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By authorizing its doctors to carry out “advance directives” for MAID starting Wednesday, the Government of Quebec has effectively told its health-care system to start committing murder.
Last year, the Quebec legislature adopted Bill 11, which aimed to allow physicians to administer MAID to unresponsive or mentally incompetent patients, provided that the patient had given “advance” authorization to do so.
This is considered murder under federal law, so Quebec announced this week it will simply be instructing its prosecutors to ignore the relevant sections of the Criminal Code governing culpable homicide.
In a Monday statement, the federal Ministry of Health said they wouldn’t be challenging the decision – but warned Canada’s non-Quebec doctors not to get any ideas.
“As the Criminal Code applies uniformly across Canada and does not permit the provision of MAID based on an advance request, providing MAID pursuant to an advance request remains an offence under the Criminal Code,” it read.
The standing federal law on MAID holds that doctors can authorize death for any adult with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” — but with the caveat that the patient has to provide “informed consent” immediately before the procedure.
As soon as a patient becomes unresponsive or mentally incompetent, it becomes illegal to administer MAID.
The Quebec law proposes to ignore this, and to allow MAID for anyone with an “advance directive.” A patient can be in a coma, suffering from dementia, or otherwise be “incapable of giving consent to care” — and they can be given assisted suicide anyway provided they’ve signed a form ahead of time.
But Quebec can’t unilaterally change federal law, and the federal government has already turned down Quebec’s request to change the Criminal Code to suit Bill 11’s provisions.
Thus, any Quebec health worker administering assisted suicide based solely on an advance directive could, under Canadian law, be considered as committing homicide.
There are several parts of the Criminal Code that prohibit a doctor from intentionally killing a patient outside the provisions of an authorized MAID request.
The Criminal Code’s preamble still holds that “no person is entitled to consent to have death inflicted on them, and such consent does not affect the criminal responsibility of any person who inflicts death on the person who gave consent.” As such, administering assisted suicide outside approved boundaries could feasibly qualify as manslaughter or first-degree murder; both of which can technically yield life sentences.
It could also run up against a prohibition against anyone who “abets a person in dying by suicide” — which carries a maximum prison term of 14 years.
Which is why — just after the Quebec health ministry told doctors and nurses to begin breaking federal MAID laws — the province’s office of criminal prosecution issued a statement saying they wouldn’t get in trouble for it.
On Wednesday morning, the directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) issued a statement saying that they were under orders from the Quebec Ministry of Justice not to pursue criminal charges against any death carried out under the provisions of Bill 11.
Under a French-language directive issued last month, prosecutors were told that as MAID was supported by a “broad consensus of Quebec society,” it was in the public interest to “respect the autonomous right of people who wish to obtain medical assistance in dying.”
“It would not be in the public interest to authorize a criminal prosecution in connection with a death occurring in the context of medical assistance in dying … if the analysis of the evidence confirms that the care was provided in compliance with wishes expressed in a free and informed manner,” reads the directive signed by Patrick Michel, Quebec’s director of criminal and penal prosecutions.
As recently as February, the Trudeau government was warning Quebec about unilaterally ignoring the Criminal Code. At the time, a spokesperson for Justice Minister Arif Virani told Postmedia that Quebec didn’t appear to have thought through the consequences of charging ahead with Bill 11.
“The criminal law applies across Canada, ensuring consistent standards nationwide,” wrote Virani’s office, in an email to the Montreal Gazette. “This guarantees that individuals across the country must adhere to the same rules, regardless of location, leaving no room for evading consequences in different jurisdictions.”
But with Quebec now following through on Bill 11 starting Wednesday, the federal response has been decidedly different.
“We are launching a national conversation and will not be initiating a challenge of Quebec’s Bill 11,” read a Monday joint statement by Virani and Health Minister Mark Holland.
The statement makes clear that MAID is not simply a health-care issue that can be decided unilaterally by provincial governments. “Since MAID involves ending a person’s life, it includes important legal considerations under the Criminal Code that is the jurisdiction of the Government of Canada,” it reads.
Nevertheless, Quebec is told that the only consequence for Bill 11 will be “discussions with all provinces and territories, roundtables and online surveys” to look at expanding MAID eligibility to include advance directives.
There is some precedent to a province simply telling its prosecutors not to enforce aspects of federal law. In 1976, for instance, Quebec’s newly elected Parti Québécois announced it would not be enforcing federal abortion prohibitions against Montreal doctor Henry Morgentaler.
IN OTHER NEWS
The Department of Finance has announced a new campaign of reviewing the charitable status of any pregnancy-focused non-profit that doesn’t provide abortions. In an Oct. 29 statement, the department promised to review Canada’s various “pregnancy support service organizations” and to bring the hammer down on any that don’t offer “abortion services” or “birth control services.” Henceforth, to avoid losing charitable status, such organizations would need to repeatedly and publicly disclose that they don’t believe in the “prevention, preservation, or termination of pregnancy.” The statement accused such charities of being “anti-choice organizations that push women away from accessing the reproductive care of their choice.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre announced that if he forms the next government, he would release the names of the 11 parliamentarians named in a top-secret report who are accused of knowingly collaborating with foreign governments. This is certainly the most popular position; polls show that Canadians generally want to know if they’re being governed by alleged traitors. The one potential hitch to this is that the report was likely assembled using intelligence collected from foreign allies such as the U.S. or the U.K. – allies who would not look kindly on Canada releasing details that could potentially compromise their intelligence channels. The NDP actually supported the pledge “so long as it’s in a way that protects national security,” read a statement by their public safety critic Alistar MacGregor.
A B.C. woman revealed this week that despite never showing up to her federal civil service job, she was paid anyways. As Vanita Lindsay told CTV, she successfully applied for a stay-at-home job taking Canada Pension Plan calls – but then had second thoughts just before her first day. “I emailed the next morning and said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s nothing to do with you guys or anything like that, but I just can’t do the job,’” Lindsay said. But the federal government paid her anyway … twice. After multiple failed attempts to pay back the $9,000, she eventually went to the media.
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