Paul Ledwell told the veterans affairs committee that the department has reviewed more than 400,000 individual files as part of its internal investigation into allegations that veterans have been offered – or pressured to accept – assisted deaths. Christine Gauthier – a former member of the Canadian military and a former Paralympic athlete with a severe spinal injury – shocked MPs at the committee last week by testifying that the Department of Veterans Affairs offered her the chance for a medically assisted death. Ledwell said the department conducted a specific review of Gauthier’s case file in response to her testimony. “There is no indication in the records in any correspondence, in any note, that it is based on a veteran being referred to MAID,” Ledwell told the veterans affairs committee. “If the veteran has material, any indication of that, we again — as we’ve invited other veterans — would be happy to look at it, review it and make it part of our investigation.” Gauthier, who competed for Canada at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and the Invictus Games that same year, spoke before the same committee last Thursday. Testifying mostly in French, she said the department of veterans offered her assisted dying and that she wrote registered letters to both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Veterans Affairs Minister Macaulay about it. The committee requested a copy of its information. In a later media interview, Gauthier said the offer of medically-assisted death was made verbally in a 2019 conversation with a Veterans Affairs official. She said she made a note of it in her personal files. He told CBC News on Monday that he was shocked to hear the department’s denial. She presented a copy of a letter in which she expressed her concerns, adding that she would expect it to be placed in her department’s file. “Do I believe them when they say they have no evidence in their records? No,” he said. In preparing her testimony last week, she said, she noted how the department had identified only four suspected cases of Veterans Affairs officials who recommended MAID. She said she said to herself, “Well, it’s more than four.” Minister of Veterans Affairs and Deputy Minister of National Defense Lawrence MacAulay stands in the House of Commons on November 18, 2022. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) MacAulay told the committee last month that an internal investigation found that a department employee is believed to have improperly counseled up to four veterans about the possibility of ending their lives with the help of a doctor. The matter has been handed over to the RCMP for further investigation. The minister stuck to that line before the committee on Monday, saying the ministry was still only aware of four cases. He urged other former members of the military who may have been similarly pressured — including Gauthier — to contact the department directly so they can be included in the ongoing investigation. “I clearly demonstrated that there were four cases involving a case manager. Totally unacceptable, totally unacceptable,” MacAulay said. “Veterans Affairs does not provide MAID services at all.” Gauthier said her letter to the prime minister’s office was acknowledged and she sent a similar letter to MacAulay. But on Monday, the minister flatly denied that she had ever heard of medically assisted dying. “First of all, there was an indication that I received information that someone wrote to me stating that MAID had been discussed with them… That is not the case,” MacAulay said. Gauthier, who said she has been fighting the department for five years to get a ramp or wheelchair lift, added that she still has the postage receipts confirming delivery. MacAulay was asked about the disconnect between Gauthier’s testimony and his own. “I can only deal with the facts I have,” he replied. Conservative MP and committee deputy chairman Blake Richards said he was anecdotally aware of eight separate complaints from veterans. Some of those veterans, he said, are reluctant to trust the department because of how they’ve been treated in the past. “You were aware of this case in July 2021, [and] he obviously didn’t pay attention to it,” Richards told Macaulay during the minister’s committee appearance. “You keep telling us there are four. We know there are more than four, and without a doubt.” After the committee meeting, Richards said any veteran watching the testimony “would be incredibly disappointed.”
