MONTREAL -- Federal Liberals have voted in favour of legalizing assisted suicide but whether Leader Justin Trudeau will run with the idea is a mystery.
Trudeau was not in the room Sunday when delegates to the party's national convention passed a resolution urging that voluntary, medically assisted death be decriminalized -- although moments earlier he had been just outside the convention hall, cheering as the Canadian men's hockey team won Olympic gold.
There were no plans to hold a wrap-up news conference Sunday at which Trudeau would almost certainly have been asked for his views on the subject.
He did allude to the resolution in a keynote convention speech on Saturday in seemingly positive terms but did not specifically support it.
The resolution challenges Liberals "to expand our idea of what it means to be a free citizen in a modern democracy" and "to reflect on giving terminally afflicted Canadians the choice to end their pain and suffering and plan their own death with dignity," he said in the speech.
None of the policy resolutions passed at the convention are binding on the leader.
The resolution on medically assisted death was proposed jointly by the party's women's and youth commissions.
It says voluntary, medically assisted death should be decriminalized after a public consultation process designed to recommend the criteria for allowing terminally ill Canadians to choose to end their lives and an oversight system to protect the vulnerable.
