Senators vote to pass assisted dying bill

Appointed senators have bowed to the will of the elected House of Commons, giving up their insistence that suffering Canadians who are not near death should have the right to seek medical help to end their lives.

Senators voted 44-28 to accept the more restrictive approach proposed by the federal government in Bill C-14, which limits the right to assisted dying to those whose natural death is “reasonably foreseeable.”

The Senate had passed an amendment to expand the scope of the bill to include those who aren’t terminally ill but the Commons voted Thursday to reject that.

Rather than insist and bounce the bill back to the Commons once again, senators have given up and accepted the government’s version of the bill.

Independent Liberal Sen. Serge Joyal tried one last time, moving an amendment that would have seen the bill enacted – except for the neardeath proviso, which would have been suspended until such time as the Supreme Court rules on its constitutionality.

That amendment was defeated by a vote of 42-28, with three abstentions.

On Thursday, Health Minister Jane Philpott and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould said the government would accept a handful of minor amendments, but stood firm on the legislation’s central pillar: that only those near death should qualify for medical assistance in dying.