The government’s proposed new rules on physician-assisted dying are heading back to the Senate after just one day at committee, but will likely undergo a major rewrite before being green-lit by the upper house.
During a brief meeting on Tuesday morning, the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee agreed to delay consideration of what is expected to be a considerable number of proposed changes to the bill until third reading, which is now expected to start on Wednesday afternoon.
Unlike the House of Commons, senators – including those not aligned with a recognized party caucus — can move substantive amendments on the floor of the chamber itself.
When that debate begins, Senate Liberal Leader Jim Cowan and his caucus are planning to push for significant changes to the bill, including removing the requirement that death be “reasonably foreseeable,” and adding provisions that would allow the limited use of advance directives that “specify the conditions that the person believes would, for them, constitute intolerable suffering, and the types of treatments that are not acceptable to them.”
Another Senate Liberal-backed amendment would commit the government to launching an “independent review” of issues related to potentially extending eligibility to “mature minors,” as well as “requests where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition” within 80 days of the laws coming into force, with a deadline to report back to Parliament within the next two years.
Several Conservative senators have also suggested the bill needs explicit “conscience protections” that would allow doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to not only refuse to provide such services, but also decline to refer patients to someone who would be willing to do so.
Currently, no one party can claim a majority in the Senate, although with 42 of the 86 seats that are currently occupied, the Conservative caucus comes closest – exactly twice as many as the Senate Liberals with just 21 members.
The remaining 23 seats are held by independent senators, including seven appointed on the advice of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this spring, several of whom are also expected to put forward amendments to the bill.
Presuming the Senate can rework the more contentious provisions of the bill to their collective satisfaction, it will be up to the House of Commons to decide whether to concur in the changes.