Is Canada ready to expand medical assistance in dying? Liberals will face that choice with deadline closing in
CBC
The federal Liberals face a choice early in 2024: They can allow a sunset clause to take effect so that eligibility for medical assistance in dying expands to adults whose only reason for seeking it is a mental disorder.
Or they can do what they did in 2023 and postpone it further, even indefinitely.
Justice Minister Arif Virani says the government is weighing its options as the March deadline looms.
The first step, he says, will be to see what members of Parliament and senators recommend after committee hearings that probed the issue this past fall.
To find answers, The Canadian Press spoke with many of the medical and legal experts who participated in that process.
Here are five questions that strike at the heart of the debate.
Assessors and providers of medical assistance in dying, as well as medical regulators, say they are ready for eligibility to be widened.
"Our hope is that government will not be influenced by the concern that the regulators will not be ready," said Gus Grant, the CEO and registrar of Nova Scotia's College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Since medical assistance in dying became legal in 2016, many voices have sounded the alarm about whether the medical profession was ready to handle changes.
"Those voices proved to be wrong at each occasion," Grant, who is also a past president of the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada, said in an interview.
"The medical regulators and the involved health-care professionals were ready."
The argument that the system can't handle change usually comes from those who would rather not see the program expand at all, Grant and others said. It also ignores the reality that some patients with mental illness can already access assisted dying if they have other medical conditions.
"It's a bit like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football, right?" said Jocelyn Downie, a professor at Halifax's Dalhousie University.
"You put the football down, 'OK, we're gonna get this ready, boom.' And then the next time, the football gets pulled out from under you."
Saskatoon city hall says police spending is projected to be $2.6 million over budget this year. That pushes the city into a $1.2-million deficit position, according to a report that will be considered by city council next week.
Students at the University of Regina are days away from deciding whether a newly formed student association should become their official representative body.
All public schools on P.E.I. are closed Friday and thousands of Maritime Electric customers are without power as strong winds create hazardous travel conditions across the province.
Prince Rupert, B.C., residents are celebrating the holidays this year with coastal flair.
In the four years Chelsey Simmonds has worked at the Eva Rothwell Centre, she has seen the need increase every year at the centre’s community food pantry.
CBC is once again looking to make the holiday season kind in Windsor-Essex.
Acute Care Alberta has extended its contract for another year with a private surgical facility at the centre of probes into health procurement and contracting.
As food bank use continues to climb across the province, front-line workers in Thunder Bay, Ont., are working to improve both food security and education.
More ads could soon be coming to Toronto’s subway system.
The driver wanted in connection with a fatal hit and run on Highway 401 earlier this week has been identified, police say.
There are mixed feelings about the proposed Grays Bay road and port project, among people who live in nearby communities.
WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse and includes graphic content.
Provincial police in Lambton County have charged a 23-year-old man with second degree murder following a death investigation that began this past Saturday.