I am now ready to rule on the point of order raised on October 28 by the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South concerning the application of Standing Order 69.1 to Bill C-41, an act to amend the Criminal Code and an act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying) and to make related amendments to other acts.
In his intervention, the member noted that, in his view, Bill C-41 proposes two separate fundamental changes: to stop the expansion of medical assistance in dying to people whose sole condition is a mental illness, and to allow advance requests for medical assistance in dying. The member argued that these two principles are sufficiently distinct to warrant separate votes, pursuant to Standing Order 69.1.
While acknowledging that both matters concern medical assistance in dying, the member also asked the Chair to consider the exceptional significance of the bill, drawing on the approach the Chair has sometimes taken in selecting report stage motions on matters of conscience, including on earlier legislation on medical assistance in dying.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons argued in response that medical assistance in dying is the bill's single issue and common element, and that the bill contains no provisions dealing with unrelated topics. The parliamentary secretary further pointed to clause 5 of the bill, where the concepts of advance requests and the prohibition on medical assistance in dying for reasons of mental illness are intertwined, as an example of the connection between the two measures. The parliamentary secretary added that other options remain available to the member to express his views on the measures in the bill.
Standing Order 69.1 gives the Speaker the power to divide the question on a bill that seeks to repeal, amend or enact more than one act, and where there is not a common element connecting all the various provisions. Despite the suggestion that the exceptional significance of the bill's subject matter should be taken into account, the Chair must remain guided by the wording of the Standing Order and focused on whether matters in the bill are so unrelated as to warrant separate decisions of the House.
The Chair has examined Bill C-41 in detail. Notwithstanding a series of related amendments to other acts, the bill proposes amendments only to the Criminal Code. While the bill may address more than one issue, medical assistance in dying is the subject that ties all of its provisions together and constitutes their common element. In the view of the Chair, the bill does not link unrelated matters and therefore does not meet the threshold for dividing the question under Standing Order 69.1. Accordingly, there will be only one vote at second reading.
At the same time, the Chair accepts that members may have strongly held and differing points of view on the various measures that make up a single piece of legislation. The Chair wishes to remind members that the legislative process offers them other opportunities to express those views, including through debate in the House, motions of instruction, amendments at committee stage, and report stage motions.
I thank all members for their attention.