Bill C-14 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying)

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) create exemptions from the offences of culpable homicide, of aiding suicide and of administering a noxious thing, in order to permit medical practitioners and nurse practitioners to provide medical assistance in dying and to permit pharmacists and other persons to assist in the process;
(b) specify the eligibility criteria and the safeguards that must be respected before medical assistance in dying may be provided to a person;
(c) require that medical practitioners and nurse practitioners who receive requests for, and pharmacists who dispense substances in connection with the provision of, medical assist­ance in dying provide information for the purpose of permitting the monitoring of medical assistance in dying, and authorize the Minister of Health to make regulations respecting that information; and
(d) create new offences for failing to comply with the safeguards, for forging or destroying documents related to medical assistance in dying, for failing to provide the required information and for contravening the regulations.
This enactment also makes related amendments to other Acts to ensure that recourse to medical assistance in dying does not result in the loss of a pension under the Pension Act or benefits under the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act. It amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to ensure that no investigation need be conducted under section 19 of that Act in the case of an inmate who receives medical assistance in dying.
This enactment provides for one or more independent reviews relating to requests by mature minors for medical assistance in dying, to advance requests and to requests where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition.
Lastly, this enactment provides for a parliamentary review of its provisions and of the state of palliative care in Canada to commence at the start of the fifth year following the day on which it receives royal assent.

Criminal Code

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Madam Speaker, I must say at the outset that the prayer we began our session with this morning, that we would be mindful of making good laws and serving Canadians, has never meant so much to me, and I think many of my colleagues here today, anytime it has ever been said from the Speaker's chair.

I would like to thank my colleagues and members opposite for their thoughts and words on this deep, ethical, moral, legal, and religious question. While I may not agree with all the points that have been made thus far, I do not doubt for one second that the comments of all members are truly heartfelt, genuine, reflective, and respectful.

Unfortunately, I do not have time to address all the concerns of the bill, such as, but not limited to—as my colleague the member for Lethbridge has so eloquently articulated—the poisonous change in our cultural mindset the bill will likely encourage, reducing the value of life to a measure of ability or function rather than its inherent worth and dignity, and causing Canadians who would never have considered taking their own life before to do so.

As the member for Scarborough—Guildwood mentioned, the bill would be under expansionary pressure from the day it comes into effect, and where we could end up is troubling.

The peril that I do not think has been fully addressed is that in which those in vulnerable communities could find themselves.

As I said, because time is limited, I am going to focus upon two issues, but again, my serious concerns are not limited to these alone. First is the regrettable absence of more discussion and action on palliative and hospice care as a precursor to this legislation. Second is the need and the duty of all members here to respect and protect those physicians and health care professionals who object on conscience.

Before I get into these two points, I want to offer my reflections on where we have come from on this issue.

It was only six years ago that we debated the same issue and voted down the private member's bill, Bill C-384, of a former member of this House. It should be noted that this was the second attempt at the same private member's bill by the former member, who had previously introduced Bill C-407.

I will say that I voted against and spoke out against the bills, not only because of my own personal convictions, but also because of my steadfast belief that those bills did not uphold the moral obligation we have as parliamentarians to protect the vulnerable and the inherent dignity of all life.

Bill C-384 and Bill C-407 were seriously flawed because they sent us down a path of unintended consequences. They were that slippery slope that has so often been spoken of here in this chamber, regarding the debate of ethical dilemmas that our families, doctors, and health care workers would face.

My reservation then is sustained today. Why is there not more emphasis on palliative care?

Is it not better to support quality palliative and end-of-life care for Canadians, so they will never need to think that euthanasia or assisted suicide is the only option, or better option, for their suffering?

Is it not our duty to uphold the value and dignity of life in this manner?

In my own home community of Hamilton, we have outstanding organizations like Emmanuel House and the Dr. Bob Kemp Hospice, which work on a daily basis to make end of life better for people. I know hospices are doing outstanding work in all the communities across this country.

I recognize that, in the view of the Supreme Court's Carter decision, we are faced with a new reality, one where we need to respect its decision vis-à-vis the charter rights of those in dire circumstances while still ensuring the dignity of life is upheld. However, I am very concerned that there was no further investigation, no rigorous effort to enhance palliative care and invest in hospice construction, in advance of this legislation or in conjunction with it.

While the federal government's response to the Supreme Court's Carter decision makes reference to the need to support improvements of a full range of end-of-life care options, it does little about it, other than acknowledging it as a non-legislative response.

