Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti announced the tabling of a bill on Thursday that will delay by a year an expansion of medically assisted dying (MAiD) to people with mental health disorders as their only underlying condition. – Feb 2, 2023
After hearing from nearly 150 witnesses and reviewing more than 350 briefs on Canada’s medically assisted dying (MAiD) program, the special joint committee of MPs and senators concluded that minors deemed to have the appropriate decision-making capacity should be eligible for assisted death.
A number of witnesses noted Canadian minors are already allowed to make decisions about withholding or ceasing medical treatment, even when such decisions may hasten death, while others said they felt the decision to seek MAiDis simply too weighty for a minor to make.
Many witnesses told the committee they strongly believed the capacity for a minor to make an informed health-care decision is not a function of age, nor is the level of suffering they might endure during an illness, a view supported by clinical observations, the report said.
In the end, the committee agreed that many factors can influence a minor’s decision-making capacity, therefore it “believes that eligibility for MAID should not be denied on the basis of age alone.”
Parliamentarians also recommend the federal government appoint an independent expert panel to evaluate Criminal Code provisions for assisted death for “mature minors.”
But also said access to assisted death for minors should be restricted to those “whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable.”
Canadian opposition leader Poilievre on the subject: