The federal Conservatives are ready to intervene in the House virtually night and day to postpone the adoption of Bill C-7, linking medical assistance in dying to the Truchon judgment of the Quebec Superior Court.
The deadline given by the court to the federal government to adjust its law to the fact that the criterion of reasonably foreseeable death is unconstitutional expires on December 18. The House of Commons is due to adjourn this Friday until the end of January.
“If we have to stay here 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to stand up for vulnerable Canadians, we will,” Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole told the Commons on Tuesday, arguing that the Trudeau government opens the way to “a suicide assistance system”.
He believes that several hours of debate and amendments are necessary to ensure that Bill C-7 is accompanied, by broadening access to medical assistance in dying, by sufficient protective measures.
“Anyone suggesting that we should rush this debate does not understand how deep this debate is,” he added.
In his view, the judgment rendered by the Superior Court of Quebec should have been challenged by Ottawa and passed the test of the superior courts. He further argues that the Liberals themselves created the need to pass Bill C-7 quickly because they prorogued Parliament over the summer.
The third reading of the piece of legislation – the last step for its passage in the House – stalls as Conservative MPs speak for hours to say that they believe that the C-7 would encourage vulnerable people to opt for the end of life in the wind. However, the Liberals believe they have struck the right balance. The bill provides, among other things, that any person suffering, but “whose death is not reasonably foreseeable”, must wait 90 days between the time when his request is accepted and when it is implemented, which allows him to change the decision.
Justice Minister David Lametti has been urging the Conservatives to stop their “tactics” for days. “They are killing Bill […] and that will increase the suffering of people, ”he railed on Tuesday.
Without a new federal version of the law on medical assistance in dying adopted on December 18, he fears that a “legal vacuum” in Quebec will cause doctors to hesitate to offer medical assistance in dying to people who should be there. to have the right to.
The Bloc leader, Yves-François Blanchet, also called on Mr. O’Toole to tell his troops to “compromise and hurry”. He challenged the Conservatives to speak only in French when they display their opposition to physician-assisted dying, noting that there is instead a broad consensus in favor of Quebec.
Note that the study of C-7 by the Senate is done simultaneously with that in the House.
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