Q: What is the status of the law in Canada on assisted suicide?A: This issue raises strong opinions and arguments, not only legal but moral as well.The fact that debate rages on in Canada and beyond is illustrated by the events of this past spring. A new federal law, Bill C-384, the Right to Die with Dignity Act, had been introduced into Parliament. After much debate, it was defeated by a count of 228 to 59.Analysts said this bill was too ambitious or cast its net too widely because it seemed to support physician-assisted suicides and so-called voluntary euthanasia.Bill C-384 also had a problem in that the person giving the direction that they wanted to be killed only had to appear lucid.If it’s a relative doing the deed, and they say the person wanting to die seemed to know what they wanted, is that enough to warrant the taking of that person’s life?These questions really had no answers in the draft law. It was not restricted to people who were subject to a painful disease, whose deaths were inevitable and who wanted to end their lives before the suffering became too intenseThe Criminal Code has one specific provision regarding suicide, Section 241. Every person who counsels a person to commit suicide, or assists them in doing so, is guilty of an offence, even if the attempt is not successful and the person lives. The maximum punishment is 14 years in jail.Encouraging a gravely ill person to commit suicide can be an offence under current Canadian law.Section 14 states that no person can consent to his own death. The law prevents you from saying whether you want to die and no one else is entitled to act on a request to die.Section 241 was considered in the Sue Rodriguez case. The Supreme Court of Canada decided that Section 241 did not violate the rights of a person under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by stopping a doctor from assisting a person to commit suicide.There is also an older case (1975) examining the intent required. In that case, a person who was drunk while trying to help someone else kill himself was found not guilty of this charge.This was held to be a specific intent crime, meaning that any condition that took away the ability to form and understand the specific intention to help someone else kill himself was a defence.The predecessor section to Section 241 was introduced into Canadian law in 1892. While Bill C-384 seemed doomed to failure, there also seems to be no question that Canadians would like their legislators to tackle this difficult legal issue and come up with a law that reflects current day values.Rick Danyliuk is a lawyer with McDougall Gauley LLP in Saskatoon.
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