Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, I'm a lawyer with over 40 years' experience in computer and telecom law, so you might be wondering what I'm doing here. I'm here because I've assisted many terminally ill persons, beginning with my wife, who died of cancer at age 37 in 1985 after we had adopted three children.
I am here also because I've seen, on a daily basis and sometimes for several weeks and years, the day-to-day reality of palliative care workers attending to the needs of patients in their last weeks, days, and sometimes hours of life. I'm also vice-president of Living with Dignity/Vivre dans la Dignité, an organization representing over 5,000 citizens who are concerned about the future of our health care system and indeed about our nation.
Governments in this country take great strides with public media campaigns to try to prevent suicide—suicide of young people, of aboriginals, of Inuit—and unfortunately politicians make the headlines when a wave of suicides hits a reserve. But now we're about to authorize doctors to take their patients' lives or to help those patients commit suicide. Are we are no longer going to send emergency squads to try to persuade a person not to jump from a bridge, or are we going to send doctors to push them to their death? This is a dire reality that we are now facing.
Many have claimed that medical aid in dying is now a new charter right. Carter did not create a new constitutional right to death; the court only concluded that the prohibitions of the Criminal Code infringe on the existing rights to life, liberty, and security as guaranteed by the charter. Since the charter is part of our Constitution, the creation of a new charter right to death would have required the Constitution to be amended, which requires the involvement of Parliament and of all the provincial legislatures. This could not have been done by the Supreme Court, and the court did not create a new charter right to death, only an exemption from criminal law.
Before turning to the amendments, let me try to set our perception of what the power of Parliament is. Many have claimed that Parliament is bound to adopt a law within the confines set forth in Carter. Parliament is not held captive by the Supreme Court decision. It need not adopt a law that fits within the parameters set forth in Carter. Carter is based on the premise that the prohibition on assisted suicide and euthanasia is intended to protect only vulnerable people, not to protect all Canadians. Parliament now has the power to set the record straight and to confirm in no uncertain terms in a new bill that the prohibition against assisted suicide and euthanasia is indeed to protect all Canadians. It also has the power to re-enact those prohibitions, despite the Supreme Court decision.
As the Supreme Court itself recognized, between 1991 and 2010 this House and its committees debated no less than six private members' bills that were seeking to decriminalize assisted suicide, and none was passed. I'm calling on you. Should you ignore completely the wisdom of the hundreds of members of the House of Commons who decided not to decriminalize assisted suicide in the past? Or, should you not remind your colleagues that indeed your predecessors acted responsibly and with wisdom in rejecting this approach? You have the power and you have the responsibility to make history for our population, our children, our grandchildren, and their descendants.
Re-enacting the provisions struck in part by Carter requires political courage. It also requires all members of Parliament to be able to exercise their right to freedom of conscience protected by the charter and without being forced to vote according to a party line. This is our call to action.
Of course, if this Parliament does not re-enact these prohibitions, it can still set safeguards. Contrary to what CMA has said, our experience teaches us that these safeguards may not be sufficient to help protect all Canadians. This House has the power to prescribe, as it is said in the charter, “such reasonable limits...as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. These limits can be more stringent that those specified in Carter.
The court recognized itself in Carter:
Parliament must be given the opportunity to craft an appropriate remedy. [....] ...issuing [a constitutional] exemption would create uncertainty, undermine the rule of law, and usurp Parliament’s role. Complex regulatory regimes are better created by Parliament than by the courts.
Let me now turn to certain amendments we're proposing.
In the order that the Supreme Court made last January 15, to prolong the extension of the suspension of their decision, the court said the persons who wanted to avail themselves of medical assistance in dying, as permitted in Carter, could apply to the superior court of their jurisdiction. And the court even said:
Requiring judicial authorization during [the] interim period ensures compliance with the rule of law and provides an effective safeguard against potential risks to vulnerable people.
We think that this reasoning is not only valid until June 6, but this process should continue beyond June 6, when Bill C-14 comes into effect. Abuses and errors are possible. We know medical errors exist, and as it concerns medical assistance in dying, an abuse or an error will be fatal. We therefore submit that Bill C-14 be amended to provide that medical assistance in dying can only be obtained with the prior authorization of a superior court.
Turning to transparency in data collection and reporting, Quebec has been now experiencing euthanasia for over four months. Several aspects have now become clearer, some of which are frankly very troubling.
One of them concerns the transparency and data collection and the reporting. Under practice guidelines issued by our Collège des médecins du Québec, a physician filling out the certificate of death, prescribed under the Public Health Act of Quebec, must enter the disease or morbid condition that warranted medical aid in dying and led to death as the immediate cause of death. This is not the manner of death—cardiac arrest—but the disease, injury, or complication that caused death.
The college goes on by stating that the term “medical aid in dying” should not appear on the certificate of death. Indeed, if this information were disclosed to family members who had not been informed, it could on one hand go against a patient's wishes to keep the information confidential, and on the other hand cause them harm.
Well, this guideline is forcing doctors to falsify the cause of death in a public document, and this is contrary to the applicable regulation that specified that the physician must indicate the cause of death in the most precise manner possible. Thus, if a doctor follows the guideline of the Quebec Collège des médecins, he might be prosecuted and be subject to a penal offence.
To address this risk, Bill C-14, proposes to add to the Criminal Code the offence of committing forgery in relation to a request for medical assistance in dying. However, the term “forgery” is not defined, and we have to look at section 366 of the Criminal Code for its definition.
In light of the Quebec experience, and of the need to monitor compliance with all required conditions to provide medical assistance in dying in the future, we strongly recommend that proposed subsection 241.4(1) be modified to include the offence of making any false declaration, by any means, to the effect that the cause of death was not medical assistance in dying, but was the underlying medical condition that justified a recourse to it.
Lastly, I'd like to talk briefly about the danger of good faith defences. Bill C-14 proposes that any person who has reasonable but mistaken belief about any fact that is an element of the exemption for medical assistance in dying should nevertheless be able to invoke the exemption from the crime of culpable homicide or the crime of assisted suicide.
Although these provisions are well intended, they do not unfortunately pass any serious examination in light of the experience that abuse of the elderly and sick persons is rampant in our society, as Dr. Ferrier, and other physicians dealing on a daily basis with these types of patients can attest. This is inviting a floodgate of abuse.
For such reasons, we recommend that these provisions of good faith defences be struck from Bill C-14.
I thank you for your attention.