The daughter of Kay Carter, who spent the last years of her life fighting for the right to die with dignity, said her mother would have been relieved at a historic ruling Friday by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Carter eventually travelled secretly to Switzerland with her daughter Lee, where she was able to legally end her own life with medical assistance, on her own terms.

Lee Carter let out a whoop and raised her fist in the air in celebration when the unanimous ruling came down Friday -- the court striking down the ban on providing a doctor-assisted death to mentally competent but suffering and "irremediable" patients.

"We were cautiously optimistic," Lee told CTV's Power Play. "You never know of course, but we were optimistic this would be the verdict throughout this (process)."

Lee's mother Kay suffered from spinal stenosis and wished to end her life with medical help, before she became, in her own words, an "ironing board on a bed." She said she was terrified of "dying inch by inch."

In 2010 Kay, then 89, travelled to Switzerland in the company of her daughter Lee and Lee's husband, Hollis Johnson. At a clinic, Kay drank a toxic dose of sodium pentobarbital and ended her life.

But Lee said Friday the entire trip, and the strain it put on her ailing mother, wouldn't have been necessary if the laws had been changed years earlier.

Kay was so worried about word of her plans getting out, that she didn't even say goodbye to many of her loved ones before she left for Switzerland.

"She was petrified," Lee said of her mother. "She said ‘I'll do this but I'm petrified someone will find out and they'll stop me, stop us, from doing what I really want (to do).’"

Johnson said he hopes Friday's ruling will prevent others from having to go through a similar ordeal.

"I hope that they don't have to make decisions in the shadow of the criminal law and lie and deceive -- all the things we had to do in order to pull this off, as it were. I hope they can die compassionately, with dignity, in their home country with their family and friends," Johnson told Power Play.

"I would hope it is seen as an extension of palliative care rather than something that is anathema to palliative care," he added.