441-00737 (Justice)

Medical assistance in dying (MAID) is a complex issue and many Canadians have deeply held views on the subject. On March 17, 2021, former Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying) (S.C. 2021, c.2), received Royal Assent. This responded to the September 2019 Superior Court of Quebec ruling in Truchon,which struck down the eligibility criterion of “reasonably foreseeable natural death” from the Criminal Code MAID regime. 

Conscience rights of health care providers and institutions are not matters that fall under the federal criminal law power. Nevertheless, the Government is committed to respecting the personal convictions of health care providers. Nothing in the CriminalCode compels a health care provider to provide or assist in the provision of MAID. This is already expressly stated under subsection 241.2(9) of the Criminal Code.

The petition calls on Parliament to ensure that medical practitioners and health care institutions are free from coercion or intimidation in relation to medical assistance in dying. Whether medical practitioners can refuse to provide or refer for MAID, and that healthcare institutions can refuse to permit it on their premises, are also matters of provincial responsibility. No province or territory currently compels practitioners to provide MAID. However, provinces and territories could adopt policies requiring “effective referrals” which, in the MAID context, means referring the person, in good faith, to a practitioner who does not object to MAID.

A provincial or territorial law or regulation that affects the conscience rights of providers can be challenged under the Charter, as was the effective referral policy of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in 2018-2019, which applies to MAID. The Ontario Court of Appeal agreed that Ontario’s effective referral policy infringes on practitioners’ Charter-protected freedom of religion, but upheld the policy as a reasonable limit of religious freedom.