This bill is from the 44th Parliament, 1st session, which ended in January 2025.
Mark Holland Liberal
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament has also written a full legislative summary of the bill.
This enactment amends An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying) to provide that persons are not eligible, until March 17, 2027, to receive medical assistance in dying if their sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-62s:
This is a computer-generated summary of the speeches below. Usually it’s accurate, but every now and then it’ll contain inaccuracies or total fabrications.
Bill C-62 proposes to extend the exclusion of mental illness as a condition for medical assistance in dying (MAID) by three years, until March 17, 2027, to allow provinces and territories additional time to prepare their healthcare systems and implement necessary safeguards. This extension is intended to ensure the safe and consistent application of MAID for individuals whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness, while also requiring a parliamentary review before the exclusion expires. The bill responds to concerns about the healthcare system's readiness and the complexities of assessing MAID requests based on mental illness.
Liberal
Conservative
NDP
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Madam Speaker, it is not a point of debate. Words have meaning. Saying that I am encouraging the government to kill people has no place in a debate. The member can say he disagrees with me, but he cannot say that.
Criminal CodeGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
I will check the record and get back to the House if necessary.
The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Madam Speaker, I would challenge the member. The government is not killing people, but it is failing to put in place protections for people. There is a difference, and our language does matter, but we need to have a strong support for everyone. To simply say that people are being killed does not help our conversation. I would ask my colleague to reflect on that.
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Madam Speaker, through action or inaction, the result is the same. By failing to help the vulnerable, by failing to offer those supports, we are condemning those people. The government is condemning those people to death. To take a positive action and offer them suicide in place of help and treatment, well, we can take a look at a thesaurus and decide whether or not that is to be described as the government killing them, but it is not reaching out a hand in help, and that is exactly what government should do.
Criminal CodeGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
I am still looking into what was said a while ago, but I do want to remind members to be very careful with some of the wording they are using because it is not quite proper to be using that type of language in the House.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Joliette has the floor.
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Madam Speaker, I would first like to ask for unanimous consent to share my time with my colleague and friend, the member for Montcalm, who is a leading expert on this subject.
Criminal CodeGovernment Orders
The Assistant Deputy Speaker Carol Hughes
Does the hon. member have unanimous consent to share his time?
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Madam Speaker, medical assistance in dying is a topic as crucial as it is sensitive. By choosing to delay debate for three years, the Liberal government is aligning itself with the Conservatives, with the blessing of the NDP, to ensure this debate will never happen again. That is highly irresponsible.
The Bloc Québécois was in favour of a one-year delay, but three years pushes it to after the next election. In other words, we will not be discussing this issue for a very long time. Meanwhile, Quebec has passed a law that allows advance requests. Specifically, it covers people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. However, Quebec’s law is blocked until the Criminal Code is amended by the House. The entire National Assembly of Quebec has asked Ottawa to amend the Criminal Code accordingly. Although the Quebec law allows advance requests, the Criminal Code does not. This leaves doctors open to prosecution.
That is why we presented an amendment addressing this issue. Again, the Liberal government, the Conservatives and the New Democrats chose to oppose it. Again, Quebeckers are reminded that we cannot decide for ourselves, even when there is consensus, and that our neighbour will decide for us. Furthermore, the government did all this by imposing a super gag order, with the NDP's support. It wanted to muzzle the House and put off debate well into the future while rejecting Quebec’s unanimous request. So much for democracy here.
Here we are reviewing a bill that seeks to delay choices involving mental disorders and that says nothing about neurodegenerative diseases and advance requests, unlike Quebec’s law. All this is happening three years after Bill C-7 was passed. Regardless of what other parties choose to do, we continue and will continue to ask that the Criminal Code be aligned with Quebec’s Act Respecting End-of-Life Care by allowing advance requests.
Can I ask for a bit more compassion in the House? Is it so complicated to change the Criminal Code to give effect to the Quebec law with respect to advance requests for people suffering from serious and incurable neurocognitive disorders?
In an attempt to convince my colleagues of the importance of Quebec's request and the urgency of the issue, I would like to read a very moving letter sent by one of my constituents. She talks about what her mom, Jacinthe Arnault, went through. Here is what the letter says:
At age 56, my mother, Jacinthe Arnaud, a clinical nurse, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. Nothing in her family history could have predicted that this huge black cloud would darken the rest of her life. The second thing she told me in 2019 after being diagnosed was:
“Promise me you won't let me die in a long-term care home. Promise me, Cath, that you'll let me go with dignity.” Back then, the MAID legislation did not allow for people with cognitive impairments to access this type of care.
I scrambled to learn about the subject, to talk with MPs, to contribute to the improvement of the legislation at the National Assembly and to get informed about what was being done in other countries. What I found was that we were in a dead end—even if my mother repeated her request week after week, I could not see how I could grant her the end she was hoping for. In 2021, when the “imminent death” requirement was taken out of the legislation, there was a glimmer of hope. Fortunately—or unfortunately—my mother wasn't 100% aware of her condition and wasn't ready to let us go and choose to die, at the risk of losing her chance to die with dignity.
The disease progressed very quickly, much faster than the legislative work to expand MAID. In early 2022, we had to watch over my mother almost constantly as her cognitive abilities, her memory and even her motor skills became more and more impaired. She still had enough clear-mindedness to ask her geriatrician for MAID. We started the procedure. It was very stressful not to know whether my mom would change her mind right until the very end, not because she didn't want MAID anymore, but because the disease would have made her unable to understand her condition and where she was headed.
