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

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very serious question. First, I want to repeat that I have great respect for nurses, and I pay them a great deal of respect. However, my argument was based on the Quebec experience.

Quebec had exactly the same issue. It is not the Yukon, but le nouveau Québec, which is in the far north, was facing exactly the same issue and the same difficulties as Yukon. We are not talking about someone who has had a car accident and we have to make a decision immediately. We are talking about people who suffer and have a lot of time, maybe too much time, to think about it. It is not a question of hours or days; it is a question of months.

We would prefer to have an analysis from physicians instead of nurses. I must repeat that I have a lot of respect for the nurses in Yukon, in Montreal, in Quebec, in Ottawa, and from coast to coast.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in my place today and add the voices of my constituents to the debate on Bill C-14, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other acts, regarding medical assistance in dying.

I want to begin by telling this House that, in the almost nine years that I have been a member of this place, I have not been asked about or received as much correspondence as I have on the matter of physician-assisted suicide. It is clear that Canadians and members of this House have varied and deeply held beliefs and convictions on this issue, which have been informed by our life experiences. We members also have a responsibility to balance our personal beliefs with those of our constituents and the incredible wealth of knowledge they share with us. The widespread reaction to this short debate in Parliament confirms my belief and, I believe, the belief of my colleagues that physician-assisted suicide represents the defining issue of this Parliament.

Bill C-14 would have the most lasting impact on Canadians and the social fabric of our society because each one of us could at some point see someone we know struggle with such a decision. My constituents' opinions on this issue have been genuine, considered, and informative, with a clear majority opposing physician-assisted suicide. I am pleased to inform them that I share their views. I believe in the inviolable dignity of all human life, and that it is to be protected by law from conception to natural death. Therefore, I have opposed and will continue to oppose any attempt to legalize euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.

I have grave concerns with the process surrounding the introduction and passage of this bill. I am cognizant that Bill C-14 is now at third reading and that many members are still grappling with how they will vote later today. I hope all members will be able to vote freely, as Conservative members will be able to do.

This legislation was first introduced in this place on April 14, less than two months ago. Passing a bill in a month and a half is a challenge under any circumstances, but passing a bill of this magnitude and in this amount of time is reckless and demonstrates a complete disregard for the significance of this issue to all Canadians. As my colleague from Lethbridge noted in her earlier remarks, the Supreme Court of Canada has sent Parliament into an unending abyss of grey, and each day parliamentarians are being tested on the future limits of this legislation as one what-if leads to another. I do not believe that all the impacts of this bill can be assessed in such a tight timeline, as this truly is a new moral space for Canadians to contemplate.

Like many of us here, I am concerned that minors may eventually be able to obtain medical assistance in dying. I am concerned for the well-being of those struggling through mental illness because, quite frankly, we as a country are only now beginning to recognize and understand its reach and impacts on so many. As well, I am concerned with the notion that doctors who for legitimate reasons of faith or conscience oppose medical assistance in dying would be forced to participate in this process contrary to their personal ethics.

While the government has presented us with a bill that is much narrower in scope than the recommendations made by the special committee, stakeholders on both sides of this issue have raised many what-is-next questions. These have not been answered, and I am therefore disappointed that consultations and debate on Bill C-14 are ending prematurely.

Many of my constituents have suggested that the government should consider using section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the notwithstanding clause, to prevent physician-assisted suicide rather than rushing a bill through Parliament that appears to fully satisfy no one. I want the government and my constituents to know that I would support using the notwithstanding clause to prevent the Supreme Court's decision in Carter v. Canada from having any effect. While I am not a constitutional expert, I assume that section 33 was included in the charter because the prime minister and the premiers of the day wanted to affirm that a democratically elected federal Parliament and provincial legislatures, and not the judicial branch, would have the responsibility to pass laws on matters of public policy.

By refusing to invoke the notwithstanding clause, the government is prematurely ending our deliberations on this bill, and consequently removing many voices from the discussion.