I do not think that is good enough, and I believe all Canadians do not think that is good enough either.

Instead of a vague reference to a multi-year health accord that would include home care and palliative care as one option, where was the commitment in the throne speech? Where was the commitment in the budget?

If the commitment is serious, why is it not backed up with funding?

This is the missing piece. If we are going to go down the legislative path of physician-assisted dying because of charter rights, then we in this place have a duty, and the Government of Canada has a duty, to have first acted upon palliative and hospice care.

That was the viewpoint of two Senate studies, which I cited back in 2010 when I spoke out against Bill C-384. First, in 1995, there was the Special Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide that in its report, “Of Life and Death”, made a number of recommendations to improve access to palliative care services, standards of care, and training of health care professionals.

In 2000, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology tabled another report, titled “Quality End-of-Life Care: The Right of Every Canadian”, which again recommended a strategy and vast improvements to palliative and end-of-life care, as well as support for family caregivers, home care, research, and surveillance.

It breaks my heart, and I know the hearts of all members in the House, that people are suffering. Just this past summer, in the middle of the election campaign, I watched my own younger brother succumb to the ravages of lymphatic cancer, and I was grateful for the care, understanding, and compassion of everyone at Emmanuel House, the hospice where he stayed in his final days.

I know that this bill attempts to address those individuals who have given up hope; yet I believe there are, most often, better ways to address their suffering. It is our obligation to do everything possible with palliative and hospice care, to give a modicum of hope, comfort, and peace to those suffering at the end of their lives and to their families who are also suffering. Once again, I believe this discussion should have preceded this bill.

The final point I want to touch on today is one that I know other members have already raised, but please allow me to amplify their concerns. That is the protection of physicians' conscience rights and, quite frankly, those of the other health care professionals and caregivers on a doctor's team who might be placed in the circumstances that this bill would allow.

First, I do not think there is a shred of doubt that we must offer clear and indisputable protections to those who object on ethical, moral, or religious grounds. In these matters of life and death, that is more than the right thing to do; it is the only thing to do.

Second, I believe that, to send this important signal to the medical community, families, individuals who are suffering, and all Canadians, these conscience protections for physicians must be included in the bill itself, and not just in the preamble. The bill needs to include a punitive measure for those who would seek to pressure, force, or coerce anyone to assist someone in taking his or her life.

I am thankful for the opportunity to offer these reflections. I know every member of the House will be doing a lot of thinking, soul searching, and prayerful consideration as we grapple with this legislation. I sincerely hope and pray that we continue to do so with extreme caution and care. God bless Canada.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I would like to highlight a couple of points.

One is, of course, that this legislation is before us because of a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, which means that it is the responsibility of all parliamentarians in the chamber to ultimately do what I and most believe is the responsible thing to do, which is to pass legislation. We have a deadline of June 6. There is a great expectation that the bill will be going to committee stage at some point, and my question is related to that.

The member referenced the importance of there possibly being amendments to the bill. The Government of Canada is, in fact, open to ideas, suggestions, and presentations at the committee stage, and I am wondering if the member wants to comment on how important it is that the bill goes to committee in a timely fashion so that the committee is able to do some of the things that might be of benefit if the legislation is improved. I am sure the member will find that the government is willing to improve the legislation. No one on this side is going to oppose healthier and stronger legislation.

I also recognize the importance of the bill going from the House to the Senate, keeping in mind June 6. I am wondering if the member would provide comment on what he believes would be important for getting the bill out of second reading stage in a timely fashion, so that we can do some work on it at committee stage, and if he has some thoughts on the committee stage and the process of getting it all done by June 6.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think that is exactly the reason this debate is not only an emotional one but a profoundly intense one. The fact is that we have this June 6 date looming over us while we are dealing with such a huge question; that of life itself. It is a question that the Province of Quebec took six years to deal with. It is a question that the country of Belgium took 10 years to deal with. However, we have deal with it now in such a short time frame, and I understand the expeditious manner in which we have to proceed.

That said, I think it was incumbent upon the Liberals, prior to tabling this legislation, that their own principles that they mentioned in their own platform should have been part of this legislation or should have even preceded this legislation in the sense of making sure that every Canadian had the better option, the option to be able to go to a place where they are loved, and for those people who do not have any family, places where they could get relief from their pain and be with people who care for them right to their last days. That was not included in this legislation.

