The federal government was granted an additional month on Thursday to expand access to medical assistance for the dying, despite its efforts stalling in the House of Commons.
Quebec Supreme Court Justice Martin Sheehan agreed to give the government a fourth extension – through March 26 – to bring the law in line with a 2019 court ruling.
But he suggested that this will be the last.
Given that the government is on the verge of final reform of Canada’s euthanasia law, Sheehan said, “It is appropriate to grant a final extension so it can end.”
But he added that if the government fails to meet the new deadline, “it must be concluded that this inability is due to a lack of consensus on the sensitive issues raised, and not to exceptional circumstances warranting an extension.”
Sheehan’s decision came just a day before the previous deadline.
The 2019 ruling enacted a provision in law that allows euthanasia only for those whose natural death is “reasonably foreseeable”.
Bill C-7 is designed to bring the law in line with the ruling and expand access to euthanasia for intolerably suffering individuals who are not near the end of their lives.
However, the bill stalled in the House of Commons, where Conservatives on Thursday for the third consecutive year refused to ease the debate on a motion setting out the government’s response to changes passed by the Senate last week.
Conservative MPs pronounced the clock on Tuesday, then turned down the unanimous vote needed to extend the debate to midnight, despite calling for extended hours last week to allow for a thorough debate on the issue.
They again denied unanimous approval on Wednesday to allow the Commons to sit late into the night and wrap up the debate on the motion.
And they again refused unanimous consent to sit Thursday night.
The Quebecois bloc offered to give up its opposition day on Thursday to set the agenda in the House of Commons and allow the debate on the motion to continue. The liberal minority government decided that this would be pointless given the conservatives’ delaying tactics.
“The Conservatives have twice blocked our proposal that the House be late to discuss this important issue, despite claiming they want longer hours,” said Mark Kennedy, a spokesman for House Chairman Pablo Rodriguez, late Wednesday .
“On that basis, we now know that the Conservatives will continue to obstruct, and the cancellation of the bloc opposition day tomorrow will not change anything.”
The Conservatives were largely against the original bill and even more firmly oppose the amended version that the government is now proposing.
The bill had originally imposed a general ban on assisted death for people who suffer exclusively from mental illness. The government is now proposing a two-year deadline for this expulsion, six months longer than the deadline approved by the senators.
The government has rejected another Senate amendment that would have allowed pre-euthanasia requests, as well as an amendment to clarify what constitutes mental illness. It accepted a modified version of two others.
The bloc has announced that it will support the government’s response to the Senate’s changes and ensure that the motion will be passed. But until the Conservatives agree to close the debate, it cannot be put to the vote.
Once the motion is approved, the bill has yet to be sent back to the Senate so that the Senators can decide whether to accept the ruling of the elected parliamentary chamber or to keep track of their amendments.
euthanasia
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