BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a story titled 'Quebec begins granting early requests for MAID without requested federal changes,' published Sept. 7.
The Barrie & Simcoe County Chapter of Dying With Dignity Canada applauds the province of Quebec for upholding its promise to implement advance requests for MAID.
Advance requests for MAID are not only supported by 83 per cent of Canadians, but also by the Special Joint Committee on MAID in their final report delivered in April 2023. An advance request for MAID would allow an individual to describe, in writing, a future state in which they would like to access MAID.
Quebec Seniors Minister Sonia Bélanger called the province a leader in upholding “patients’ right to die with dignity.” Quebec forged a path which every province should follow.
A spokesperson for Quebec’s justice minister, Simon Jolin-Barrette, said that the federal government refused to change the Criminal Code despite multiple requests from the province.
Bill-390 – a federal private member’s bill – was tabled on May 22, 2024, and would amend the Criminal Code to allow a clinician to provide MAID under a provincial framework that allows for advance requests.
If this bill passes, any province could develop a framework in their provincial health-care system; the onus would be on the individual province to establish their framework and access to advance requests for MAID could vary across the country.
This is a path to allowing legal advance requests for MAID, but a federal amendment to MAID legislation would be more equitable, there is still time for the government to provide what a majority of Canadians want.
It is said that you only live once, but that’s not true. You live every day; you only die once. How that life ends is a human choice and a human right.
Sharon Turcott
Barrie & Simcoe County Chapter, Dying with Dignity Canada, member
