The federal government is seeking to delay an expansion of its medical assistance in dying (MAID) law, which was set to include those suffering solely from mental illnesses starting in March.
Justice Minister David Lametti and Minister for Mental Health and Addictions Carolyn Bennett said Thursday they’ll present legislation in the House of Commons to extend that deadline.
Lametti said the extension would give the government more time to set up proper standards for assisted-dying requests from individuals whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness.
The government originally passed MAID legislation in 2016, but the Superior Court of Quebec struck it down in 2019 because it was limited to those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable.”
Bill C-7, which passed in March 2021, removed that requirement, in line with the court’s ruling.
The government originally intended to impose a blanket ban in that legislation on assisted dying for people suffering solely from mental illness.
But under pressure from senators who believed the exclusion was unconstitutional, it subsequently put a two-year time limit on that ban — which was set to expire this coming March.
The government has taken heavy criticism in recent months after it was revealed that a number of Canadian military veterans were offered medically-assisted death by a federal employee.
Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay told a House of Commons committee last month that a now-suspended Veterans Affairs caseworker proposed the option to as many as four veterans.
MacAulay said the matter would be turned over to the RCMP for investigation and that Veteran Affairs would conduct its own internal review.
“We expect all Veterans Affairs candidate employees to interact with veterans with care, compassion and respect and the action of this one employee is simply disgusting,” MacAulay said during last month’s committee appearance. “And I condemn this behaviour in the strongest terms.”