takes place in aged care and his hope the royal commission would lead to change.

"Since 2007, the serious incident reporting has been reported through to the Department of Health [about] incidents of sexual violence that have been occurring," he said.

"And these now number in the thousands.

"There has not been a single report from either government or Parliament or the Department about what action has been taken and what's been learnt from all of those assaults.

"Myself and my team made a submission to the royal commission on two separate occasions and we get absolute silence as if older women don't matter.

"I think that is really outrageous. And an abomination in our society that we ignore older women, our mothers and grandparents."

While sexual assault is an issue in the aged care sector, it has also been amplified nationally in the last fortnight due to the allegations brought forward by former Coalition staffer Brittany Higgins that she was raped at Parliament House.

Ms Higgins's allegations led to a fiery debate between Ms Allen and Labor MP and Opposition spokeswoman for senior Australians and aged care, Clare O'Neill.

Ms Allen said a "wind of change" was "like a howl going down the halls of Parliament" in relation to culture in Canberra changing but staunchly defended Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, who was Ms Higgins's boss at the time, when asked if the response at the time was correct.

"In my heart of hearts, no," Ms Allen said.

"I think Linda Reynolds, who is a great advocate for women, did everything she thought was appropriate at the time."

The response left the door open for Ms O'Neill to fire back at the Coalition and she did so with gusto.

"I don't think we're going to get any change until we get accountability," Ms O'Neill said.

"We need some answers here.

"We're talking about an alleged rape that was committed in our workplace, in a ministerial office, literally metres from where the Prime Minister goes to work every day.

"The way this was handled is nothing short of despicable. That's my honest feeling about it.

"We have also got the fact we know many people around the Prime Minister at the time knew about this, and he claims that he didn't know, which I think is frankly pretty implausible.

"The alleged perpetrator of this crime left the Parliament, not in handcuffs, but with references from people who worked for the government, and went on to commit another alleged sexual assault.

"What we need to keep doing is pursuing the Prime Minister until these questions are answered."

While the two MPS targeted each other, it was an interjection from former NSW premier Mike Baird that caused surprise as he laid bare a surprising admission about his time as a state leader that sexual assault complaints were not limited to Federal Parliament.

"It's not just the Commonwealth Parliament. I reflect personally on it," Mr Baird said.

"Being in the New South Wales Parliament, and a leader of a party and a government, I had a chance to do something significant here and I didn't.

"And that onus is on me. And I think, that I hope, that what Brittany has done has said to the nation we must do more."

The ABC is not making any suggestions and it was unclear who Mr Baird was speaking about but former NSW Liberal Party staffer Dhanya Mani told 7.30 earlier this week that she reached out to the Prime Minister's Office for help over an incident in 2014 where she alleged being subjected to "abusive conduct by a senior staffer in NSW Parliament".

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Tears from Liberal MP Katie Allen and host Hamish Macdonald on Q+A into Australia's failing aged care sector and Brittany Higgins rape allegations -...