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The federal government will introduce legislation this fall that will indefinitely extend the ban on access to a medically assisted death for people who are solely suffering from mental illness, Justice Minister Sean Fraser said on Wednesday.
“Canada has made a decision not to move forward with the expansion that is scheduled in the Criminal Code of medical assistance in dying in circumstances where mental illness is the sole basis,” he said in the foyer of the House of Commons.
Fraser said the government’s decision reflects the position expressed by a special parliamentary committee report released in June along with his own department’s probing of the issue.
“While there is not a perfect consensus on this issue, we believe this is the correct approach at this particular time,” he said.
WATCH | Justice minister on forthcoming MAID changes:
Ottawa ‘landed in the right place’ with changes to MAID: justice minister
Minister of Justice Sean Fraser says his perspective on the new legislation on medical assistance in dying (MAID) that will be tabled this fall comes from the experiences and conversations he’s had with people he knows. ‘These are not easy conversations, but my experience is not unique,’ he says, adding that he understands the reticence some people may have about the legislation.
Fraser said the promised legislation will also “open the door” for people to give advance consent for their own medically assisted death in circumstances where the illness they are suffering from will eventually eliminate their capacity to make that decision.
The minister explained that while the details of advance consent will be worked out in House of Commons committees, it will require a person’s illness to be incurable and result in intolerable suffering.
2 key reasons for MAID exclusion
Fraser said there are two significant points motivating his government to indefinitely extend the current prohibition on receiving MAID for people who only have a mental illness.
He said there are “very real concerns about people who live in communities with inadequate access to mental health services.”
The second reason was the lack of consensus over when a mental illness is incurable, along with other issues raised in the June report.
WATCH | Review urges indefinite exclusion for mental illness:
MAID should ‘indefinitely exclude’ people with mental illness, review urges
A newly tabled parliamentary report urges the Canadian government to amend the criminal code to indefinitely exclude people whose sole underlying condition is mental illness from Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). The decision now lies with Justice Minister Sean Fraser.
The government passed MAID legislation in 2016. But the Superior Court of Quebec struck the law down in 2019 because it was limited to those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable.”
Bill C-7, which passed Parliament in March 2021, removed that requirement, in line with the court’s ruling. The legislation also temporarily pushed back the expansion of MAID to cases involving only mental illness to March 2023.
That was further delayed to 2024 and again to March 2027.
Fraser says Conservative bill isn’t enough
Fraser said that he was announcing the legislation before it was ready, in part, to explain why his government will not be voting for a Conservative private member’s bill, C-218, which is up for a vote in the House later in the day.
Fraser thanked Conservative MP Tamara Jansen for introducing the bill but said it fell short in two areas. The first area was the bill’s use of the term “mental disorders,” which the minister said could be interpreted to include neurologically degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.
Under existing MAID legislation, people with neurologically degenerative diseases can recieve a medically assisted death.
He also pointed to the fact that C-218 does not address advance consent.
“This second issue is extremely important to communities of people who’ve been diagnosed with very, very serious illnesses [that] may cause them to lose capacity subsequently,” he said.
Accusations of political games
After Fraser’s announcement, Jansen accused the minister of playing games “hours before” the House of Commons was set to vote on her bill.
“We have no idea what his bill’s going to say. He’s telling us all sorts of things, he hasn’t even seen the bill himself,” she said. “I find it incredibly negligent. He had the entire summer to put this together.”
Jansen asked Liberal MPs to consider voting for her bill regardless, “because people’s lives are at risk, very vulnerable Canadians,” and said Fraser was attempting to sink C-218 based on a promised “phantom bill.”
She said the Conservatives have been clear that they are open to changing the bill’s wording in order to get it passed.
Jansen’s bill was defeated 187 to 141 on Wednesday afternoon, with the Conservatives, NDP and the Green Party’s Elizabeth May voting for the bill and Bloc Québécois and most Liberals voting against.
Two Liberal MPs — Marilyn Gladu, who left the Conservatives earlier this year, and Kent MacDonald — voted in favour.
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