Parliament should be passing laws that the courts then interpret within the charter. Courts should not be telling Parliament what laws it needs to pass and by when they must be passed.

I do not believe that former premier of Saskatchewan Allan Blakeney would have signed the charter without the presence of the notwithstanding clause, as it protected the rights of Saskatchewan's legislature to override a court decision with which it might not agree.

Then prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau agreed when he said:

...it is a way that the legislatures, federal and provincial, have of ensuring that the last word is held by the elected representatives of the people rather than by the courts.

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who was at the time Canada's justice minister, made a similar comment:

The purpose of an override clause is to provide the flexibility that is required to ensure that legislatures rather than judges have the final say on important matters of public policy.

If physician-assisted suicide is not an issue for the Parliament of Canada to invoke section 33, what is?

Liberal members have continuously used the June 6 deadline as justification to pass the bill quickly, yet I would posit that the notwithstanding clause exists precisely so that Parliament, and not the courts, can set the timeline on important matters of public policy. At the very least, the government could have used this clause to give itself more time to consult Canadians and draft legislation that conforms to the court's decision and protects life.

Quebec's National Assembly took six years to develop its legislation on physician-assisted suicide, yet the Supreme Court only gave the federal government a total of 16 months to put in place new legislation. Unfortunately, it is clear that using the notwithstanding clause is not an approach that the current government would even consider.

I will use my remaining time to address the issue of conscience rights for medical professionals.

I believe that opening the door to physician-assisted suicide is a slippery slope for our society. However, I believe that it is even more reckless if we fail to protect conscience rights in this legislation.

Without adequate protection for the conscience rights of medical professionals, Parliament, and more specifically the current governing party, is inserting the thinnest edge of the wedge when it comes to legislative disregard for conscience rights. If the current Parliament fails to respect these rights, we are setting a most dangerous precedent.

Precedents matter. Members might not be in the House or even alive to see the effects that the precedents set by passing Bill C-14 may have, which is why the protection of conscience rights today is so important.

I would have expected that most in this place would support conscience rights for medical professionals. I took at face value that the government included a mention of conscience rights in the preamble of the bill as an indication of its support for the principle, but the results of last night's vote demonstrated that this was not the case.

No one is a permanent or an eternal member of this place. Just like legislators in past parliaments, the only lasting effect we can have on the future is to be clear in our intentions through the laws we pass today. Therefore, it behooves us as members of the 42nd Parliament to be very specific in what is allowed and what is being protected with this piece of legislation.

In conclusion, our only legacy as a Parliament is what we pass into law. We have a responsibility to get this legislation right and ensure that all the issues that have been raised are addressed.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify that at committee we did adopt two amendments related to conscience; one in the preamble and one in the body of the legislation. In fact, the amendment put forward yesterday was one that was defeated at committee, because there was no agreement at committee that the institutions should avail themselves of these protections but that simply individuals should.

I want to come back to the comments on the notwithstanding clause.

The federal government has never used the notwithstanding clause. It has been used twice by provinces. It was used once by Alberta on same sex marriage, about which even my Conservative colleagues have changed their minds last weekend. More important, it was used in Quebec, which I personally experienced, on the language of signs. The Quebec government promised English-speaking Quebeckers that bilingual signs would be allowed, and then reversed itself and used the notwithstanding clause to tell our community that we had no place to be visible in our own province.

I would ask the hon. member, based on the Canadian experiences of the use of this clause—how an entire community felt their rights had been recognized in the court and then thrown out by their own government—how she could believe that we should use a notwithstanding clause in a case like this.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the federal Parliament, a provincial legislature, or a territorial legislature may declare that one of its laws or part of a law applies temporarily, notwithstanding countermanding sections of the charter, thereby nullifying any judicial review by overriding the charter protections for a limited period of time.

