Canada’s Assisted Dying Law Prolonging Pain for Some, Say Critics

Critics are calling for changes to Canada’s assisted dying legislation just over six months after it came into effect, alleging the law still hinders access for some.

Assisted dying advocates took to Parliament Hill Tuesday, saying access to the service is still impeded across Canada and that the law offers too many opportunities for people’s personal beliefs to get in the way of someone’s right to choose to end their life.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of assisted dying two years ago Tuesday, and a bill regulating the practice passed into law in June 2016.

Since then, say critics, shortfalls of the legislation have become evident.

Shanaaz Gokool, CEO of Dying with Dignity Canada, said rules like the requirement that two people witness a person signing a consent form are barriers for some people, and so is the slow response by provinces in providing facilities that can offer assisted dying.

Gokool said the legislation causes some people who should be able to access assisted dying to be denied because of their particular doctor or healthcare provider, creating inconsistencies.

“The legislation is so opaque and, we believe, unconstitutional,” she said. “Principles of justice have to be equitable across the country.”

People are struggling to find providers in rural or remote communities, and many provinces still do not allow nurse practitioners to perform the service, Gokool said. B.C.’s rules allow nurse practitioners to participate.

Gokool said provinces must take responsibility and ensure residents have access to assisted dying.

People in facilities that don’t offer the service, often very ill, have to be transferred somewhere that does, she said.

New Democrat justice critic Murray Rankin raised the same issue, pointing to a recent case where a man had to be moved out of St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, a Catholic hospital, to access assisted dying at Vancouver General.

“That facility is able to receive taxpayer dollars, yet deny people their constitutional rights,” Rankin said. “I don’t understand it.”

While Rankin said he could understand why a doctor or other health care worker would opt out of helping with an assisted death, actual health institutions such as hospitals or hospices shouldn’t be able to.

“I don’t understand how institutions, bricks and mortar, have a conscience,” he said.

He also brought up the case of Kay and Ernie Sievewright, an B.C. elderly couple, both with severe illnesses, who had been married 55 years.

They planned to die at the same time and had both been approved for assisted dying, but ended up having to die four days apart.

Rankin said doctors were concerned about potential allegations that one of the Sievewrights had been overly influenced by the other in choosing assisted death.

Another concern is the law’s requirement that physician-assisted death can only be approved if death is reasonably foreseeable, which leaves those with painful conditions to wait until their disease progresses, Rankin said.

And “reasonably foreseeable” has no definition in the legislation, he added.

Rankin said the cases show the legislation is putting doctors’ needs before the patients’.

He said the bill has a provision that requires a review by a parliamentary committee in several years. The government should move the review up and amend the bill to fix the issues.

Andrew MacKendrick, press secretary for Health Minister Jane Philpott, said the government has begun a study related to Bill C-14, focusing on mature minors, advance requests and those with mental illness.

He said the government believes it has struck the “right balance” on assisted dying.