Do you know that the legislation imposes a 90-day waiting time before MAID can be granted to patients with cognitive impairments? As a nurse myself, and seeing my mother get worse and worse every day, I could not see how she would still have a clear mind after 90 days. After several discussions with the prescribing physician, we were able to move up the date.
Why was my mother's credibility called into question? Why do patients with cognitive impairments have to wait before receiving MAID, but not patients with other incurable diseases? Requesting in advance to die with dignity is a very personal and legitimate choice, according to my mother and me. It is a decision that should, in a perfect world, be made quickly after diagnoses of this nature. Considering that neurodegenerative diseases evolve very differently from one patient to the next, wouldn't it be logical to allow these patients to request a dignified death in advance?
Not knowing if she would be allowed to die put my mother under incredible stress. And let me tell you, as a mother of two young children, I too was under a tremendous amount of stress, not knowing if my mother would pass away or if I would have to institutionalize her within a few months, which would have been a very difficult choice to make, considering the wishes she had so forcefully expressed.
During the last years of her career, my mother worked in the hemodialysis department at the Joliette hospital. She wanted to keep helping others. On May 4, 2022, she died in an operating room at the Joliette hospital, with her by her loved ones at her side. She saved three people. Both of her kidneys and her lungs live on somewhere in Canada. We're extremely proud of that.
I'm so proud of her and of us.
I wish with all my heart that ADVANCE requests for MAID were allowed. All these people who are sick now and who would like to die with dignity are depending on the legislation to be changed quickly.
Best wishes,
Catherine Joly
I thank Ms. Joly for her letter from the bottom of my heart. I agree with her, because I also hope with all my heart that advance requests for MAID will become an option. As she says, it is a matter of dignity. As she points out, everything depends on how quickly the legislation can be changed. Quebec has changed its legislation. The one step left is to harmonize it with the Criminal Code.
I sincerely hope that Ms. Joly's words have helped convince my colleagues about how important it is to make this change and make it quickly. I thank her.
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
Madam Speaker, Canada is one of the most advanced democracies in the world. That is why we bring in legislation, some of which is quite unique. In Canadian history, over all 155 years, this is the first time legislation like this has been brought forward.
Whenever we bring forward legislation that fundamentally affects every single Canadian's life, is it not important that we relook at it, modify it if required, take a pause, check to make sure everything is okay and patiently advance it instead of rushing it through? I would like the hon. member's views on that.
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Madam Speaker, I would like to say two things. First, there is unanimous consensus in Quebec. All parties in the Quebec National Assembly voted to pass a law, but it has no force or effect because it is being blocked. Quebec is asking that its law be aligned with the Criminal Code so it can come into effect in Quebec alone. That is what we are asking. It is not complicated. The government tells us this is very important, but it chose to do nothing and kick it down the road, even though we need to act quickly.
Second, the decision to delay all debate in the House for three years brings us to after the election. Projections indicate that the Liberals will not form a majority government. In all likelihood we will never discuss this again, we will never come back to this debate. I think that is irresponsible.
We first dealt with Bill C-7 in 2021. That is already three years ago. What has the government done in three years? It came up with the current bill, which says they will ensure the debate will never be over. We think that is irresponsible. I beg the government to at least try to harmonize the Criminal Code with the unanimous will of Quebec. It is a matter of dignity. My society and my nation are ready. However, they are being blocked by their neighbour, who is choosing not to act. I am asking them to act.
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Madam Speaker, the hon. member read a letter from a constituent. Conservatives also receive letters that speak in a different way about the dignity they look for and how they want their lives to be treated based on MAID and the new law that will be put in place.
If the hon. member's emphasis is on the humanitarian and compassionate side of this, would it not apply to every Canadian rather than just narrowing it to Quebec? I understand and respect that he represents a Quebec riding, but we need to look at something that applies to all Canadians. I think that is the purpose behind what we are debating today.
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Madam Speaker, from my perspective and that of my party, the substance of Bill C-62 is to ensure that we never discuss this again. By choosing to extend the exclusion by three years, there could well be a Conservative government, possibly a majority government, in power. I would be amazed if that government chose to follow up and move in the same direction.
Let me remind my hon. colleague that Canada is a federation that includes several nations. The Quebec nation has a unanimous position on advance requests but cannot implement it because the federal government refuses to amend the Criminal Code.
We understand that the rest of Canada may have other debates. That is the idea of a federation, to bridge different cultures and perspectives. There is unanimity in Quebec. We are not asking for a unilateral approach or for the Quebec model to apply from coast to coast, but for Ottawa to stop blocking what Quebec has unanimously decided.
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Madam Speaker, I simply want to remind my colleague that, yesterday, I voted in favour of the amendment for advance requests because there is a political and social consensus in Quebec society. I think that the message for the federal government is to find a compromise and a solution so as not to prevent Quebec from moving forward.
However, we must also not block the bill, because there is no medical or scientific consensus on the issue of mental health as the sole underlying condition. I think that it is important to meet the March 17 deadline and to ensure that we can reflect together on this issue because there is no medical or scientific consensus.
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette, QC
Madam Speaker, I recognize that the member voted with the Bloc Québécois for advance requests, but I deplore the fact that he was the only one from his party to do so. This demonstrates the rift that exists between Quebec and the rest of Canada on this issue. It is deplorable. I deplore the fact that the member could not convince his entire caucus to vote with us.
I recognize the importance of taking the time to talk about such important issues. However, we have been at this for three years, and the government has not done anything.
Extending the deadline by three years is a hypocritical way of ensuring that we never talk about it again, because that takes us past the next election. It is irresponsible.