Bill eases restrictions on assisted dying
OTTAWA • The Trudeau government has introduced legislation aimed at making it easier for intolerably ill Canadians to get medical help to end their lives.
The bill would scrap a provision in the law that allows only those already near death to receive medical assistance in dying — as ordered by a Quebec court last fall.
However, the bill would also create a two-track approach to eligibility for assisted dying, based on whether a person’s natural death is reasonably foreseeable.
For those deemed near death, the government is proposing to drop the requirement that a person must wait 10 days after being approved for an assisted death before receiving the procedure.
As well, it is proposing to drop the requirement that a person must be able to give consent a second time immediately prior to receiving the procedure.
The eligibility requirements for those not near death would be more restrictive. They would face a minimum 90-day period for assessment of their request for an assisted death, which could be shortened if loss of mental capacity is imminent.
One of the two medical practitioners who assesses the request would have to have expertise in the person’s particular medical condition. And they would have to be able to give final consent immediately prior to the assisted death.
The bill amends a fouryear-old law that was introduced by the Trudeau government following a landmark 2015 Supreme Court ruling that struck down the prohibition on medically assisted death.
Last September, on the opening day of the federal election campaign, Justice Christine Baudouin of the Superior Court of Quebec ruled that it is unconstitutional for the federal law to restrict eligibility for medically assisted death to those whose natural death is “reasonably foreseeable.”
She similarly said it’s unconstitutional for Quebec, which has its own assisted-dying law, to limit eligibility to those who are at the “end of life.” The ruling technically applies only in Quebec but the government did not appeal it and any amendments to the federal law will apply across the country.
Baudouin gave the government until March 11 to amend the law. Justice Minister David Lametti last week asked for a four-month extension.
The bill does not deal with broader issues that were excluded in the new law and that must be considered as part of a parliamentary review of the law that is to begin this summer.
Those issues include whether mature minors and those suffering only from mental illnesses should be eligible and whether people who fear losing mental capacity due to conditions like dementia should be able to make advance requests for medical assistance in dying.
Indeed, the bill would explicitly exclude people suffering solely from mental illnesses from the right to an assisted death.
It would, however, propose a measure intended to deal with a situation in which a person who is near death, has given consent and who has been approved for an assisted death loses the mental capacity to give consent a second time immediately prior to receiving the procedure.