Controversial right-to-die bill heads to Senate
Conservative MP Steven Fletcher’s wish for a political debate on the ethically fraught issue of legalizing physician-assisted suicide will be granted, thanks to the planned introduction of a bill in the Senate Tuesday.
And the willingness of two senators to bring legislation to the upper chamber virtually ensures the debate takes place before the 2015 federal election.
Many MPs have been reluctant to deal with the question. But if the Senate bill moves fast enough, they may have no choice but to confront it: A bill passed quickly in the Senate would bounce into the House of Commons — and leap ahead of Fletcher’s existing private members’ bills on the topic, which are currently low on the Commons’ order of business and hence unlikely to be debated there before the election.
Fletcher said Monday that he believes there is enough support in the Senate to push the bill over to the Commons before June (when MPs take summer break, likely not returning to Parliament before next fall’s campaign).
The Supreme Court of Canada is also expected to rule in 2015 on the country’s assisted suicide laws.
“It’s going to be an issue, no matter what, in the next election,” Fletcher said.
“I would much prefer that our elected representatives would debate this issue … and finally vote with full knowledge rather than the knee-jerk reaction or hoping the issue would just go away, which seems to be the prevailing view. It’s not going away.”
Fletcher, who has been a quadriplegic since a car accident in 1996, introduced two private members’ bills in the Commons.
One would decriminalize physician-assisted death for competent adults; the second would create a national watchdog to oversee the proposed regime.
Fletcher had spoken with senators about introducing a similar bill in the Senate. Senators have shown more appetite in the past for studying controversial issues — including, for instance, the legalization of marijuana — because, as appointees, they do not have to run for re-election.
Senate Liberal Larry Campbell agreed in the spring to be part of the Senate push on right-to-die legislation. Conservative Sen. Nancy Ruth recently agreed to be the lead senator on the bill, which will be similar to the bill Fletcher proposes in the Commons to decriminalize physician-assisted death.
“My mother had asked me to kill her a number of times,” Nancy Ruth told the Citizen, recalling how the elderly woman suffered in the last period of her life. Her mother died at age 90.
“I said, ‘You let me know when,’ but she never did, which always interested me. That people have choice in this matter is important,” she said. Ruth will kick off the debate Thursday.
Procedural trickery in the Senate, however, could still bog down the proposed legislation. The government could use its majority control of the Senate to repeatedly adjourn debate, if it chooses.
“The byzantine rules of the Senate could just — there may be an obscure rule that could just kill the whole thing,” Fletcher said. “It won’t shock me if that ends up happening.”