Medically assisted dying consensus reachable, Liberal House leader says
Posted Dec 15, 2015 03:58:56 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – The Trudeau government is aiming to conduct a quick, two-month public consultation on medically assisted dying and have a new law crafted, studied, debated and passed by June.
But despite the rush, government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc says he’s confident the process will be sufficient to build a national consensus on the life-and-death issue.
The timeline might yet become even more rushed if the Supreme Court of Canada rejects the new Liberal government’s request for a six-month extension to craft a new law.
Last February, the Supreme Court struck down the prohibition on doctor-assisted death and gave the federal government a year to come up with a new law recognizing the right of clearly consenting adults who are enduring intolerable physical or mental suffering to seek medical help in ending their lives.
LeBlanc says the last-minute rush could have been avoided had the previous Conservative government adopted a Liberal motion last March to create a special parliamentary committee that would have been mandated to consult and report back with draft legislation by mid-July.
But since the Conservatives dragged their feet on the issue, the new government has had to speed up the process.
