Ruling casts a shroud over Quebec euthanasia law
MONTREAL — Quebec politicians reacted angrily Tuesday after a judge ruled that the provincial law legalizing euthanasia — set to come into force next week — is in “flagrant” conflict with the Criminal Code.
“Fundamentally, this goes against the will of the Quebec population,” Health Minister Gaétan Barrette told reporters in Quebec City. Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée immediately announced the government’s intention to appeal, insisting the Quebec law is valid.
Parti Québécois end-of-life care critic Véronique Hivon, who while in government was instrumental in crafting Quebec’s euthanasia law, called the decision “shocking” and blamed Ottawa for failing to act sooner to legalize what the province calls “medical aid in dying.”
The Quebec law, adopted in June 2014 and set to come into force Dec. 10, is “longed for by people who at this moment are sick, who see this exit door really as a source of serenity in their battle against disease, in their death throes,” Hivon said.
Despite the emotional language, Tuesday’s ruling by Justice Michel Pinsonnault of Quebec Superior Court did not nullify the Quebec legislation. On the surface, it only forces a delay. The judge noted that last February’s Supreme Court of Canada decision striking down a federal ban on assisted suicide gave Ottawa and the provinces a year to prepare new legislation before the Criminal Code provisions in question become invalid.
Pinsonnault ruled that as long as those provisions are on the books — and it is expected Ottawa will request an extension to the Feb. 6 deadline — a Quebec physician administering euthanasia under the provincial law would be committing a crime. He ordered the suspension of the articles of the Quebec law concerning euthanasia until the Criminal Code is changed. In an interview Monday, Barrette told the National Post that he does not expect many Quebec patients to seek medical aid in dying, which under the law is restricted to adults at the end of life with an incurable illness who experience “constant and unbearable” suffering.
If that is true, then waiting until an extension is granted will not have much effect. What is more devastating for Quebec’s euthanasia advocates is that Pinsonnault’s ruling picks apart the foundation of Quebec law.
Quebec has argued that it was within its rights to legislate because “medical aid in dying” is simply an element of health care, which is a provincial jurisdiction.
Even though the law provides for a physician to end a patient’s life with a lethal injection, Barrette, Vallée and Hivon refuse to use the term “euthanasia.”
Pinsonnault writes that Quebec cannot resort to a euphemism to skirt criminal law. “It must be concluded at this stage that ‘medical aid in dying,’ in the present context, corresponds prima facie to the euthanasia of a human being at his express request,” he writes, “or in other words, assistance with suicide necessarily through the intervention of another person. ... Adding the word ‘medical’ to the expression ‘aid in dying’ is alone not enough to protect provincial legislation that is incompatible with federal criminal legislation.”