Court clears way for Dying with Dignity law

QUEBEC CITY — Quebec’s Dying with Dignity law can come into effect Thursday as planned following a Court of Appeal ruling.

The province’s highest court agreed Wednesday to hear the government’s appeal of a Superior Court decision suspending key articles of its right-to-die legislation.

Justice Robert Mainville said the appeal will be heard Dec. 18.

In the meantime, Health Minister Gaétan Barrette said Quebec can — and will — go ahead with the application of its legislation.

In an attempt to reassure doctors, Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée said in a statement Wednesday that she will provide prosecutors in the province with explicit “orientations” not to prosecute those who offer medical aid to die.

“People are waiting for that law ... the principle of having the choice is something that people want to have,” Barrette said.

Quebec’s Dying with Dignity law, which was adopted in June 2014, offers people who are terminally ill and suffering from unbearable physical or psychological pain the possibility of requesting a doctor’s help to die. Quebec spent six years consulting citizens and experts.

Last week, Quebec Superior Court sided with Dr. Paul Saba from the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice and Lisa D’Amico, a disabled woman, and ruled the law contradicts provisions of the Canadian Criminal Code when it comes to medically assisted suicide.

In granting the injunction, Justice Michel Pinsonnault ruled that the Quebec law would violate two provisions of the Criminal Code: Article 14, which states that “no person is entitled to consent to have death inflicted on him” and Article 241, which stipulates that anyone who “aids or abets a person to commit suicide” is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Visibly stunned, Barrette and Vallée argued the issue is a health matter, and therefore, falls under provincial jurisdiction.

Saba told Radio-Canada he doesn’t want “the province to start giving people lethal injections.”

“What we want is quality palliative care,” he said.

Last February, the Supreme Court ruled that Canadian adults in grievous, unending pain had a right to end their life with a doctor’s help, and gave the federal government one year to present a bill.

Ottawa recently asked the Supreme Court to give it another six months to make the changes.

Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould urged Quebec to suspend its law while her government reflects on the issue. The suggestion was rejected.