National Post (National Edition)
Tories protest new assisted dying bill
OTTAWA • Conservative MPs protested the Liberal government’s new assisted dying bill on Tuesday, grilling a trio of cabinet ministers who appeared at the justice committee to defend the legislation.
The Conservative caucus is split on the bill, with 78 of their 121 MPs voting against it at second reading, including Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. All other MPs voted in favour of the legislation, making it likely to pass the House of Commons easily.
The Liberals created the assisted dying regime in June 2016 in response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision, Carter v. Canada. The new legislation, Bill C-7, responds to a different Quebec Superior Court ruling in 2019 that found the original law unconstitutionally restricted assisted death to terminally ill patients; if a person’s death was not “reasonably foreseeable” they could not have an assisted death, regardless of their level of pain and suffering.
The Liberal government decided not to appeal the Quebec decision. Bill C-7 expands the assisted death regime to comply with it, along with making a few other changes around the process of consenting to an assisted death.
At Tuesday’s committee, where Justice Minister David Lametti, Health Minister Patty Hajdu, and Employment and Disability Inclusion Minister Carla Qualtrough all appeared, Conservative MPs criticized the government for not fighting the court ruling.
“Instead of appealing, as we called on them to do, instead of appealing as the disability community called them to do, this government chose at the first possible opportunity to, in fact, not defend their own legislation,” Conservative justice critic Rob Moore said. He pointed to a letter signed by 72 disability advocacy organizations that was sent to Lametti protesting the removal of the foreseeable death requirement.
“The message that this legislation sends — that no longer do you need to be dying to access assisted dying — is a fundamental change in our country.” Moore said.
Lametti told Moore it was a difficult decision to accept the court ruling.
“We did hear various voices, including voices from the disability community,” Lametti said. “We took the decision, put quite simply, to reduce suffering. It was hard to see cases like Nicole Gladu and Jean Truchon, and Julia Lamb out west, and not see the suffering that they were going through with no recourse to medical assistance in dying that other Canadians had.”
Gladu and Truchon both had incurable degenerative diseases and their cases were the basis of the Quebec court ruling, while Lamb is a B.C. woman in her 20s with a neurodegenerative disease who also had challenged the law.
The Conservatives are also criticizing the changes in Bill C-7 that relax some of the safeguards for people who are close to death.
The changes include dropping the requirement that a person must wait 10 days after being approved for an assisted death before receiving the procedure. The bill would also reduce the number of witnesses required to one from two, and drop the requirement that a person must be able to give consent a second time immediately prior to receiving the procedure.
Lametti said these changes were prompted in part by the case of Audrey Parker, a Halifax woman who had her assisted death earlier than she wanted to — before spending a final Christmas with her family — because she worried her mental capacity would deteriorate too much to give final consent if she waited.
“It was a gut-wrenching set of facts,” Lametti said. “And it resonated across the country, in English and in French, there was an outpouring of support for Audrey Parker and for the ability to give an advanced consent, or waiving final consent, as we have framed in this legislation.”
O’ Toole, speaking with reporters in French earlier on Tuesday, said the Conservatives will be seeking amendments because Bill C-7 doesn’t do enough to protect vulnerable people.
However, with NDP and Bloc Québécois support, the bill is likely to pass the Commons largely in its current form. It will also need to pass in the Senate, where support is more difficult to predict. There is a deadline of Dec. 18 before the current law is no longer in force due to the court ruling, though the court has already extended that deadline multiple times.
NDP MP Randall Garrison criticized Lametti for not moving faster on a mandated parliamentary review of the assisted dying law that would consider some of the other controversial issues that aren’t currently included in the regime.
This includes expanding assisted dying to cover mature minors (people under age 18 who have the capacity to fully consider their circumstances), people who are solely suffering from mental illnesses, and a wider use of advance directives for people who expect their mental capacity to diminish.
“You know that I agree with you in principle, we’re committed to that other review,” Lametti told Garrison. “But my priority is C-7 ... I’m sorry that I can’t say more than that right now.”