Liberals table legislation amending euthanasia regime

The federal government tabled legislation today that, if passed, would halt the scheduled March 17, 2027 expansion of euthanasia access to an individual solely experiencing a mental illness, and decriminalize advance requests for medical assistance in dying (MAiD). 

Bill C-41, the MAiD Safeguards Act, would amend the Criminal Code to protect practitioners from prosecution “for culpable homicide or administering a noxious thing” to provide MAiD to patients who consent in advance to receiving the procedure if they are diagnosed with an illness expected to cause them to lose decision-making capacity in the future. The applicant must prepare the request with the assistance of a medical or nurse practitioner

The legislation states that MAiD cannot be carried out until the patient has lost all capacity to grant consent for euthanasia, is experiencing unbearable suffering and is in a state of irreversible decline.

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According to the text of the legislation, a practitioner cannot administer a MAID substance based on an advance request if the patient “demonstrates, by words, sounds or gestures, refusal or resistance to have the substance administered to them.” If the provider doubts that the patient was exhibiting refusal or resistance, they are mandated to wait 30 days before making another attempt. Per the bill, involuntary words, sounds, and gestures are not considered a demonstration of noncompliance

Minister of Justice and Attorney General Sean Fraser announced that provinces will decide whether or not to fulfil these advance requests. Alberta has already banned the practice and Quebec has had an advance request MAiD regime in place for two years. 

Fraser said that the federal government “ will work with provinces and territories on implementation, with rigorous safeguards to protect people and ensure the decision remains voluntary and free from external pressure”

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Daniel Zekveld, a policy analyst serving the Association of Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada, declared that “ advance consent is not informed consent. It is based only on fear of a future condition that the person has never experienced.” 

He further called out this move to legalize advance requests because it places a “future life-and-death decision to third parties to determine when a person should die by MAiD.”

Krista Carr, the CEO of the disability rights organization Inclusion Canada, stated that “an advance request is written by someone who cannot know what their future will hold. Consent at the time is the most basic protection a person has. Parliament should not take it away.”

As for the decision to put an indefinite halt to broadening euthanasia access to individuals living solely with a mental illness, Fraser said it wasn’t “reached out of thin air,” alluding to several months of work from a special joint parliamentary committee that arrived at this resolution. 

Campaign Life Coalition National President Jeff Gunnarson criticized the decision to pair the MAiD for mental illness exclusion with the advance requests decriminalization. 

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“The government is offering protection for those with mental illness at the expense of those with dementia,” said Gunnarson. “It’s literally trading human lives, and it’s simply immoral.” 

Read the text of Bill C-41 at https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/45-1/c-41.

(Amundson is an associate editor and writer for The Catholic Register.)