The federal government faced a difficult task in having to produce doctor-assisted dying legislation on a deadline. It deserves credit for tabling a bill Thursday that, while leaving many dissatisfied, appears to take the most reasonable approach under the circumstances.
As Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould noted, it was a question of how — not whether — the Liberal government was going to move forward. Its hands were forced by a Supreme Court requirement that a law be enacted by June 6. Otherwise, there would be a legal vacuum.
Meeting that deadline will still be a challenge. Bill C-14 must go to committee for further study, and then to a vote in the House, where backbench MPs have been told they may vote with their conscience. The bill also must clear the Senate, currently in some disarray, before it becomes law.
However, the government has helped its cause by producing a bill that aims to respect the views of most Canadians on what is a highly emotional and sensitive debate, and leaves aside — for now — some of the more contentious proposals.
Bill C-14 limits access to assisted death to “competent adults” who have a “serious and incurable” health condition, who are”suffering intolerably” and whose natural death is “reasonably foreseeable.”
As well, the bill bars patients from the U.S. or elsewhere from seeking assisted death here, to prevent suicide tourism.
The bill does not adopt the most controversial recommendations made by a parliamentary joint committee this year: that those with mental illness be included, that advance consent be allowed (for example, by those who have been diagnosed with dementia) and that there should be discussion of extending assisted suicide to older minors. However it does provide for a re-examination of the issues surrounding assisted death in five years.
These measures line up in a general way with views expressed by Canadians in public opinion polls, and with Quebec’s own assisted-dying law.
Of course, not everyone is pleased. Not those who oppose medically assisted death in any form. Not those concerned that the bill’s safeguards are inadequate. And not Dying With Dignity, a national advocacy group, which feels that the legislation is too restrictive.
At the same time as it introduced Bill C-14, Ottawa announced that it intends to work with provinces to ensure better end-of-life care overall, and announced it will spend $3 billion to improve home care and access to palliative care across the country. The importance of that initiative should not be overlooked. No one should feel forced to opt for a medically assisted death for lack of other options.