(Quebec) Minister Christian Dubé will table his bill to expand medical assistance in dying, an issue on which there is consensus in the National Assembly, just in time before the end of the parliamentary session.
Posted at 10:17 a.m.
The Minister of Health and Social Services would table a bill on Wednesday aimed at modifying Act respecting end-of-life care and other legislative provisions. The tabling of the legislative text is eagerly awaited in Quebec, as the opposition parties recently formed a united front to urge the government to submit it to parliamentarians before the end of the work on June 10.
They had made this outing in the company of Sandra Demontigny, who suffers from an early and hereditary form of Alzheimer’s disease.
In December, a special cross-party commission on the evolution of Act respecting end-of-life care recommended expanding access to medical assistance in dying for unfit people, such as those with Alzheimer’s, by allowing them to make an “advance request”. We expect the bill to go in that direction.
Minister Dubé had telegraphed his intentions last Monday during an interview with The Press explaining that he would abandon his Bill 19, which aims to decompartmentalize access to data in the health network, to give priority to medical assistance in dying.
You have to understand that three weeks before the end of the session, there is a parliamentary traffic jam at the health and social services committee. This commission is also continuing this week the detailed study of Bill 28, which aims to put an end to the health emergency.
However, this leaves little time for the government to pass the bill that recommends the expansion of medical assistance in dying. We will have to hold special consultations where different groups are heard and then do the detailed study by June 10. Starting next week, the National Assembly will nevertheless hold weeks of intensive work, which means that parliamentarians will sit for four days rather than three.
Quebec will be immersed in the fall in the general election, which means that bills that are not adopted by June 10 will die on the order paper.