So the recommendations will not necessarily end up in the Criminal Code. There could simply be a sunset provision that gives access to people whose only medical issue invoked to obtain medical assistance in dying consists in mental disorders. It will then be up to the practitioners conducting the assessments to ultimately apply these recommendations in their assessment.
For instance, I understand that any suicidal person in a state of crisis will never have access to medical assistance in dying, as long as they are in such a state. This strikes a chord in the collective imagination. People often wonder if we will end up giving access to medical assistance in dying to young depressed people. Yet that is not the case.
In other words, when we take the whole report into account, we see that, before it can be determined that a patient with a mental disorder meets the eligibility criteria for medical assistance in dying, it must be established that their disorder is chronic and that the patient has undergone a number of therapies, received therapeutic care and even taken medication over a long period of time, perhaps even a decade.
So there are plenty of people who could apply for medical assistance in dying that will ultimately be denied.