The clause was a compromise that was reached during the debate over the new Constitution in the early 1980s. Among the provinces' major complaints with the charter was its effect of shifting power from elected officials to the judiciary, giving the courts the final word. As I said in my comments, premiers across this country, especially those in Alberta and Saskatchewan, believed it needed to be part of the charter to strongly object to a court overriding the laws they had put in place.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Mr. Speaker, regarding protection for institutions, you represented the Saskatoon West riding for many years, and in that riding we have a Catholic-based hospital called St. Paul's Hospital. Could the member tell me how the hospital is going to deal with this, in a Catholic-based hospital, when we have no protection for institutions like this in the country?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I am sure the hon. member meant the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek and not me, the Speaker. I just remind the hon. member to speak in the third person. Thank you.

The hon. member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we have what we understand to be a faith-based facility providing health care in the city of Saskatoon. It is the St. Paul's Hospital. It has provided care to Saskatchewanians for many decades. Originally it was the Grey Nuns who provided the care, and now that facility is an affiliate of the health region in Saskatoon.

I would suggest that a faith-based facility would employ a number of medical professionals who would want to have their conscience rights protected, and the faith they express through the care they provide should also be protected. There would be deep concern if conscience rights for individuals as well as faith-based facilities would not be protected in this legislation.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Montcalm.

I am humbled by the opportunity to stand in the House to speak to Bill C-14, an act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other acts (medical assistance in dying), at third reading. It is an important issue facing all Canadians.

Every time I come to the House, I come I wearing three hats. The first is the hat entrusted to me as a member of Parliament representing my constituents of Richmond Hill; the second is the hat of a legislator working hard to make the best decisions for all Canadians; and the third is the hat of an individual with his own convictions and beliefs.

Today, I will open my heart and share my thoughts, hoping to reach the hearts of all Canadians.

Let me start by acknowledging how challenging an issue this is. It is difficult for a person to engage in a conversation about death, yet our government has honourably taken on this responsibility.

On April 30, I participated in a York Region town hall, where a sizeable portion of the attendees were from Richmond Hill. They passionately spoke to this matter from all sides. I am inspired by the passion found within my constituency, and I would like to assure them, and all Canadians, that we are in this together.

I am sharing my story with the House, a story that complements the perspective of my constituents, and the work that we do in the House.

This is the story of my father's journey dealing with the inner turmoil caused by cancer. It is the exact reason why I am so passionate about the bill. I wrestled with this issue because each one of my hats had a strong stake in this debate and the final decision to be made.

The difficulty of beating cancer is well known to many. However, despite the odds, my father fought this disease. He fought it with all his power and he succeeded. Unfortunately, his success was short-lived and he relapsed in no time.

As a loving and supportive family, we did everything for my father to keep him happy and comfortable during the end of his days. However, no matter what we did, it was not good enough to relieve his pain. No amount of moral and social support was stronger than his inner suffering. We provided him with palliative care, but it was not enough. It broke my heart to watch my father slowly lose himself through the process. At the end, he was more concerned about the impact of his suffering on us than on him. After all, his pain was alleviated with heavy doses of morphine. However, there was no remedy for his mental pain and the hit to his pride.

I have heard the concern that providing medical assistance in dying would negatively impact vulnerable people. However, as I stated before, what made my father vulnerable was not having the option to put an end to his journey.

Eventually, my father suffered from two illnesses, one physical and the other mental. The amount of pain he was going through physically began affecting him psychologically as well. He began isolating himself from us, and in the end was suffering alone.

I agree with the government's commitment to support quality end-of-life services and to continue working with the provinces and territories to improve palliative care. Canadians and the Richmond Hill community have made it clear that is what they want. To that end, the government has committed to a long-term investment into palliative care of $3 billion over four years. However, no amount of investment into palliative care would have relieved my father's agony.

My father's experience is not a unique one. I am sure that others in the House know of someone who has endured similar distress.

We have a big responsibility to Canadians. Our responsibility is to make Canada great, to provide Canadians with the means for a better life, to facilitate their realization of their vision, and to help them achieve their dreams and aspirations. We were elected to represent their wishes, to provide services, and to make legislation to achieve those ends.