I hope the Liberals would be open to making sure that part of their infrastructure dollars would be set aside for hospice construction, and that they would also be negotiating specifically with provinces right now to delineate funds specifically for palliative care so that the service is enhanced rather than it going into the general fund of provinces and not seeing the light of day to serve people who need it.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives who serve on the special committee did not agree with each other. Four of them disagreed with the committee and expressed a dissenting opinion. They eloquently expressed their concerns, which included the need to give Canadians better palliative care. They said it was important to expand access to palliative care, as part of the medical assistance in dying initiative.

Could my colleague elaborate on this and tell us what concrete measures this government can take to give more Canadians access to good palliative care at the end of life?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Madam Speaker, I articulated some of it, but I will say that I am a person who is dedicated to the separation of jurisdictions. In case there are some members who might think that I was suggesting that the federal government would impose some kind of regime in regard to the operation or execution of health care, which is a provincial jurisdiction, I was not saying that.

What I was saying is that, certainly, the current Liberals have been willy nilly with the till already, committing billions to other things. I think that, on this very important question, they could take some of those infrastructure dollars that they have already committed and set aside those dollars for hospice construction. They should then make sure, in their deliberations that they are having right now with the provinces in regard to a health accord, that they make it very clear that any future expansion of funds would be based on a good accountability in regard to the increase of palliative care across the country.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened closely to all of my colleagues.

Yesterday, I participated in the committee's hearings. This is my first opportunity to speak in the House.

I have just 10 minutes, but I would like to start by saying that everyone here is caring. Everyone is concerned about the well-being of people who are at the end of their lives, and everyone wants the best for them. However, just because we want to care does not necessary mean that we do what is best for people. We are not necessarily doing what is best for someone if we infringe on a person's autonomy and self-determination.

In the moral sense of the term, human dignity is connected to respect for self-determination. That should be the basis of our debate. Yesterday, in committee, I heard people say that we should consider a person's dignity in relation to their illness. They were talking about whether the person is wearing diapers, which is just frightening. Only that individual can make judgments about their own quality of life, and we cannot compare one life to another.

By way of introduction, since Bill C-14 is quite similar to part of the Quebec law, I would like to provide some context regarding the basis of that law. At the request of medical specialists and other civil society groups in Quebec, in the fall of 2009, the Quebec National Assembly created a deliberative space in order to give people the opportunity to express their views on an issue that could not be more personal: their own end of life.

From that moment on, the status quo was no longer an option for Quebec parliamentarians. Five years later, on June 5, 2014, the National Assembly passed Bill 52, The Act Respecting End-of-Life Care. One aspect of that act is medical assistance in dying.

This work was guided by two premises. First, my death, like my life, is my own. Second, the autonomy bestowed on a person by law through the principle of self-determination and its corollary rule of free and informed consent, which applies in biomedical contexts, is never questioned throughout that person's life, even in times of weakness or extreme emergency. Why then would things be any different at the end of a person's life?

Why would a person's right to self-determination be taken away because he or she is terminally ill? On what grounds would that be done? Is there any more personal and unique time in a person's life than the moment of death? What more could we wish than for a person to be able to calmly and peacefully pass on into death without any fear of suffering or any actual suffering? Is that not what we all hope for and what we would wish for any human being?

The consensus that was reached in Quebec was to make these premises part of a continuum of care, so that palliative care and euthanasia, two realities in the history of this issue, would no longer be set in opposition to each other. Why pit palliative care and euthanasia against each other? This question has been implicit in many of my Conservative colleague's speeches, because unlike in Quebec, we did not hold a debate on the right to die, which used to be associated with passive euthanasia.

People had to fight for the right to die. At the time, paternalistic doctors tended to focus on the curative aspect, and people were dying from the chemotherapy, not the cancer. Over the years, there has been a shift from passive euthanasia to palliative care. Human beings have thus acquired the right to die.

Palliative care is about taking a holistic approach to end-of-life care. This concept was developed by Cicely Saunders, in England, and dates back to 1967. Why should a request for assisted dying arising out of a positive experience of care near the end of one's life be considered a failure? The dying process has started and is irreversible.

A person might wake up one morning and decide that he or she is ready to give up. A person might also decide that that is not the case and that he or she wants to go on living, and die a slow death. The Quebec legislation in no way precludes one or the other, because it places end-of-life care in a continuum of care.

For more than 30 years, palliative care was considered the only way to die with dignity at the end of one's life. It became apparent that such care did not meet every need. Most requests for medical assistance in dying are made as part of the process of palliative care. Very rarely does a person who receives a terminal diagnosis from a doctor immediately request an injection. If so, it all depends on the stage of the cancer. The patient might be put on anti-depressants and told to get his or her affairs in order. There are things that a person needs to do before dying.

