Deadline looms on right to doctor-assisted suicide legislation
Posted October 7, 2015 9:09 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Whichever party takes power in Ottawa after the election, it won’t have much time to address a very controversial issue.
A Supreme Court of Canada deadline looms on legislation to deal with the right to doctor-assisted suicide.
Back in February, the court gave the government 12 months to decide if legislative changes are needed before its ruling takes effect, legally ending the ban on physician-assisted suicide in this country.
“The Supreme Court of Canada struck out the legislation and gave the federal government a full year to come up with new laws if it wanted to,” says NEWS 1130 legal analyst Michael Shapray. “They don’t have to come up with a set of new laws but the court held back on its ruling of invalidity until the government had a year to respond.”
Shapray says it is clearly an issue the government has not made a priority ahead of the federal election.
“Now if they are re-elected, they will only have a few months to complete the job of making a decision as to whether or not they are going to come out with a new set of laws or they are going to leave the issue to be dealt with by the provinces.”
Shapray — a criminal lawyer in Vancouver — has been following the right-to-die movement closely. His mother suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and has been an active participant in the case.
“It doesn’t make sense with the government knowing that there are many people who are suffering, that the law that existed was unconstitutional and that there should be a right to physician-assisted suicide or death. They should have made it a priority and not left it on the backburner,” he tells NEWS 1130. “It would be nice for them to respond by either stating that they are going to leave it to the province to regulate as a medical issue — like the abortion issue where there is no federal law — or to come up with some regime in reaction to the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling that would be constitutional.”
Shapray says many people have had to continue suffering as the government delays addressing the issue.
“We’ve seen recent cases where people have taken their own lives without the ability to have a physician involved because of the lack of reaction from the federal government.”
The BC Civil Liberties Association is encouraging people to take part in federal and provincial consultations, and to demand action from federal candidates.
The federal consultation will remain open until November 1, 2015; the provincial consultation (geared at Ontarians but open to all) is only open to the public until October 9, 2015.
