Ontario doctors warn bill on assisted dying too stringent

OTTAWA — Canada’s largest medical regulatory authority is warning that most or all doctors in some Ontario communities could be disqualified from approving requests for a medically assisted death under the federal government’s proposed new law.

The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons issued the warning Tuesday even as the Liberal government of Ontario threw its support behind the restrictive approach to assisted death taken in the proposed law.

Provincial Health Minister Eric Hoskins and Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur wrote to their federal counterparts to express their support for the controversial bill.

In the letter, released by the federal government, the duo said the bill reflects “a balanced approach” that makes medical assistance in dying available, subject to appropriate safeguards.

But the province’s college of physicians told a Senate committee that some of the safeguards the government wants to impose are so stringent they will prevent many otherwise eligible patients from accessing an assisted death.

For instance, the bill stipulates that two doctors — independent of one another, with no connection or business relationship — must approve each request for medical assistance in dying.

Yet in Ontario, college president Joel Kirsh noted that most doctors typically practise in a group setting; indeed, family medicine is delivered entirely through group practice models.

In some rural and urban centres, many or even all doctors are part of the same practice group. For instance, the college said 98 per cent of all family physicians in Peterborough belong to the same family health team, 92 per cent in Barrie-North Simcoe and, in northern Ontario, 14 municipalities are affiliated with a single family health team.

“The prohibition against being in a business relationship or being connected would disqualify all physicians who practise together in hospital or facility groups or in family medicine practice models from providing MAID [medical assistance in dying],” the college said in its written submission.