One of the difficulties with Bill C-14 is that it groups together two realities under medical assistance in dying. One is covered by Quebec, namely euthanasia and end-of-life care, which includes palliative care; the other is assisted suicide. This choice is causing the conceptual confusion that leads to the impasse in our debates.

Assisted suicide is not euthanasia. The difference is that a person can be at the terminal phase of a degenerative disease without being near death. A person can suffer tremendously without being in a situation of reasonably foreseeable natural death.

The Supreme Court has asked legislators to provide a framework for assisted suicide. This is what the Supreme Court told us in section 7:

Insofar as they prohibit physician-assisted dying for competent adults who seek such assistance as a result of a grievous and irremediable medical condition that causes enduring and intolerable suffering, ss. 241 (b) and 14 of the Criminal Code deprive these adults of their right to life, liberty and security of the person under s. 7 of the Charter. The right to life is engaged where the law or state action imposes death or an increased risk of death on a person, either directly or indirectly. Here, the prohibition deprives some individuals of life, as it has the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely, for fear that they would be incapable of doing so when they reached the point where suffering was intolerable.

That is what we have been asked to do, and that is what we need to figure out.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, we have heard a great deal of discussion about the legislation itself. However, one of the important components of the whole debate is the concern that we heard this morning related to palliative care. I argued yesterday, and I am carrying it forward today, that it is important that we as a federation recognize that in dealing with palliative care this is what Canadians are concerned about no matter what region of the country they are in. Whether it be British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Quebec, or Manitoba, people are genuinely concerned about palliative care.

In dealing with the issue of palliative care, would the member not agree that there is a federal responsibility to work with our provincial counterparts to deliver the best type of palliative care to all of the different regions of our country because that is what people across the country want?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, people see palliative care as the answer to dying with dignity, but that care can be difficult or impossible to access, unfortunately.

I am talking about palliative care as it should be. That does not mean putting sick people in beds in hallways and leaving them to die. It means holistic care delivered by specially trained staff along with adequate pain management, which was not allowed sometimes. Patients were not receiving the dosage they needed because it was thought that a high dosage could cause death.

Quebec has dealt with that. The province has a framework for palliative care as end-of-life care. Health care is under provincial jurisdiction, and Quebec is a leader on this. I think this bill needs an equivalency clause so that the federal law will not result in duplication, thereby changing the way Quebec's law works.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I believe that at the beginning of his comments my hon. friend talked about what dignity is and said that dignity is up to the individual to decide. If you decide you have dignity, then you do, and perhaps if you decide you do not have dignity, then you do not. I find this definition rather troubling. First, there is no regime of assisted suicide proposed here or anywhere else that defines dignity in this wholly subjective way. It still tries to say that a person who has these physical or psychological symptoms can have dignity and someone without those symptoms cannot. It would seem that the typical understanding of dignity in this legislation and elsewhere does look for these external markers.

I liked what my colleague from Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier had to say yesterday about dignity being intrinsic to all human beings, because if we interpret dignity in the subjective way that the member has, I wonder where that leaves any efforts at suicide prevention. If a person said, regardless of his or her external circumstances, that he or she does not have dignity, then where does that leave efforts to tell that person that he or she does have intrinsic dignity and that he or she should not take his or her life? I wonder what the member thinks about the implications of his account of dignity for anyone in a difficult situation, anyone who might want to take his or her life.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think it is a shame that my Conservative colleague is confusing suicide with assisted suicide.

Things can change for individuals who are contemplating suicide, but those seeking assisted suicide are suffering from serious and incurable illnesses and intense suffering that will never go away. That is a big difference.

What I said was that people might want the right thing, might want to do the right thing, but that does not necessarily mean they are doing the right thing. Taking away a person's independence and self-determination is not doing the right thing. Taking away a person's independence is taking away their dignity. A person's dignity is rooted in self-determination, even when that person is vulnerable.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is good to be here today to speak to Bill C-14. One of the principles we have in the House is that legislation is best built on a very solid foundation, and this bill does not have that.

What the Supreme Court ruled years ago on the Rodriguez case was very clear. However, just over a year ago, as with so many other decisions and so many other directions, the Supreme Court reversed itself. If it had really good underlying reasons for doing that, it would have been fine, but the justification for it was very interesting. It was a mistake in perception as set forward by the Supreme Court. The justices called it a changing matrix of social and legal facts which brought them to their conclusion. I and others are concerned that this makes our laws, including the interpretation of charter rights, dependent upon the opinions of a very small group of people. I will talk a bit more about the matrix of social and legal facts in a few minutes.

