This issue seems extremely relevant to me. Conscience rights do not fall under criminal law. In medical practice and in professional practice, conscience rights are primarily a matter of medical ethics. The medical community determines how physicians should interact with patients and behave. In my opinion, it's a mistake to consider conscience rights part of criminal law. Those rights fall under medical ethics and provincial laws that also govern medical practice. The bill does not cover this, and I think that is a wise constitutional decision.
In Quebec, the Act respecting end-of-life care provides for very clear conscience rights. The physicians' code of ethics also sets out very clear rights. Those rights are similar from one province to another. However, a federal conscience right could be different from provincial conscience rights, and that would cause issues in terms of which standard the physician should follow. To my mind, it would be preferable to let each province's college of physicians define the standards of behaviour for physicians. So I invite you, with all due respect for Dr. Johnston, to keep the door closed to this kind of a situation.
In its initial proposal, the Barreau du Québec had written a comment about this, but since this issue was not part of the bill, we have removed it. However, I want to reiterate our point of view. We invite you to leave the regulation-making authority to the provinces and to colleges of physicians. The provinces are already regulating medical practice. I think we already have our hands full with the rules of criminal law, so let's not go any further.