In speaking to this amendment, what I wanted to talk about was the fact that this is allowing the ultimate in patient autonomy, to just confirm with the person and give them the opportunity to say whether they would like to proceed or not. I'm fairly confident that basically any legislation we might adopt is never going to safeguard in such a way as to eliminate all risk entirely that someone may end up accessing medically assisted death and not want it at the very end of their life.
That's because people do change their minds. We know that, but I would suggest that the risk is even greater if you are not looking for express or contemporaneous consent at the time. There's a lot of evidence to support that. The federal government released a first annual report on medical assistance in dying in Canada, and in that report it revealed that 7,336 written requests for MAID were reported in 2019. Of those, 263 were withdrawn by the patient predominantly because they changed their minds, and of those 263 withdrawals, 20% or over one-fifth took place immediately before the MAID procedure was performed.
Yes, this is a safeguard. Yes, this is an attempt to allow that ultimate autonomy at the time contemporaneously with the end of life. I know we talk about the Truchon decision. That's why we're here, but it isn't the only jurisprudence on these issues. In the Carter decision, the Supreme Court of Canada, which, I might point out, is a higher court than the Quebec Superior Court and one to which the government should have taken this matter, on three occasions stated that MAID should be performed only when a patient clearly consents to the termination of life. The inclusion of the word “clearly” indicates a need for positive confirmation without any doubt as to a person's wishes and “consents” means in the here and now. This is significant and must be heeded.
This is a wholesale change in approach with this legislation, and I think we need to tread a little more carefully than we are. In another Supreme Court of Canada case, R. v. Latimer, the Supreme Court emphasized that killing a person in order to end the suffering produced by a medically manageable physical or mental condition is not a proportionate response to the harm represented by the non-life-threatening suffering resulting from that condition.
I've heard from many members on the committee that some of the decisions they are making here and some of the ways the legislation is put forward are to relieve suffering. I have no doubt that we all wish to do that for our fellow Canadians. We have different ideas on how to approach that, but if, in truth we wish to reduce suffering and we wish to stand up for the dignity of the person and the autonomy of each and every person who may find themselves in this very difficult situation, it seems to me at a minimum we can, near the end of administration of these procedures, double-check and make sure that they are consenting clearly and that they are consenting in the present tense.
This could not be more necessary than in a situation where advance consent has been given, because in some issues of advance consent you're just imagining where you might be at a certain point in time. You imagine how you will feel about that. You imagine the reaction you're going to have.
My own dad had his leg removed later in life, and he handled it with a great deal of stoicism. However, my husband's grandfather, when he was told he'd have to lose his leg, said he'd rather die, and he died rather than have his leg removed. Different people have different tolerances. They find themselves in difficult situations, and they make their choices.
Please consider this amendment. Let's make sure the people who are making these decisions in advance contemporaneously still agree with their own decision made earlier.
The Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians should not be taken lightly. These are people, unlike any of us here, who deal with very vulnerable people at very difficult times in life-ending situations. They should really be considered in what they see as necessary for their patients.
With that, my colleague is going to sub in for me, because I must go at this point in time.