From my perspective, this is not an improvement. Many of my colleagues on both sides of the House have shared their concerns about Bill C-14, with some supporting it and others opposing it. However, a number of things are missing in the bill, and we need to have further discussion about. I heard a few comments earlier about the timeline, how pressured it was, how we needed to get this done and that this basically was prohibiting us from taking the time needed to discuss these things a bit further and with a bit more depth.

There is no clear definition of what irremediable means. The bill talks about that being the requirement for someone to qualify for physician-assisted dying.

I am concerned about the expansion of this process to nurse practitioners, so it would not just include physicians. People have asked why medical personnel are even involved with this. They have asked whether there is not some other place this can be done so people do not have to be concerned that when they go into the hospital for medical care, rather than receiving a positive side of medical care, they receive a very negative side of it.

There is a criminal exemption for those who perform euthanasia, but there is no protection for those who do not want to participate. A number of people are very concerned about what is called conscience rights and the lack of protection for that in the legislation.

There is a lack of clarity around psychological conditions and how that may come into play with this issue. One of the things that really concerns a lot of people is the lack of a vulnerability assessment, taking the time to find out if people are being pressured or whether there is some vulnerability that is bringing them to the point where they have made a decision that may be wrong for them.

Some people have called for a prior judicial review. There is no mention of that in the legislation.

Also, there is a lack of clarity on data collection. This has been an issue in a number of areas. Will we see good data collection? Will someone keep a good set of records on what goes on with this process?

We often have heard the concern that there is no clear commitment to palliative care. We just heard a member from the government talk about this. The Liberals made this commitment during the election campaign. They felt it was within their jurisdiction to promise $3 billion toward palliative care, but now, in the House, we hear them talk about how other jurisdictions are responsible for this. It sounds as if the Liberals are trying to avoid their responsibilities for this.

I would like to go back to the Supreme Court decision. It turned back the former position. It reversed it and it left us with an open field when it came to the issue of assisted suicide or assisted dying. The only thing the Supreme Court said in its ruling on Carter was that the person needed to consent and that the person needed to have a grievous and irremediable medical condition causing enduring and intolerable suffering. If we look at that, we see it leaves that whole area very open.

As I said earlier, good legislation should have a good foundation. I do not believe this does because of the Supreme Court decision. The foundation is the Carter decision and it hardly qualifies as a stable base on which to create good legislation.

I do not suppose we will get this done today, but we will come back at another stage on this bill. However. I would like to take a few minutes to talk a bit about the Supreme Court's recent decision in Carter v. Canada. It obviously is a very controversial decision and touches on a sensitive issue for many Canadians because there are very deeply held beliefs on both sides of this issue.

The Supreme Court acknowledged that the prohibition on assisted suicide was in general a valid exercise of federal criminal law. It also decided that the law went too far and it did not apply in cases where a competent adult with a grievous medical condition could consent to the termination of his or her life. I believe this decision is disturbing for a number of reasons.

The first is that the court ignored parliamentary consensus. In its decision, it claimed that the reversal from its earlier position in Rodriguez v. B.C. was necessary because of a different matrix of legislative and social facts. Yet, the purported differing matrix ignores the clear and unchanged parliamentary consensus opposing assisted suicide.

Between 1991 and 2012, nine private members' bills were introduced in the House of Commons, all seeking to amend the Criminal Code to decriminalize assisted suicide or euthanasia. Six were voted on and all of them failed to pass. When considering the matrix of legislative facts, the court gave weight to legislative developments in Belgium, Switzerland, Oregon, Washington, and the Netherlands, but it completely ignored the legislative record of Canada's Parliament.

Second, the court found no societal consensus in Canada on this issue. In her decision at the trial level of Carter v. Canada in the Supreme Court of B.C., Justice Smith wrote, “As to physician-assisted death, weighing all of the evidence, I do not find that there is a clear societal consensus either way”. Clearly whatever the change in that matrix of legal and social facts entails, it did not include a clear consensus from the people of Canada”.

This lack of consensus remains unchanged in the 22 years since the Rodriguez case in which the court stated, “No consensus can be found in favour of the decriminalization of assisted suicide. To the extent that there is a consensus, it is that human life must be respected”.