Let us look at the data that speaks to what Canadians want. Polls show that a majority of Canadians accept the idea and would even request medical assistance in dying if it were available to them. Those polls also show that over the years the acceptance level of medical assistance in dying has been increasing. As Canadians became more aware of the matter, they began to empathize with those who suffer. In Richmond Hill alone, the local parliament project has shown that over 70% of my riding agrees that individuals who are terminally ill should be allowed to end their lives with the assistance of a medical professional.

In February of 2016, a Statistics Canada demographic analysis showed that persons aged 65 and over make up a record proportion of our population. It also showed that the proportion of seniors in our population has been increasing over the past 50 years, and the trend is continuing. What does this mean for us as legislators and representatives? It means that we must be forward thinking in our legislation and we must ensure there are mechanisms in place to deal with future problems.

The Carter case has shown us already that our current legislation is outdated, and the Supreme Court has asked us to update it. We are faced with a June 6 deadline. Let us ensure that we are prepared for this demographic shift and potential needs, such as the one on the table today. In order to ensure that we are prepared for this shift, we must ensure that we address key issues in our current system.

According to a research article published by the journal Palliative Medicine, in Canada, we need to streamline our legislative, financial, and regulatory affairs in terms of delivery of palliative care services. This means that once the legislation is passed we must continue to conduct studies and address lagging areas of hospice and palliative care services delivery.

I was fortunate enough to hear points of view from my neighbours in Richmond Hill during the town hall. They opened up their hearts and shared with me. The most powerful story came from people suffering with terminal illnesses, similar to the one my father had. They spoke of the importance of making advance requests, addressing the issue of mental illness, and access to mature minors. I am happy to hear that the government will appoint independent bodies to study these issues. I have seen members of the relevant committees work hard to ensure that they provide a reasonable approach to the legislation.

It is after carefully thinking through all these issues that I have decided to support Bill C-14.

I realize our government has genuinely worked hard on the bill. As it stands, Canadians do not have a choice on how to say goodbye to this world. My father died in my arms. He died in an attempt to say something to me, something I will never know. He did not choose when to leave me. He did not choose how to leave.

Through my declaration of Bill C-14, I am sending four messages. To my conscience, I can say rest assured that with this decision I have balanced the three hats and their responsibilities to the best of my ability. To my dad, I would say, “It took 10 years to understand what you wanted to say to me before you left me. Dad, in supporting this bill, I am happy to carry your wishes forward”. To my constituents and the Richmond Hill community, I want to assure them they were consulted, they were heard, and they are well represented.

To all Canadians, it has been a long and hard journey, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. However, in order for the journey to begin, the bill needs to pass. Let us work together to take that first step.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for his very heartfelt remarks and identify with him in the loss of close relatives.

One of the misleading points that has been said over and over again in the House is the percentage of Canadians that support euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide. Inevitably the Liberals are quoting statistics that relate to a terminal illness. The bill has nothing to do with terminal illness.

My question goes back to the issue of conscience protection. We heard many Liberal colleagues refer to the protection in the preamble, which says:

Whereas nothing in this Act affects the guarantee of freedom of conscience and religion;

Then on page 8, in proposed subsection 241.2(9), it says:

For greater certainty, nothing in this section compels an individual to provide or assist in providing medical assistance in dying.

Those are fine sounding statements, but there is no ironclad protection for the medical professional to not be involved in physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia. There is no protection for him or her not to have to refer or make an effective referral, and more importantly, there is absolutely no protection for institutions that were created by volunteers, are staffed by volunteers, and are run by donations of individual Canadians, hospices that were set up with the express purpose of helping people through those final days of life.

Why would my colleague not ensure that, at the very least, physicians, medical workers, medical professionals, and institutions have that conscience protection to allow them not to participate in something they find morally objectionable?

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight the fact that there are three pillars that provide the proper safeguards in this matter. We are providing proper safeguards for the people. We are providing safeguards for the doctors and the nurse practitioners, and we are also providing safeguards for the medical associations as well as other practitioners.

