Liberals table bill delaying assisted dying expansion to March 2024
Liberals table bill delaying assisted dying expansion to March 2024
OTTAWA -
Canadians whose sole condition is a mental disorder will not be eligible for a medically assisted death for another year under legislation introduced in the House of Commons Thursday.
Justice Minister David Lametti introduced the bill seeking to delay extending the eligibility until March 17, 2024.
"We need to be prudent. We need to move step by step, making sure that people within the profession, Canadian society at large, has internalized this step," Lametti told reporters.
"To be honest, we could have gone forward with the original date, but we want to be sure. We want to be safe. We want everybody to be on the same page."
The Liberal government agreed to expand eligibility in its 2021 update to assisted dying law after senators amended the bill. The senators argued that excluding people with mental illness would violate their rights.
That law put a two-year deadline on the expansion that is set to expire on March 17. The Liberals now have six weeks to pass the new legislation.
Lametti said he has agreement from the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois to pass the bill in that short time frame. The Senate will also need to approve it.
Federal officials said that the delay will allow more time for the government to develop practice standards for assessing the more-complex assisted dying requests. The explanation was given during a technical briefing to media, provided on the agreement the officials would not be named.
Those standards will have to be adapted by provincial and territorial regulators and clinicians, a process that is currently expected to take place in March.
Officials said that an accredited medical assistance in dying curriculum is also being developed for clinicians. It is expected to be rolled out in the fall and completed by the end of the year.
They said the delay is also allowing it to better collect and report data on assisted dying cases.
New regulations that allow for "enhanced data collection" came into force at the beginning of the year. The data will go beyond simple demographic details to look at how alternative treatments were offered and considered before the assisted dying process.
Helen Long, CEO of advocacy organization Dying With Dignity Canada, said in a statement that keeping people with mental disorders from accessing assisted dying is "discriminatory and perpetuates the stigma that they do not have the capacity to make decisions about their own health care."
Before Lametti tabled the bill, the group had urged the federal government to make the delay "short and effective."
But Lametti said that not all were ready.
"We heard a number of different voices saying, `Slow this down," he said.
"And at that point it became a question of how long. And those negotiations have led to where we are today."
Conservative MP Michael Cooper said on Twitter that the delay is not enough and the "dangerous expansion" needs to be scrapped altogether.
Tories have argued that it is difficult for doctors to tell when a person's suffering due to a mental disorder is past the point of treatment, so the policy could lead to avoidable deaths.
"One year won't resolve the problems. Experts are clear that irremediability cannot be determined for mental illness," Cooper said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2023.
U.S. President Joe Biden heads north next week for his first visit to Canada as president. Ahead of the visit, both countries are laying out a wide range of potential topics spanning from migration policy to continuing support for Ukraine.
More than 130,000 people have signed an e-petition calling on Canada to give transgender and non-binary people fleeing harmful laws in their home countries the right to claim asylum, but that's already possible in this country. Advocates say the popularity of the proposal shows politicians that Canadians want the government to affirm its welcoming position.
The Public Order Emergency Commission has concluded that the federal government met the threshold for invoking the Emergencies Act to bring an end to the 'Freedom Convoy' protests and blockades.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
Governor of the Bank of Canada Tiff Macklem says he thinks Canada is 'turning the corner' on inflation, but he isn't ruling out that the country could enter a 'mild recession.' In an English-language broadcast exclusive interview with CTV National News Ottawa Bureau Chief Joyce Napier, Macklem encouraged Canadians to prepare a 'buffer' to withstand 'tougher times.'
Joe Biden comes for a sleepover next week to make Canada the 18th country he has visited since being sworn in as U.S. president, quite the protocol slippage from that fading, if not forgotten, tradition of Canada being the first foreign presidential pitstop, writes Don Martin in a column for CTVNews.ca.
After weeks of refusing to look further into foreign election interference, Justin Trudeau surrendered to intense pressure and appointed a 'special rapporteur' to review China's actions. In his exclusive column for CTVNews.ca, Don Martin writes this 'startling change of heart' suggests the PMO is in panic mode and reflects badly on the prime minister's decision making.
The Trudeau tipping point is within sight. The moment when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knows he has to quit for the good of the party or the Liberals realize they can't survive re-election with him at the helm is almost upon us, Don Martin writes in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca.
Bombshell revelations that suggest Chinese agents actively, fraudulently and successfully manipulated Canada's electoral integrity in the last two federal elections cannot be dismissed with the standard Justin Trudeau nothing-to-see-here shrug, Don Martin writes in his exclusive opinion column for CTVNews.ca.
The chances Trudeau's health-care summit with the premiers will end with the blueprint to realistic long-term improvements are only marginally better than believing China’s balloon was simply collecting atmospheric temperatures, Don Martin writes in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca, 'But it’s clearly time the 50-year-old dream of medicare as a Canadian birthright stopped being such a nightmare for so many patients.'
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he feels it is his role to see the Safe Third Country Agreement upgraded, in order to make sure Canadians can continue to have confidence in Canada's immigration system.
A group of lawyers is racing against the clock to get Canadian children and their foreign-born mothers onto a plane that will soon be dispatched to repatriate detainees from prison camps in northeast Syria.
Parks Canada says its new online reservation system to book camping sites and other activities at national parks appears to have worked well during its first week of operations.
A federal source says the coming budget will detail how the Liberals plan to go after hidden or unexpected consumer fees, following the United States announcing its own crackdown on these charges.
Canada needs a 'Conservative renaissance,' former prime minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday, but he cautioned that Pierre Poilievre should wait until an election before telling Canadians how he might run the country.
