Quebec announces its first suicide by lethal injection the same day
By Deborah Gyapong
OTTAWA (CCN)
Euthanasia opponents expressed disappointment the Supreme Court of Canada’s (SCC) Jan. 15 decision giving Ottawa only four additional months to craft an assisted dying law.
Groups expressed particular concern over the SCC’s granting Quebec an exemption from the Criminal Code provisions against euthanasia and assisted suicide so it can proceed with its euthanasia law. Those provisions remain in effect elsewhere in the country until the deadline. Quebec announced its first patient death from a doctor-administered lethal injection the same day as the court decision.
The SCC also granted exemptions for individuals who could seek remedy by applying to a superior court judge. While the nine SCC justices were unanimous in granting the extension, they were sharply divided on the 5/4 majority’s decision to grant the Quebec and individual exemptions.
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) executive director Alex Schadenberg said the SCC has, in effect, “legalized” euthanasia and assisted suicide “without any definition on how a superior court judge can make decisions to allow people to die by lethal injections or lethal doses.”
“This gives the judges no parameters,” he said. “It is wide open to the decision of the judge on how he or she feels that day.”
Schadenberg also opposed the Quebec exemption. The EPC has argued Criminal Code provisions should be uniform across the country.
Catholic Civil Rights League president Phil Horgan pointed out the Quebec and individual exemptions amount to “legislative pronouncements” on the part of the SCC and “may be signaling a form of law that Parliament should enact going forward.”
“The political situation is still unprepared to deal with it,” he said. He noted the report of an independent external panel headed by experts in the field has not been released to the general public. The MPs and Senators of the Parliamentary joint-committee on physician-assisted dying have only recently been appointed and met for the first time Jan. 18.
The majority justices “are creating a new regime of their own making,” in devising the “judicial application procedure,” Horgan said. “Where was that in the Criminal Code? Where was that in the original Carter decision?”
“Many judges will have to give serious thought about what conscience rights they have in dealing with such potential applications,” he said. “It’s a trenchant example of how laws in our country are increasingly being made by five lawyers on the Supreme Court of Canada.”
Catholic Organization for Life and Family executive director Michele Boulva said she was not surprised by the decision.
“We have known for a while that the ideology of death has made very deep inroads into Canadian culture,” she said. “We now need to support physicians and all healthcare workers fighting for the respect of their Charter right to conscientious objection.”
The SCC five-justice majority said they granted the Quebec exemption because the Attorney General of Canada did not oppose it. The justices said their doing so “should not be taken as expressing any view as to the validity” of Quebec’s medical aid in dying act.
The majority argued individual exemptions should be granted so as to not “prolong the suffering” of those who met the criteria they identified in Carter: “adults who have a grievous, intolerable and irremediable medical condition.”
“The prejudice to the rights flowing from the four month extension outweighs countervailing considerations,” the justices wrote. “Moreover, the grant of an exemption from the extension to Quebec raises concerns of fairness and equality across the country.”
“Less than a year ago, a ‘complex regulatory regime’ was considered necessary to minimize error and abuse and the suspension was given to afford Parliament time to create one,” said Christian Legal Fellowship associate counsel John Sikkema. He noted with the Jan. 15 decision a “narrow majority” is “prepared to permit assisted suicide in the absence of such a regime, and without clear guidance to assist lower courts in deciding individual exemption applications.”
“Parliament needs the additional time to develop protections in the Criminal Code that will ensure vulnerable persons will not be at significant risk of abuse and error in the coming system for physician-assisted suicide,” said a joint-release from The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) and the Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL). “Due to the exemption granted to Quebec, vulnerable people at end-of-life in that province, unlike other Canadians, will not have the benefit of the safeguard of having their request reviewed by the superior court of their jurisdiction, which will evaluate the request based upon the criteria the SCC set out in Carter.”
“Instead, decisions to end lives will be made behind closed doors, without external independent scrutiny,” the groups said.
The federal government had sought a six-month extension on the Carter decision that struck down Canada’s Criminal Code provisions against assisted suicide last February. The SCC had suspended the decision for a year to give Parliament time respond but the Feb. 6 deadline was rapidly approaching with no legislation yet in the works.
The four-justice minority, which included Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, said while they did not underestimate the suffering of those who must wait an additional four months, “neither do we underestimate the complexity of the issues that surround the fundamental question of when it should be lawful to commit acts that would otherwise constitute criminal conduct.”
“The complexity results not only from the profound moral and ethical dimensions of the question, but also from the overlapping federal and provincial legislative competence in relation to it,” the minority wrote.
“The Court unanimously held in its judgment on the merits that these are matters most appropriately addressed by the legislative process. We remain of that view. That the legislative process needs more time is regrettable, but it does not undermine the point that it is the best way to address this issue.”
For COLF’s Boulva, the legislative process is not going to solve the problem. “For Catholics and for all people of good will, it is now obvious that the building of a new culture of life will take generations,” she said. “And it all begins now with a twofold decision: firstly, the decision to give formation, to educate our families, friends and parishioners regarding the truth about human life and dignity inscribed in our souls by our Creator.
“And secondly, the decision to render these lethal practices irrelevant by being truly compassionate and caring for our brothers and sisters confronted with the challenges of illness until their natural death.”
