Legislation back to Commons, then will go back to upper house after third reading vote
OTTAWA (CCN)
A Senate committee has recommended amendments to strengthen euthanasia Bill C-14’s safeguards and add conscience rights protections to help speed passage of the bill.
Senator Denise Batters recommends the House of Commons pass these recommendations before returning the bill to the Senate after a third reading vote.
The Liberal government tried to force a Third Reading vote May 18 by shutting down debate but Prime Minister Trudeau derailed that plan by angrily wading into a group of New Democrat MPs who were blocking the Conservative Whip from proceeding to his seat so the vote could begin. Swearing and pushing his way through the crowd to grab Conservative whip Gordon Brown to pull him to his desk, Trudeau accidentally elbowed NDP MP Ruth-Ellen Brousseau in the breast. A shouting match between the Prime Minister and NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair followed. Debate over the Prime Minister’s behavior pushed the euthanasia bill off the agenda.
Instead of returning the Bill to the Senate before a week long May break, it is not likely to be debated again until the week of May 30.
“This is the perfect time,” said Batters, a member of the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee that presented the House of Commons with ten amendments May 17. “The Liberal government can work in a number of these amendments. If they pass it as is, it will be no surprise if it comes to the Senate and we have the exact same recommendations.”
After 20 hours of meetings, and hearing from 66 witnesses, the committee recommended adding “terminal illness” and “end of life” to the criteria for obtaining an assisted death; maintaining the waiting period of 15 days and extending it to 90 days for those with underlying mental health conditions; and adding conditions to ensure those likely to benefit financially from a person’s death cannot counsel suicide or to sign for patient.
The Senate also proposed adding a provision to ensure the conscientious and religious freedom rights of health care practitioners and institutions to be free to refuse “aid in the provision of medical assistance in dying,” and that “they shall not be deprived of any benefit, or be subject to any obligation or sanction, under any law of the Parliament of Canada solely by reason of exercising their freedom of conscience and religion under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the expression of their beliefs in respect of medical assistance in dying based on that guaranteed freedom.”
Batters said Canadians have shown consistently in polling and in the number of witnesses the Senate committee heard they “expect terminal illness and end-of-life be required” to access assisted death.
The present wording of a “reasonably foreseeable death,” could apply to anyone, Batters said.
“We wanted to tighten things up,” she said, noting the adding of terminal illness is a significant safeguard that brings the bill in line with the Quebec euthanasia bill.
The Senate has exercised is role of providing “sober second thought” and “independence in good guidance,” she said. “We’ve done exactly that here.”
“To try to act like this study didn’t happen, to push it through to the Senate without amendments would not be a good idea,” she said. “I’m anxious for the government to really take this seriously. Otherwise they won’t be surprised to see we will come up with the same amendments in June.”
The current make-up of the legal and constitutional affairs committee is seven Conservatives and four Liberals.
While a recent Alberta Court of Appeals case interpreted the Supreme Court’s Carter decision more broadly so as not to restrict assisted dying to those with terminal illness, Batters pointed out federal Justice Department lawyers argued before the Alberta Court of Appeal that Carter did in fact restrict assisted death to the terminally ill.
While many pro-euthanasia groups have argued restricting assisted death to the terminally ill would not pass a legal challenge, Constitutional lawyer Gerald Chipeur disagreed.
If the government comes back with a complex regulatory regime, the Supreme Court “will give it a high degree of deference,” Chipeur said. “It will be upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada and will survive any constitutional challenge.”
Chipeur also predicted the Supreme Court would interpret Bill C-14’s present language of “natural death has become reasonably foreseeable,” as having a terminal illness similar to that of the Quebec law. He noted the Supreme Court had granted an exemption to Quebec to go ahead with its euthanasia law which went into effect last December.
