Evidence of meeting #15 for Justice and Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was move.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
I move that Bill 14, in clause 3, be amended by replacing line 6 on page 5 with the following:
dying only if a judge of the superior court in the province in which the person is ordinarily resident, on application by the person, makes an order stating that the court is satisfied that the person meets all of the following criteria:”
In essence, this is prior judicial approval. It will certainly take a lot of the onus off our health care providers, our nurse practitioners, and our physicians as well, because the judge will be the one who makes the final decision. I think what we've noticed in the time since the Carter decision until the present is that this system seems to have been working quite well. The application comes before a judge and the judge looks at it thoroughly to make sure the conditions are consistent with the Carter decision today, and going forward, once this bill receives royal assent, a judge will review each situation and will make sure that the situation is compliant with Bill C-14.
I think it's a very important check and balance, and it also creates protection for health care providers all the way down, because a judge would be doing the final sign-off and making sure that all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.
5:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
I think there was another one put forward by Mr. Genuis on the same subject in a different place, but I'd like to continue with debate while I think about receivability.
Again, I think there is a receivability issue, because it really goes beyond the scope of the bill to impose a substantial condition on medical assistance in dying. Also, I'm not sure about “superior court”. I think it's a provincial court in some provinces too. Can I think about that for a second and we'll continue debate?
May 9th, 2016 / 5:45 p.m.
Conservative
Rob Nicholson Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
I guess that's the question I was going to ask the Department of Justice. The Criminal Code is administered both by provincially appointed judges and by superior court judges, so do you see any issue with confining it only to superior court judges, the federally appointed judges?
Would this be unusual within the Criminal Code to have it singled out for only one type of judge as opposed to others? That's why I'm asking. Generally, provisions of the Criminal Code are administered and dealt with by either provincially appointed judges or superior court judges, federally appointed judges. Could I have your thoughts on that?
5:45 p.m.
Carole Morency Director General and Senior General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice
The thing that I would draw to the committee's attention—and maybe the member who sponsored it could explain if there's a different rationale—is that it looks to me like it's similar to the process that the Supreme Court has stated as a result of the additional four-month extension on the suspension of the Carter decision, which is that individuals who wish to seek out medical assistance in dying can do it currently through an application to a superior court in the province in which they reside.
It's a different approach from what Bill C-14 as introduced has proposed. I'm not sure if some of the witnesses had spoken to the implications, but certainly, there are different access implications for individuals, such as time constraints, perhaps, and resource implications of going through that process. We haven't seen the motion to amend before, but those are some of the initial considerations.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
I had the opportunity to speak with a lawyer before the legislation came down. He was excited that such a provision may be included because he was going to make a lot of money off it, and it just seems to be a make-work project for lawyers that only wealthy people will have access to. I spoke about this at an earlier meeting. In certain jurisdictions, a motions court may only meet once a month, or it may be limited. This really restricts medical assistance in dying to only those who have money and those who can access the court system, which really limits what we're trying to do in this legislation.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
In addition to what my colleague has just said, I think the other issue in this amendment is that even if you forget about the folks who can't access the court services due to financial limitations, in addition to that, even for those who can access it, they'll face significant delay. Our court system is already backlogged and I think this amendment would impose an extra amount of delay, a substantial time delay, and that would really affect the ability to access this service, in addition to the cost concerns expressed by my colleague.
5:45 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I think that if the Supreme Court had wanted this matter to stay in the courts, they wouldn't have given Parliament the time to come up with this legislation. I agree with my colleagues here in that it is very restrictive and will clog up the court system, so I do not agree with this amendment.
5:45 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Yes, I agree with the points made by Ms. Morency as well as those that have been made by my colleagues. This is about access and court delays, time, superior court. In my province, people living in remote communities would not have access and I think we would be ignoring.... We struggled with this at the Senate and House committee. We heard lots of testimony on it and I think we came to a very reasonable conclusion not to go to prior judicial review. For all the reasons that are summarized in that report as well, I think we should reject this idea.
5:45 p.m.
Conservative
Rob Nicholson Conservative Niagara Falls, ON
It seems to me that where there have been delays in matters of civil litigation that might get dragged out, when there are questions of some urgency the superior courts have acted very quickly. An injunction is a perfect example. If an injunction is necessary, the application is brought, it's generally dealt with very quickly because it has to be. It seems to me this would be treated in the same manner. An application to a superior court judge, I believe, would be handled in an expeditious manner, just as they do with all matters that need to be looked at very quickly.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
In addition to that, though, you would still have the cost element that would have to be dealt with, and that would be prohibitive and a barrier to some.
On the comment dealing with Carter, because Carter was mentioned, Carter obviously, even in its writing, contemplated the fact that this was going to come before Parliament in order to put in place safeguards that weren't in place when that decision was rendered, and that's why I feel it was mentioned that it had to go to superior court because those adequate safeguards weren't in place.
This legislation does it and therefore it doesn't need to go to court.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
In terms of the cost element, doctors' time is more expensive than lawyers' time. The reason it doesn't cost you anything to see a doctor is because the government covers it, but there's no reason the government couldn't cover the lawyers' time in this case if they wanted to.
With regard to the claim that there are additional safeguards in place now, there are criteria established by the Carter decision. There are criteria established by the legislation. I don't think either is substantively narrower than the other, so to say that the court imposed a judicial review in one case doesn't mean it would want one in another. I don't think that follows, given the relatively similar spectrum of those exceptions.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thanks very much.
Any further debate on this? If not, I'll go back to Mr. Falk to close.
5:50 p.m.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
When it comes to this piece of legislation, I think if I'm going to err on anything, I'm going to err on the side of caution. The legislation proposes to do a review and that review will enable us to do an analysis based on data, as it's called today, science and data, and to make amendments that we will want to make at that time.
This is an important safeguard, that there's a judicial sign-off. I don't think there's a problem with access to the court system on an issue like this. They're going to make it available and I think the courts can work expeditiously. It's not going to make anybody go broke to do this. It's a safeguard for people. It's a protection for health care providers, and you know, we make it sound as though this is like an appendix surgery. It's not. There's not going to be a lineup of people here waiting to exercise their rights under this legislation. I'm hoping very much that we'll have very few applicants, but I don't think we're going to be clogged up anywhere so I don't think we need to worry about timeliness or access or cost. I think these are issues that we need to consider very seriously. This is a very serious matter and I would much sooner err on the side of caution than start off running before we even know how to walk.
5:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Thank you very much for everybody's comments. On receivability, I've heard the whole debate, and in the same way of erring, I'd rather err on the side of the committee making the decision. I'm going to judge it receivable even though I have questions. Let's have a vote on the amendment, as drafted.
(Amendment negatived)
We now have NDP-1.
Mr. Rankin.
5:50 p.m.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Mr. Chair, it's a strange way in which this issue of advance request finds its way into the bill. On the advice of legislative counsel, this is the way we have proposed to bring it forward.