Evidence of meeting #16 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 amendment.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
It is neither. It's an updated version of both.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
If there is an updated version, I don't believe that anybody has that in the printed copies that we're looking at.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Okay. This was provided to the clerk—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
You distributed it electronically, but everybody has the hard copies that we have in front of us. Your distribution of an electronic document without indicating that there was a change to it wouldn't really help the committee to know that.
Could I ask that we get copies of the new amendment if people want paper copies?
What reference number do you want us to look at?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Can I ask what members of the committee actually have a copy of 8249115?
Mr. Genuis, is there only one, or are there two separate ones, because for some reason the two look relatively identical? Do you have two that you're proposing?
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
There was some concern about receivability, so the updates improve the amendment in any event. We made changes on a last minute basis.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Is 8249115 the only one right now, on this subject matter, that you're putting forward?
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Exactly. I'm not going to be proposing the previous CPC-18 or CPC-18.1.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
So we just need a copy of 8249115.
Are you also moving 8249490?
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Both of those are missing from the package committee members have, so we're going to need to....They're quite long. It would be better if we had copies of them.
We're going to suspend for a couple of minutes while we make copies of these for the committee because they're too long to just hear you read them and try to understand them.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Please take your seats.
We will now resume the meeting.
We have copies of Mr. Genuis's new amendment, so we can now get started.
Mr. Genuis, the floor is yours.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
This first amendment deals with the issue of advance review, but I think it does it in a different way than it's been done before. We had proposals for ministerial or judicial review, and colleagues in other parties have raised concerns that this could impose an undue burden.
If members are willing to support this amendment, it would provide a fairly good compromise. It says that there must be some kind of review by a competent legal authority. This authority is up to the province to designate. In the event that the province chooses not to designate, however, the Minister of Health in conjunction with the Minister of Justice will designate the authority.
That leaves a lot of flexibility. Theoretically, you could have a system of judicial review, but more likely the minister would designate lawyers or notaries for the purpose of reviewing the legal criteria. My concern with the bill as it stands is that this is a medical as well as a legal decision. We have relatively complex criteria and it is important that the criteria be followed. We must have proper consent.
In the absence of an advance review, it is up to doctors to make legal decisions. We know, though, that people can go from doctor to doctor and eventually get the outcome they want. More concerning, perhaps, the person's relatives can go from doctor to doctor until they get a particular reading of the criteria from people who are not legal experts.
It's a very modest proposal to say that someone, to be designated by the province, who has competent legal authority to interpret the act should be designated to provide a review. It is very easy to do this in a way that would not be onerous for the patient. There's already a requirement for two witnesses and two physicians. To have someone conduct a legal review to see if the criteria are met is an important safeguard. It ensures that people who don't meet the criteria don't consent, aren't pushed forward. If we don't have this, then, frankly, I see the criteria as pretty meaningless.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
We addressed these points yesterday and said no. We talked about having judicial or some sort of pre-oversight, if not by a minister of health, then in conjunction with a minister of justice.
My problem with both of these is that judicial oversight or some sort of prior review takes away from the health care professionals the ability to determine informed valid consent. We trust them every day to make those decisions. We're taking that ability away from them and putting in place a layer of safeguards.
With regard to (b), making it a political decision is inappropriate. The Minister of Health has stated that she'll work with her colleagues in the provinces and territories to put together a framework to ensure that the profession observes safe and legal practices.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
I want to see if there's any other debate. Does anyone else wish to intervene? Mr. Genuis.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I have a quick response to Mr. Fraser's comments. I do want to make sure that before they vote on this, members have read the amendment. What Mr. Fraser implied was that the Minister of Health, with the Minster of Justice, would be reviewing the cases. That's not at all what the amendment says. However you vote, please read the amendment through. The amendment says that in the absence of a province designating an authority for the purposes of advance review, the Minister of Health, in conjunction with the Minister of Justice, would designate an authority for that purpose. It is simply to get around the absence of that designation. I am in no way proposing that the Minister of Health would make those decisions.
Mr. Fraser said that we had dealt with this yesterday. We didn't deal with this yesterday. This is substantively different in terms of the process. This doesn't require or even mention judicial review. It certainly does not imply that these would be political decisions. What it does say is that there would be some kind of prior review conducted by competent legal authority.
For those who say that health care professionals make these kinds of decisions every day, no, they don't. My wife is a physician. She doesn't make decisions about who gets to take their life every day. She doesn't make complex legal decisions every day on criteria that legal scholars can't even agree might apply or might not apply. Physicians don't make those decisions every day; physicians don't make those kinds of decisions ever. These are very complex legal questions. Therefore, I think it is a modest proposal to say that the people who have been trained and identified as having the competency to make complex legal decisions be the ones who are making those decisions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
As chair, I have to make a decision as to the receivability of this motion. I've listened to the entire debate—not that there have been many exchanges in the debate—and I'm taking the general position that I've taken. I can easily take the position that this is not receivable because it would create a system that doesn't exist, one that would somehow come into force before the coming into force of the bill, in order to allow any medical assistance in dying. In the same way that I ruled against the licensing scheme that Mr. Viersen had proposed, I think this is very similar.
Given the tenor of the debate and the way I like to defer to the committee, I'd point that out that I'd rather, as opposed to ruling it unreceivable, let people vote on it.
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Now we'll move to another motion from Mr. Genuis, CPC-18.1, but it's a new version with reference number 8249490. Please look at that one, not the original 18.1.
Mr. Falk, will you move that so it can be considered?
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
This is a very important way of ensuring that we have an effective check, maximizing the chances that consent did occur and minimizing the risks to vulnerable people. It is a requirement that a person self-administer in cases where they are able to. It would set a default toward assisted suicide unless the person were not able to self-administer; then in that case, there would be euthanasia. Obviously, for somebody who is capable of self-administering, under this legislation as it's written, they have the option of accessing this service in one of two ways.
The advantage of requiring self-administration is that it absolutely minimizes the risk that it will happen to someone without their consent. It ensures that at that moment a person's life is taken, you have clear contemporaneous consent. I think that's a good thing. I think that achieves objectives that we should all agree are important.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
We defeated a similar amendment earlier in relation to clause 241.1. I would vote against this for the same reason. I think it depends on the nurse practitioner. It depends on the good faith of the nurse practitioner or physician either way. I disagree with this amendment.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Anthony Housefather
Is there any further discussion or debate?
Not hearing any, I'll go back to Mr. Genuis to close.