Medical Assistance in Dying - Participatory Democracy in Canada

I have, I think,  discussed within this blog my complete agreement with the thesis that people have the right, when they decide it is time - to die and that it is appropriate that they receive assistance from trained professionals to do so.  Canada has such a law, but it may be inconsistent in some areas and a Quebec court has instructed the government to fill in some of the blank spots. Specifically, the court has ruled that it is unconstitutional for such service to be provided only to people whose deaths are reasonably foreseeable while not allowing individuals who have degenerative medical conditions that will result in death but not quite just yet to ask to die. Amongst other issues, up to now individuals with Alzheimer disease but who are still competent have not been able to request assistance to die in spite of the fact that the disease's prognosis is clear and by the time the individual can "naturally expect to die" they are no longer competent to make the request.

Because of the court ruling, Canada must make changes to the law. They have taken a rather unusual step to collect as many opinions as possible. There will be, of course, long discussions with medical professions, some involved community members and probable a few lawyers. The government, however, has added an additional consultation procedure.

While in a perfect world (and in a much smaller country) we would all have the right and the ability to be in front of the lawmakers and have our 15 minutes of fame to state what we think. Clearly, that is not practical. I would be long dead before the government heard from just the people of Vancouver Island. The government has opened a web site with just a few questions and lots of room to add comments. It is a way of hearing from hundreds if not thousands of Canadians.

I am not sure if the questions they have asked will generate the range of answers they need. I am not even sure if they have asked the right questions. But they have tried and for that - I give them points.

My primary concern is that it does not feel as if the government has sufficiently publicized the fact that Canadians can participate in the discussion. I only found out about it because I read the CBC online news every morning.

There is still a week left - if you have some thoughts - go to https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cons/ad-am/index.html and get involved.