The federal government is set to introduce changes to Canada’s medical assistance in dying law Tuesday to bar people whose sole underlying condition is mental illness and to allow advance requests.
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The federal government is set to introduce changes to Canada’s medical assistance in dying law Tuesday, including a proposal to bar people suffering solely from a mental illness from accessing MAID and to allow advance requests.
Justice Minister Sean Fraser and Health Minister Marjorie Michel are scheduled to answer questions Tuesday about the proposed changes, which the government said it put on notice last week.
The bill is expected to be tabled almost three weeks after Fraser said the government would not extend access to assisted dying to people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness. Fraser said he was concerned about a lack of consensus within the medical community about the “irremediable nature of certain mental illnesses,” and he also raised worries about limited access to mental health care.
The government has repeatedly pushed back the date when mental illness could become a qualifying factor for an assisted death, and it asked a special parliamentary committee to study the issue. The committee’s conclusion, reported in June, said people suffering solely from a mental illness should be indefinitely excluded from accessing MAID.
Fraser’s office reviewed evidence considered by the committee and sought additional opinions after the committee reported. Fraser said the government would use the bill to decriminalize advance requests, allowing those at risk of losing capacity to consent to do so ahead of time.
Advance requests are described as documents that allow a person with a degenerative condition, such as dementia or ALS, to request an assisted death once they no longer have the capacity to consent. The eligibility rules for MAID currently require a qualifying patient be suffering from a grievous and irremediable medical condition and be able to consent at the time of the procedure, and the government has said it would include “rigorous safeguards” for advance requests that follow a diagnosis of an incurable illness.
Fraser said the proposed legal change for advance requests would only affect the Criminal Code, with it then up to provinces to decide whether advance requests are provided through their own health systems.
The proposed bill will need to pass the House of Commons and the Senate before March 17, the date set in the law for people with a mental illness as their sole underlying condition to become eligible for MAID.
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