Upper house suggests amendments to Bill C-14
OTTAWA (CCN)
Euthanasia opponents who hoped the Senate might promote tighter safeguards and add conscience protection in Bill C-14 are disappointed and concerned.
In fact, they say, the Senate has made the assisted-suicide and euthanasia bill worse.
The most troublesome amendment for those concerned about the vulnerable is the Senate’s passage of one put forward by Liberal Senator Serge Joyal to remove the bill’s definition of “grievous and irremediable” and replace it with the much broader wording of the Supreme Court’s Carter decision.
Bill C-14 as passed by the House of Commons had limited eligibility for assisted suicide or euthanasia to those whose death was “reasonably foreseeable.” The amendment suggested by the Senate would widen the criteria to include those who are chronically ill but not near end of life, among others, putting the disabled at risk.
Senator Denise Batters told journalists the Joyal amendment “basically blew the bill wide open” by striking out 15 lines of the bill.
“It no longer says the condition has to be serious,” said Batters, whose amendment to protect those with underlying mental illness by extending the waiting period to 90 days and adding a psychiatric assessment defeated. Batters also put forward an amendment to restrict eligibility to those who are terminally ill, but that too was defeated.
“[The Joyal amendment] is very bad news,” said Dr. Catherine Ferrier of the Physicians’ Alliance Against Euthanasia. She noted the Quebec euthanasia requirement requires a person be at end of life. The Bill C-14 wording passed by the House was “already too elastic for our liking.”
“My initial reaction was pure sadness,” said Johanne Brownrigg, the Ottawa lobbyist for Campaign Life Coalition. While most people, she said, do not realize what is happening, those who are informed and involved, “see the handwriting on the wall, the extremism that has already come into play.”
“We’ve come to the point that Canada is so taken with the individual that it fails to see society, so the greater good of society is going to be the victim of this radical individualism.” She warned that once the “collective wisdom” and “good that has infused Canadian society is gone, it’s gone.”
“I don’t think Canadian people at large really recognize the significance of what’s being discussed here,” said Conservative Senator Betty Unger, a former registered nurse. She pointed out the Senate has had little time to reflect on the bill. “The more Canadians learn about it, the less they like it. We are seeing poll numbers changing.”
Joyal said he proposed the amendment because of the “preponderance” of testimony by constitutional experts, including Peter Hogg, that Bill C-14 is unconstitutional because it limits access to categories of people the Supreme Court said had a right to have a physician assist in killing them.
However Joyal also supported an amendment by Senator Claude Carignan, the Conservative leader in the Senate, that would have required the additional safeguard of a judicial authorization for all those not near end of life.
Advocates for the disabled had asked for an arm’s-length judicial or tribunal authorization as an important safeguard, but this amendment was defeated.
Batters said she believed Bill C-14 is constitutional, but needs more safeguards. Constitutional lawyer Gerald Chipeur, who testified before the Senate, agreed that Bill C-14 as passed by the House of Commons is constitutional.
Senators rejected an amendment to protect the conscience rights of individuals and institutions to not participate in assisted suicide and euthanasia or to refer. This was proposed by Conservative Senator Don Plett.
Plett said many provinces are “quite clear they are not going to provide conscientious protection when it comes to referrals.” He expressed concern many doctors will retire or stop practising.
“This is something that needed to pass, and for them to just strike this down out of hand I find quite frustrating,” he said.
Plett believes the Liberal government will accept the version of the bill coming from the Senate if the Senate passes it with the Joyal amendment.
The government has to find the right balance between two competing rights, that of the patient seeking “medical aid in dying” and the right to object of the health-care professional, he said.
The courts use the principle of “minimal impairment,” Joyal said, noting the provinces could look at the Quebec model that requires those who get a request to provide medical aid in dying to inform a central or regional registry if they will not carry it out.
Joyal also said institutions receiving public money should not have the right to object. “If it’s government money, it’s neutral money,” he said.
Ferrier said the provisions in the preamble yo Bill C-14 referring to conscience rights and in the body of the bill saying “nothing in the federal law compels anyone” “are worth practically nothing.”
The Plett amendment would have made compelling someone a criminal offence, she said. “That would have been fantastic.”
Ferrier said she is not surprised the bill didn’t pass. “The mood in the government right now is that the ‘right to be killed’ is a fundament right. The whole thing of doctors’ freedom of conscience is not important to them.”
“The whole notion of conscience rights is something every single Canadian should take to the streets over,” said Brownrigg, adding these rights are “hand in glove with freedom of religion and freedom of speech.”
Physicians, nurses, and Members of Parliament “are not agents of the state,” she said. “We can’t become automatons. This is precisely what happened in Nazi Germany.”
One bright light, however, was the passage of Conservative Senator Nicole Eaton’s amendment to include a palliative care assessment as a requirement for an assisted death.
“It’s not perfect,” said Unger, who seconded the amendment. It’s one more thing that “has to be checked off the list” so someone can be eligible for an assisted death. Unger said she hoped the assessment might help some patients change their minds.
The Senate began Third Reading of the bill June 8, and it continued into the week of June 13.
Chipeur said the passage of Bill C-14 “in any form,” either that passed by the House of Commons or as amended by the Senate is “critical for the safeguards that are there.”
“Over time we can address any deficiencies that become apparent,” he said, noting the federal law will only be the minimum. The provinces and territories can “layer on” other limitations the public deems important for protecting the vulnerable.
Bill C-14 needs the approval of the House of Commons, the Senate, and the Queen, via the Governor General, to pass, said Chipeur.
If the Bill C-14 goes to the House of Commons amended, the House can choose to accept all of the amendments and pass the bill on to the Governor General for Royal Assent, or accept some of the amendments and pass it back to the Senate.
“Let’s say the House of Commons accepts some of the amendments and not others: the Senate will know the bottom line from the House.”
“While there’s a possibility of a ping-pong game, I just don’t believe that will happen,” he said. “I don’t believe the Senate will do that.”
Joyal, when asked by a journalist whether the Senate was making social policy and legislating, defended the role of the unelected Senators in protecting constitutional rights and rights of minorities.
Chipeur said long-time Senators like Joyal “have a good sense of what the constitutional conventions are.”
“It’s possible, if the House and the Senate cannot see eye to eye, there is no doubt we do have a constitutional crisis, if you will: have constitutional gridlock,” he said.
If that happens, it’s possible a conference of the Houses of the Commons and the Senate will be called, he said.
The last time for that was in 1947.
