Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on Bill C-304, an act to amend the Criminal Code (aiding suicide), introduced in the House by the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway.
Let me begin my remarks by recognizing that the hon. member has on a number of occasions attempted to bring the issue before members of the House for discussion and debate. Clearly it is a matter of particular concern to our colleague. I commend him for his efforts in trying to deal with what he perceives as weaknesses in the current provisions of our Criminal Code which deal with aiding suicide.
Before I turn to the specific provisions contained in Bill C-304 I would like speak of the work undertaken in the Senate to examine this and relate issues. The matter of assisted suicide and a variety of subjects related to the end of life care and decision making such as palliative care, cessation and withdrawal of treatment and euthanasia were examined in great detail by members of the Special Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. The special committee issued its report on life and death following many months of hearings and deliberation.
The Senate currently has before it Bill S-13, an act to amend the Criminal Code (the protection of health care providers), which is now the subject of second reading debate. The purpose of the bill as stated by the hon. senator who sponsored the bill is to implement the unanimous recommendations and chapters 4 and 5 of the Senate report which deal with pain and pain control and the withholding of and withdrawal of life sustaining treatment.
Senator Carstairs has taken great care to point out when discussing the subject matter and merit of the proposed amendment to the Criminal Code that it does not deal with either assisted suicide or euthanasia. Why is that? I suggest that it is because the members of the special Senate committee were not unanimous with respect to the matter of assisted suicide.
After months of study and deliberation they were unable to agree that the Criminal Code should be amended to remove the prohibition against aiding suicide. I further suggest this lack of unanimity may well reflect the views of many Canadians with respect to the issue. There is great public interest in issues surrounding the end of life. These are issues which every one of us must face. We must bear in mind, however, that there are many perspectives from which to examine these issues, be they medical, legal, social or ethical.
In addition, we must remember these issues are not confined solely to an analysis of assisted suicide or physician assisted suicide.
I would like to take a few moments to provide a brief overview of the analysis of the particular provisions contained in the bill proposed by the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway.
Bill C-304 provides that no qualified medical practitioner commits an offence of counselling, aiding or abetting suicide or any other criminal code offence where the practitioner aids a terminally ill person to commit suicide at the request of and with the voluntary consent of that person, with the approval of at least one other qualified practitioner.
Some may think at first glance that this provides concise and sufficient guidelines. I am of the view that if we were to agree at any time that such an amendment is required more work would be necessary to give Canadians the appropriate legal framework within which to reach this kind of decision.
Save for the exception presented in the proposed subsection 241(2), aiding suicide would remain an indictable offence with a maximum of 14 years imprisonment. The circumstances in which the protection would operate must be clear. I suggest that a number of clarifications would be required.
First, the term terminally ill is not defined. There is no generally accepted medical definition for this term, only operative definitions, for example, for placement in palliative care. This would prove problematic.
Second, as set out in Bill C-304 the patient must provide voluntary consent without spelling out what constitutes voluntary consent. One potential difficulty is that there is no requirement that the patient be competent to consent. I suggest by way of example that persons suffering from depression may not be competent and may still provide voluntary consent.
Third, there are no provisions in the bill regarding the situation of the incompetent patient. This was an issue raised during argument in the Rodriguez case before the Supreme Court of Canada, that is how the case of the incompetent patient would be dealt with if competent patients were permitted to request assisted suicide.
Fourth, the bill does not deal specifically with children. Though the general language of the bill would include children, there are no provisions dealing with substituted consent in the bill. Are children who may be able to give valid consent to be permitted to request assisted suicide? If substituted consent is to be provided who may validly give that consent?
Fifth, we are all aware that family and friends of patients are sometimes prevailed upon to assist the patient in dying. As written Bill C-304 would provide no protection even to the most sympathetic cases of this kind. It would provide protection only for those in the status of a physician. While it is not suggested that this is or is not the manner in which the House may decide to deal with the issue, it is important to ensure that when we do so we are cognizant of and discuss all situations where the need to address the question of assisted suicide may arise.
As the Prime Minister has indicated this is a highly complex social and moral issue. Assisted suicide, euthanasia and cessation of treatment are difficult matters for all Canadians. The Senate committee after many months of consultation produced a very thoughtful report which must be considered by everyone concerned with these issues. They were unable to agree on how the matter of assisted suicide should be addressed.
We have been assured by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice that it is the intention of government to provide through Parliament at the appropriate time a forum for informed discussion to allow members to consider matters relating to the end of life decisions.
Therefore, while I commend the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway for the steps he has taken to see that parliamentarians turn their minds to these issues, in my view it would be inappropriate for members of the House to deal with the amendments proposed in Bill C-304.