(Quebec) The Minister for Health and Seniors, Sonia Bélanger, will introduce next year a new version of the bill aimed at expanding medical assistance in dying (MAID).
She takes over from the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, who failed last June to pass Bill 38 to allow people with Alzheimer’s, for example, to make an advance request.
“The minister will table a new version of the medical assistance in dying bill,” the minister’s press secretary, Sarah Bigras, told The Canadian Press on Monday.
She did not specify whether this would be done at the start of the next parliamentary session, in February, or what changes will be made.
One thing is certain, by the “holiday season”, Mme Bélanger will meet with the different parties in the Assembly, said Ms.me Bigras. The minister wishes to “work in collaboration” and “discuss with them on this subject”.
“This is an important issue for Quebec society and we want to include all political parties in this discussion,” continued the press attaché.
A lot of work has already been done in the file of the extension of the AMM.
The cross-party parliamentary commission which had analyzed this issue in depth had submitted its report in December 2021.
It had held 14 days of hearings and heard about a hundred stakeholders and experts, not counting the some 80 briefs received and the 3,000 members of the public who participated in the online consultation.
Last June, many people mourned the failure of Bill 38.
Remember that Mr. Dubé had waited until the very end of the spring session to table it. He had to urgently withdraw a provision concerning severe neuromotor disabilities.
For lack of time, the deputies had not succeeded in adopting it.
The one who is considered the “mother” of medical assistance in dying, the former PQ MP Véronique Hivon, was very moved and did not hide her great disappointment.
“We all would have liked to be able to pass this bill, with all our hearts,” she commented at a press conference.
The Quebec Association for the Right to Die with Dignity (AQDMD) had meanwhile invited the deputies to roll up their sleeves and get back to work this fall, once the elections are over.
“It must not take a year,” said the president of the AQDMD, Sandra Demontigny, herself suffering from an early and hereditary form of Alzheimer’s.