I also want to mention that we will be working very closely with the provinces and territories to make sure those proper safeguards are put in place and the people who need the help are protected.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his very heartfelt speech and for sharing his very personal and profound story with the House. I agree that if a bill like this were in place it would have alleviated, in particular, his father's suffering.

Based on personal experience, what is the member's opinion on granting Canadians the option for advance directives?

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that Canadians need to have the option of how to end their lives. Unfortunately, my father did not have that option. When he was diagnosed with an advanced case of cancer, we consulted with the doctor and asked for options. We were basically given very interesting options. We were told that if we were religious, to go pray, and if we were science believers, to go bet on the science that in 5% of the cases like my father's the person would die from a heart attack. The other 95% would suffer deeply and go through organ failure. Whether we believe in science or not, we were lucky that he made the transition as a result of a heart attack when he passed away.

During the town hall in York Region, I was greeted by a couple from Richmond Hill who shared their story with me. The husband was suffering exactly the same stage of cancer as my father and both of our stories really resonated with each other.

I believe that Canadians should have this option. My father would have suffered much less had he not experienced that prolonged mental distress. The government has announced that it will appoint one or more independent bodies to study advance requests in the context of medical assistance in dying. I look forward to being part of that consultation process and I invite all members in the House to participate. As I said, this is a journey of a hundred thousand miles and this is the first step. We have to take that first step, but we need to stay engaged.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for sharing his speaking time with me. It is small consolation, since the members of my political party were excluded from the committee formed to produce a bill.

Today, I can only say that we are witness to a sad chapter in the history of “parliamentary” democracy in Ottawa and in the House of Commons. I would even say that it is the product of a deplorable process, in both form and content.

Quebec has been cited often as an example. I followed and participated in that process. It was a process that aimed for transpartisanship, not just in words, not just in spin, but in actual fact. The goal of that transpartisanship was to achieve the broadest possible consensus.

Obviously, there was no Carter decision. Consequently, the Quebec government and the opposition parties included what was a step forward with regard to the problem of end-of-life care. They included medical assistance in dying in a continuum of end-of-life care, which is a provincial responsibility, by the way. They combined what was always considered distinct, that is, palliative care versus euthanasia, and they said that from then on, Quebec would provide end-of-life care. Obviously, that would take place in a palliative care setting, because there would no longer be any point to curative care. When someone goes to palliative care, recovery is no longer possible.

At that point, they said that there would be palliative care, in which a person can die voluntarily at the conclusion of his or her end-of-life process, which is irremediable and already under way. The person is then in the terminal phase of life. If, one morning, the person, having received the appropriate palliative care, is completely at peace and ready to let go, this is not a failure of palliative care. That could be considered what we might wish for everyone here, that is, to be on one’s death bed, utterly serene, ready to let go and at peace with oneself. Palliative care can also lead to that.

That is what Quebec decided to do, but it did not do so in the way the Liberal Party chose to do it. The Liberals steamrolled parliamentarians, and this bill was controlled by the executive from beginning to end, with the excuse that June 6 was a deadline that could not be circumvented. At the moment, we are well aware that with all the pitfalls and problems in this bill, it is impossible to meet that deadline.

The government should have, with the assent of all parliamentarians, given us the means to act and found ways of doing things properly instead of gagging people, since we know full well the deadline will not be met. We are told that it is very serious, but I must point out that the Morgentaler decision was struck down and declared unconstitutional as far back as 1988, but as far as I know, it is still in the Criminal Code, and we have not descended into total chaos in that area.

We have to move forward, but let us not get carried away. With regard to form and content, the question we have to address at this stage is the minister’s unproven claim that her bill passes the charter test.

In the Morgentaler decision, the judges struck down the abortion law based on just one of the principles, just one of the rights affirmed in section 7 of the charter: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person”.

