But Liberals in the House of Commons rejected that proposal, and another attempt by Mr. Joyal to refer the “reasonably foreseeable” provision of the bill to the Supreme Court of Canada was voted down by senators, who passed the law on Friday.
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Bill C-14 is unconstitutional because rather than adhering to the criteria laid out by the Supreme Court, the proposed law limits access to those patients whose natural deaths are “reasonably foreseeable”.
The Commons will then send a message back to the Senate, informing senators of the amendments that have been accepted or rejected. Once it receives royal assent, it will be law.
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould had opposed the broader criteria, arguing that it would mean that patients with “any serious medical condition, whether it be a soldier with PTSD, a young person with a spinal cord injury, or a survivor whose memory is haunted with memories of sexual abuse” could be eligible for a physician-assisted death, as CBC reports.
After weeks of political wrangling, the upper chamber voted in favour of a law that makes Canada one of the few countries where doctors can legally help sick people die.
It would have passed the safeguards that the Liberal government wished and allowed broader access to assisted dying in the meantime.
Harder said the Senate should be “proud of [its] work” strengthening the contentious bill, but argued it was now time for the Red Chamber to accept the ruling from elected officials.
“Whatever ultimately the House of Commons decides to do in terms of a response… the government believes that the Senate has significantly enriched the public debate on these issues, public consciousness on these issues”, LeBlanc said after a cabinet meeting.
Members gave up their insistence that suffering Canadians who are not close to dying should have the right to seek doctor assisted death as well.
But critics say the new legislation is too restrictive.
In a statement, the BC Civil Liberties Association, which fought in the initial Supreme Court legal challenge, said the government’s legislation “allows terminal patients to ease their death with a doctor’s assistance, but eliminates the right of non-terminal patients to escape years and decades of torturous pain”.
It was approved with a vote of 44-28.
The Canada’s court’s decision included adults suffering from intolerable physical or psychological pain and untreatable medical condition.
Medically-assisted suicide is legal in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Albania, Colombia and Japan, as well as in the American states of Washington, California, Vermont, Montana, Oregon and New Mexico.
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There are a number of areas where the Senate brought forward important amendments that will improve the legislation and that we will support.
