Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on the topic of Bill C-7, as we embark on what I expect will be quite a lively and passionate discussion about issues that Canadians care deeply about and certainly my Pontiac constituents. I heard from them for several years on this topic, regular correspondence, regular discussions at the door, so I appreciate this opportunity to discuss certain aspects of our government's proposed changes to the federal MAID legislation.
It is timely to share some of the insights from three important studies on very complex and sensitive issues that were not included in the 2016 federal legislation. These are requests by people for whom mental illness is their sole underlying medical condition, advance requests and requests by mature minors. I hope we will get to all three of them, but may only get to the first two.
When Bill C-14 was debated in 2016, parliamentarians had difficulty finding common ground on how to address these types of requests within Canada's first assisted dying regime. Understandably, given the challenging nature of these issues and the limited time that was available, due to the Supreme Court's timeline, to deliver on acceptable approaches for Canada, parliamentarians collectively decided that more in-depth study and review of the evidence was needed.
The legislation in 2016 therefore included requirements for the government to undertake independent reviews. There were strict timelines set out in Bill C-14 and the studies that needed to be commissioned had to be done within six months of the coming into force of Canada's new legislation on assisted dying and the government was obliged to table the final reports on the studies within a further two years. Both of these timelines were met.
In December 2016, the government asked the Council of Canadian Academies, CCA, an independent organization that undertakes evidence-based expert study, to inform our public policy development and to take on these studies that were required by legislation. The resulting reports were tabled in December 2018, documenting extensive review of academic and policy research, stakeholder submissions and international experience in the three subject areas.
They also included a broad range of perspectives from relevant health care professions, diverse academic disciplines, advocacy groups, indigenous elders, essentially the whole of Canadian perspective was brought to bear. In accordance with the CCA practice, they did not in fact contain recommendations.
Two of the reports, one on request by individuals where mental illness is the sole underlying condition and the report on advance requests have been particularly informative during the development of our government's response to the Quebec's Superior Court decision in Truchon.
I will first talk about mental illness. Under the current law, very few persons with mental illness as the primary source of their suffering are likely to be eligible for MAID. This is because most mental illnesses do not cause a person's natural death to be reasonably foreseeable.
Removing the reasonably foreseeable natural death criterion introduces the possibility for persons with mental illness to be deemed eligible for MAID, if they meet the remaining criteria.
During the recent federal round-table consultations held on MAID, we heard many concerns from participants who felt that not enough is known to safely extend eligibility for MAID to people whose suffering is caused by a mental illness alone. They felt that the issue required further examination.
We also know that there is generally very little support for expanding eligibility among mental health care practitioners, such as psychiatrists and psychologists, and by organizations representing people with mental illness. The CCA report on this issue noted a number of challenges associated with the delivery of MAID to persons with a mental illness.