Canada's Justice Minister wants to expand euthanasia to people with mental illness

CANADA - Justice Minister David Lametti told a Senate committee on Monday that he’s heard the fierce criticism of the government’s new assisted dying bill, which expands the regime to include people who don’t have a terminal illness.

The critics include disability rights organizations, palliative care experts, and even Jody Wilson-Raybould — the former justice minister who introduced the original assisted dying bill in 2016.

But Lametti said he believes the government has found the right balance in respecting the dignity of people with disabilities, and also their right to end their life if their suffering is too great.

Lametti also said he hopes the medical assistance in dying (MAID) regime will eventually be further expanded to people who are suffering solely from mental illness, but the government doesn’t have enough time to do it before a court-ordered deadline of Dec. 18 for this bill to pass.

Bill C-7 was introduced in response to a Quebec Superior Court ruling that found the original law, passed in 2016, unconstitutionally restricted MAID to those whose death was “reasonably foreseeable” — in other words, to patients with a terminal illness.

The bill creates a new MAID eligibility requirement for people who are deeply suffering, but who are not expected to die from their illness.

One disability rights organization, Inclusion Canada, told the Senate in its submission that opening up MAID to people with disabilities “would signal that these Canadians are expendable and threaten their lives, dignity and belonging.”

Many disability advocates slammed Bill C-7 in their testimony to the House of Commons justice committee earlier this month, calling it “norm-shattering legislation.”

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