The coronation of King Charles III will take place in May, in a ceremony that is expected to be less extravagant, while underscoring a new era for the Royal Family.
Canada's population grew by more than one million over the course of one calendar year, breaking previous records, a new Statistics Canada report says.
The death toll from last week's massive fire in Old Montreal has risen to four, Montreal police confirmed. Julien Levesque, a police spokesperson, said Wednesday evening that two more bodies were retrieved from the historic building that went up in flames last Thursday.
Parks Canada says its new online reservation system to book camping sites and other activities at national parks appears to have worked well during its first week of operations.
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) says it receives tens of thousands of complaints from consumers across Canada each year, but once in a while a "quirky" one will take them by surprise.
WW International appears set to close dozens of its roughly 118 WeightWatchers locations across Canada on March 26 in what may be part of a restructuring strategy.
The death toll from last week's massive fire in Old Montreal has risen to four, Montreal police confirmed. Julien Levesque, a police spokesperson, said Wednesday evening that two more bodies were retrieved from the historic building that went up in flames last Thursday.
The Canadian real estate market has been sluggish since last year, when prospective buyers started putting off plans to purchase homes as the Bank of Canada aggressively hiked interest rates eight consecutive times. But realtors see many edging toward a purchase once more.
The United States denied Chinese claims Thursday that its military had driven away an American guided-missile destroyer from operating around disputed islands in the South China Sea as tensions rise in the region between the two powers.
The first daily fast of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began Thursday, as hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide enter a four-week period of worship.
Israel's parliament on Thursday passed the first of several laws that make up its contentious judicial overhaul as protesters opposing the changes staged another day of demonstrations. The legislation protects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from being deemed unfit to rule over his corruption trial.
EU leaders are set to endorse a deal aimed at sending to Ukraine 1 million rounds of artillery shells within the next 12 months to help the country counter Russia's invasion forces.
Prince William placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw on Thursday, paying his respects to the Poles who have lost their lives in past wars during a visit aimed at honouring Poland's efforts to help Ukraine today.
A group of lawyers is racing against the clock to get Canadian children and their foreign-born mothers onto a plane that will soon be dispatched to repatriate detainees from prison camps in northeast Syria.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he feels it is his role to see the Safe Third Country Agreement upgraded, in order to make sure Canadians can continue to have confidence in Canada's immigration system.
He's hell-bent on restoring blue-collar American manufacturing to its former glory, considers free trade a dirty word and wants Canada to wade voluntarily into a failed, gang-ravaged state that's a quagmire waiting to happen.
Canada's race to procure ventilators for COVID-19 patients in the early days of the pandemic had researchers, scientists, industry and a notable astrophysicist working 'night and day' to design machines that could be quickly manufactured domestically.
Last month, Dr. Michael Yang, a spine surgeon at Foothills Medical Centre, performed a discectomy to remove the damaged part of a herniated disc in the spine, on a patient who was wide awake.
Three years after the start of the pandemic, surgical backlogs and wait times are only just starting to improve, according to new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, with patients still waiting significantly longer for surgeries than they did before the pandemic.
The CEO of TikTok will make a high-profile appearance Thursday before a U.S. Congressional committee, where he'll face a grilling on data security and user safety while he makes his own case for why the hugely popular video-sharing app shouldn't be banned.
Sky-gazers will be treated to a parade of planets near the end of month when Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Uranus and Mars will appear together in the night sky.
A rocket made almost entirely of 3D-printed parts made its launch debut Wednesday night, lifting off amid fanfare but failing three minutes into flight -- far short of orbit. There was nothing aboard Relativity Space's test flight except for the company's first metal 3D print made six years ago.
Two daughters of a retired optometrist suing Gwyneth Paltrow are expected to testify on Thursday about the lasting effects of their father and Paltrow's 2016 ski collision as the trial takes on an increasingly personal note on the third day of proceedings.
Veteran actor Dick Van Dyke has suffered minor injuries after his car was involved in a collision in Malibu, California, police in the city have confirmed.
Asian shares were mixed Thursday after the Federal Reserve raised a key interest rate, while noting the end may be near for its economy-crunching hikes to interest rates.
The Swiss central bank hiked its key interest rate Thursday and insisted that a government-orchestrated takeover of troubled Credit Suisse by rival bank UBS ended the financial turmoil.
The U.S. Federal Reserve extended its year-long fight against high inflation Wednesday by raising its key interest rate a quarter-point despite concerns that higher borrowing rates could worsen the turmoil that has gripped the banking system.
When Ai Weiwei opens his new show in April, visitors will encounter a familiar scene at London's Design Museum: Claude Monet's famed water lilies. But the monumental recreation is made from the studs of Lego bricks — a whopping 650,000 of them.
Bianca Andreescu and Leylah Fernandez completed a first-round sweep for Canadians in the women's singles draw at the Miami Open with wins on Wednesday.
Major League Baseball has clarified its new rules to allow umpires to delay the start of the pitch clock after big swings in which a hitter loses footing or when a pitcher covers first base, third or home, in addition to other clarifications announced Wednesday.
The Chevrolet Camaro, for decades the dream car of many teenage American males, is going out of production. General Motors, which sells the brawny muscle car, said Wednesday it will stop making the current generation early next year.
U.S. auto safety regulators are investigating complaints from Honda Civic drivers that their steering can stick, causing a momentary increase in effort and increasing the risk of a crash.
The 2023 Challenger SRT Demon 170 will deliver 1,025 horsepower from its 6.2-litre supercharged V-8, and the automaker says it will be the quickest production car made.
