Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm happy to move CPC-8.
CPC-8 requires that we inform a patient of advance consent before proceeding with MAID. This amendment would require in the case of advance consent that a health care provider inform a patient of their advance consent on the day that assisted dying is to take place and, if possible, give them an opportunity to respond and indicate whether they would wish to proceed or not. This amendment is supported by important stakeholders, including the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians.
The concept of advance consent is something that has been debated but was included in Bill C-7, even though it was not required in a response to the Truchon decision. The position that I feel would have been appropriate was to have appealed this decision. Instead, the government took the opportunity to respond in Bill C-7 to the decision. It did not just respond to the decision, but went beyond responding to the decision. The decision of the Superior Court of Québec said that it was unconstitutional and violated the person's rights that death had to be reasonably foreseeable.
We don't know what the Court of Appeal would have done with that decision. We don't know what the Supreme Court of Canada would have done with that decision. The decision could very well have been overturned. It could have been found that there was no violation of rights. We don't know that because the decision wasn't appealed and the government did not defend its own legislation.
The government didn't just respond to the court decision. A number of the amendments that we've put forward, including this one, relate to the removal of safeguards that were included in Bill C-14, but there are also new concepts included in Bill C-7, which include a waiver of final consent. It means that if a person has lost the ability to consent, the person can waive that and still receive MAID. What this amendment would do is to take the steps necessary to see if contemporaneous consent can be given before MAID is provided.
I've mentioned the Canadian Society for Palliative Care Physicians. They've had a number of recommendations. I spoke about a couple of their recommendations in some of our other amendments. I want to draw your attention to their third recommendation, which is “to maintain [the] requirement for capacity to consent at the time of provision of MAiD”. They say:
A person should be able to change their decision up until the time of the procedure. The proposed changes in Bill C-7...remove that opportunity from a person who loses capacity after previous consent. Furthermore, the determination of whether or not a person does wish to withdraw their request after losing capacity to consent by way of words, sounds or gestures, is problematic in its potential subjectivity and may put clinicians in a precarious situation by having to interpret these responses. MAiD may be requested simply because the level of care required by the patient who has lost capacity exceeds what is currently being provided.
We've already discussed the issue of palliative care, but this is in the context of their recommendation, which is to not include the waiver of the final consent. That's not what this amendment is about, but this amendment speaks to the concern that's being raised by palliative care physicians. It is that we should, if possible, inform the patient who has given advance consent before proceeding. We should make an endeavour to get that response of whether to proceed or not proceed before taking the steps that would end this person's life.
I appreciate this recommendation. It's a recommendation that the palliative care physicians support. It's a safeguard amendment that would provide.... I don't think we can ever take lightly the gravity of the type of legislation we're dealing with, and this does involve a person's life and death decisions. Every possible safeguard should be put in place.
That is why I'm moving CPC-8. The Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians feels that this type of amendment is a responsible one. I ask that committee members to consider this amendment and to consider the source of the support for this amendment: physicians who are dealing with people in end-of-life situations.