Clearly, the court found no consensus among western countries. While insisting again this matrix of legislative and social facts had changed since the last Supreme Court ruling on the issue, it acknowledged that physician-assisted dying remained a criminal offence in most western countries. Regardless, it chose to align itself with the minority of jurisdictions that allowed it.

I believe the court misinterpreted Parliament's objective in prohibiting assisted suicide. In its ruling, it put significant weight on the parliamentary objective of two sections, section 241(b) and 14 of the Criminal Code, which prohibit assisted suicide. The court asserted that these sections were put in place only to fulfill the state interest in protecting the vulnerable. However, in the earlier court case with Rodriguez, the court had said the objective of this section was not simply “protecting the vulnerable”, but also “preserving life”.

It had written, “In this case, it is not disputed that in general s.241(b) is valid and desirable legislation which fulfils the government's objectives of preserving life and protecting the vulnerable”. This position was reaffirmed several times.

By insisting that in Carter the purpose of section 241 was only to protect the vulnerable, the Supreme Court was able to conclude that this prohibition put people outside this class and that there were people who did not need to be protected by it. The court's conclusion was that the current law was over broad and grossly disproportionate to its objectives. That allowed it to say that Parliament needed to establish safeguards to ensure that those who truly wanted to be euthanized would be able to do that.

That interpretation tramples on the intention of Parliament to preserve life. Had it considered the full purpose of these sections of the Criminal Code rather than just that one objective of protecting the vulnerable, I think the outcome would have been very different.

I would make one final point before my time runs out. The court really leaves the definition of irremediable open to patient interpretation. The court decided that irremediable did not require the patient to undertake treatments that were not acceptable to them. In other words, although treatment may be available, the condition still qualifies as irremediable if the treatment is not acceptable to the patient.

I wanted to express my concerns. However, I think we will come back to some of the things the Supreme Court touched on as well in terms of the right to die being conflated with the right to life and some of the other issues.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to highlight the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously decided that Canadians suffering intolerably had the right to request assistance to end their suffering. We respect that decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, as we think all members of the House would.

The issue before us is not if Canada should have medical assistance in dying, but rather how we make it available. It is important to recognize, given the sensitivity of the very issue we are debating today, that we have until June 6 to deal with the issue. If we do not deal with the issue, it will be most inappropriate as parliamentarians, representing Canadians from coast to coast to coast. There is an obligation for us to meet that void that has been put in place by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Would the member at least acknowledge the fact that we have to pass some legislation? Are there any possible amendments the member would like to see to make it easier for him to support the legislation?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my point was exactly that. It is the court that has brought us to this point, and the timeline is the court's timeline.

As one of my colleagues pointed out a little earlier, that deadline prohibits us from dealing with these issues as fully as we probably should. We have not had any discussion about the implications of the Supreme Court decision. We have never sat down and had those discussions.

The government has come forward, under pressure, with legislation that many people feel is inadequate. One of the areas I find very troubling is the lack of conscience protection, and I mentioned that a little earlier.

Many people in the disabled community are very concerned about the fact that there is no vulnerability protection. They do not want to see a development of peer pressure in society where people feel somehow obligated to participate in this activity.

There is a number of issues around this. The timeline we are on is not helping us to discuss and resolve those issues among Canadians.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, following up on the question of my hon. colleague on the government side, I share his concern that we seem to be moved toward filling a legislative gap because of the Supreme Court decision, which is very true.

On the other hand, it strikes me as the realistic situation that if we do not have legislation in place by the June 6 date given by the Supreme Court, then we would be in the untenable position of having a legislative vacuum. There would be absolutely no provisions concerning assisted death at all. The Supreme Court has found that the provisions of the Criminal Code that govern this matter are unconstitutional and only suspended the application of that judgment until June.

Does my hon. colleague have any thoughts about how we could bring in appropriate legislation and also avoid the untenable situation of having a legislative lacuna in Canada?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things is that we are here. We are having the debate and discussion, and we are having it within the established timeline. We are trying to do a good job of setting up the guidelines and the safeguards on this issue.

The reality is that the acceptance of assisted suicide and euthanasia is not universal across the country. It was not something that was decided by the elected members of the House, those who are here to represent the people. It was decided by the Supreme Court of Canada. It made the decision that we had a charter right to this in Canada, so we needed to move forward with this legislation.

However, the Parliament of Canada needs to take some time to do this carefully to ensure we do it correctly for people.

There is a number of other things I had to say. One of them would have been about the slippery slope that countries find themselves on when they move into this area. We need to have a discussion about that as well. I do not hear members talking about this.