Quebec intends to expand the boundaries of medical assistance in dying to include people with incurable diseases or severe neuromotor disabilities. Minister Christian Dubé tabled a bill to this effect on Wednesday.
If adopted, it will allow a patient who suffers from conditions such as Alzheimer’s to make an advance request. It will also remove the “end of life” criterion provided for in the first Quebec law on medical assistance in dying and invalidated in the famous Gladu-Truchon case in 2019.
Bill 38 “amending the Act respecting end-of-life care and other legislative provisions” stems from the recommendations of a transpartisan report tabled last fall by the four parliamentary groups, and in which Quebec was called upon to evolve its law to include people with neurodegenerative diseases. However, it goes further.
In its 11 recommendations, the Special Commission on the evolution of the law concerning end-of-life care did not go so far as to propose admitting people affected by “serious and incurable” neuromotor handicaps. Christian Dubé’s legislative text does this.
Under this legislative framework, a person affected for life by a serious head injury could therefore request medical assistance in dying. Just like a paraplegic or quadriplegic person, as long as he experiences “constant, unbearable physical or psychological suffering which cannot be appeased”.
“A mental disorder is not considered to be a serious and incurable disease”, specifies the text of the law. According to the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, the National Assembly thus avoids a situation “much more delicate [e] “. The federal legislative framework provides for a possible extension to mental disorders, but the government of Justin Trudeau has not yet ruled on the question. “We made a very clear decision […] not to go there in sanity at all. Will we come back to it later, when there may be another update? At the moment, it was really not about doing it, ”said the elected caquiste.
“Rabbit out of a hat”
Satisfied with the tabling of a legislative text, PQ MNA Véronique Hivon – who had signed the first draft of the End-of-Life Care Act in 2013 – however criticizes the government for having “pulled a rabbit out of its hat” by including the notion of neuromotor disorder. ” [Le projet de loi] opens up a whole new field. However, disability is an issue that has never been discussed in Quebec, ”she said Wednesday afternoon.
“It complicates the adoption enormously”, added the former minister of the government of Pauline Marois.
Three weeks before the end of the parliamentary session, Liberal MP David Birnbaum sees an “obstacle” standing in front of parliamentarians. “The paradoxical thing is that there is not much time and you have to do things rigorously,” he told the To have to.
The Criminal Code already allows people with a “serious and incurable disability” to make an advance request for medical assistance in dying. Adjusting the Quebec legislative framework will “respond to federal law,” said Health Minister Christian Dubé. “We often found ourselves, for the doctors, in an out of position position. They said: “well, we have to choose between the federal government and Quebec.” “, he observed during a press scrum.
“For the moment”, the last minute addition of the government “does not call into question our desire to study and especially to adopt this bill”, said the deputy of Quebec solidaire Vincent Marissal. “Let’s perhaps put this surprise aside. »
With Florence Morin-Martel