Since the judges in the Carter case decided that three rights had been unreasonably infringed, namely the right to liberty, the right to life and the right to security of the person, it would suffice for just one of these rights to be infringed for it to be unreasonably infringed and for section 1 to fail to save the minister’s law.

Now, I asked her the question several times. I asked her to show me how a grievous and irremediable disease or disability that causes a patient intolerable suffering does not unreasonably infringe the right of that patient to security of the person. According to the government’s bill, to have access to medical assistance in dying, this person will have to either go before the courts, or go on a hunger strike so as to approximate the totally deplorable, inhuman, vague and unconstitutional criterion of reasonably foreseeable natural death.

The government never made an effort to accept even one of the amendments, however unimportant, from the opposition. It amended its bill on its own. I have never seen an attitude so contemptuous of the legislature. If this is the legislative democracy and the legislative powers of the House of Commons, it is hard to swallow, especially on a subject as sensitive as this one.

However much we boasted, if we were that sure of ourselves, we still had the option of referring this to the Supreme Court. It is true that it is not up to the Supreme Court justices to make the laws. However Parliament did nothing for the last 40 years. Eventually, certain citizens won a judgment. The only solution recommended over the last 40 years was palliative care, as if that were the answer to all our problems.

The Carter decision must not resolve only the end-of-life issue, but also the assisted suicide issue. There are people on the other side of the House who do not even differentiate between suicide and assisted suicide, which is in fact decriminalized. These are not the same realities. Suicide is not irremediable as long as the person has not acted out. A suicidal state can be corrected. There are people who are able to help these persons; there is therapy and medication.

However, when a person is suffering from Alzheimer’s, that is irreversible. If the government had agreed to remove this criterion, it would have corrected a number of shortcomings in this bill. In particular, it would have made it possible for any request to be made in advance, meaning that people could make a valid request before becoming incapable of doing so. However, the government is doing only as it wishes and is washing its hands of this.

The government is displaying political cowardice regarding the role it is obliged to play in the House. It is not the democracy of judges that we are demanding, but rather a democracy that respects the legislative power and the ability of legislators to define laws.

Also, let us stop trivializing things. It is our duty to make good laws that make sense. Judges, as custodians of rights and freedoms, have the duty to determine whether those laws are in compliance with the charter and the Constitution.

Therefore let us stop claiming that any law that leaves this place will necessarily be challenged and that the judges will have to make a ruling. What is absolutely inhumane is that the burden of litigation will fall on the shoulders of vulnerable persons and those who are suffering.

People who are vulnerable and suffering are precisely those the minister claimed she wanted to protect.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, frankly, it is a little disappointing to hear such a partisan speech on an issue like this. I have two questions for the hon. member.

He said that the committee had rejected all serious and important amendments. He knows for a fact that the committee accepted one of his amendments. Was that not a serious or important amendment?

The second question I wish to ask is as follows. In his view, the bill is unconstitutional. Today an article was published in La Presse, which consulted four constitutional experts in Quebec. Of those four, three were from different universities and thought that the bill was constitutional.

Does he acknowledge that there is a diversity of opinions among constitutional experts? Does he accept that? Does he accept that the Supreme Court has said that it is Parliament that has to act and is in the best position to act?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I have 10 minutes to respond, I will respond to each of the questions.

My colleague is confusing passion with partisanship. My comments go well beyond partisanship, and at this stage, I have just indicated that my party will never lend its support to such a bad bill.

Furthermore, there are certain constitutional experts who, from the heights of their office, may not have an accurate grasp of the field and the practical realities. If we have a criterion as vague as reasonably foreseeable natural death, we have to know what that means in terms of operationalizing it in the field. People in Quebec were already saying that the law was consensual and posed no problems. We are starting to see that there are certain disparities across regions and institutions. I am therefore very mistrustful of people who are not familiar with the field on a question as serious and delicate as this.

That being said, the amendment you mentioned was minor, relative to the one that consisted in striking and eliminating the totally wrong-headed, unacceptable, and unconstitutional notion of reasonably foreseeable natural death.