Assisted dying bill gets mixed reviews

NEW RESTRICTIONS

OTTAWA • Some experts fear that legislation intended to make it easier for intolerably suffering Canadians to receive medical assistance to end their lives might actually make it harder in some cases and will create confusion among doctors who provide the procedure.

Bill C-7, introduced Monday, would remove a provision in the four-year-old assisted dying law that restricted the procedure to those whose natural death is “reasonably foreseeable” — a restriction that was struck down as unconstitutional by a Quebec court last fall.

But the revised law would still use the notion of reasonable foreseeability to impose a number of restrictions on those who are not near death that wouldn’t apply to those who are.

Dr. Stefanie Green, president of the Canadian Association of MAiD (medical assistance in dying) Assessors and Providers, says the bill muddies the already somewhat ambiguous notion of what constitutes reasonably foreseeable death and could mean some people who are currently eligible for an assisted death would not be eligible in future.

The bill also explicitly prohibits assisted dying in cases where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition.

Jocelyn Downie, a professor of law and medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, says that exclusion is discriminatory and takes away access to the procedure that exists in the current law.

For those deemed to be 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. It would also reduce the number of witnesses required to one from two.

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.

Downie and Green welcomed those changes, but have concerns about the more restrictive requirements for those whose natural deaths are not deemed to be reasonably foreseeable.

And Downie said she was “floored” by the bill’s blanket prohibition on assisted deaths for those suffering solely from mental illnesses.

“It undercuts efforts of many people for many years to try to get people to acknowledge that mental illness is as serious as physical illness,” she said.

NDP justice critic Randall Garrison said his party shares some concerns but overall believes the bill “looks good” at first glance.

He said the government — which is asking for a fourmonth extension on the March 11 deadline given by the court to amend the law — wants to have a second reading vote by the week’s end.

However, Conservative justice critic Rob Moore said his party “would object to that timeline.”

“This is an important matter for all members and needs thoughtful consideration,” he said.