The Quebec government is following through on its promise last month to authorize certain early requests for medical assistance in dying, starting this fall.
As of October 30, patients can make advance requests for the procedure before their condition renders them incapable of giving consent.
Quebec adopted a law in June 2023 allowing requests from people with serious and incurable illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
In a statement published Saturday, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said the government is taking “necessary steps” to ensure that “the collective choices of the Quebec nation are respected.”
“The issue of advance requests for medical assistance in dying is widely supported in Quebec,” Jolin-Barrette said.
Sonia Bélanger, the minister responsible for seniors, said that until recently there’s been a “constant increase” in requests for medical assistance in dying every year since the law was passed.
“That’s normal because it’s new,” she said in an interview with Radio-Canada on Saturday. “What we’ve noticed over the past year is that there has been a certain stabilization.”
Bélanger said she asked a research centre to find out why Quebecers are seeking the procedure.
Dr. Georges L’Espérance, a retired neurosurgeon, said he feels very grateful to ministers Bélanger and Jolin-Barrette.
He says his group, the Association québécoise pour le droit de mourir dans la dignité, has been fighting for advance requests since at least 2020.
L’Espérance said he is thinking about what this news could mean for a 59-year-old lawyer who would be eligible for MAID now but who’s still happy with her family even though her mind is in decline.
“With that [advance request], she will be able to say: ‘I want to keep on living with my boyfriend, with my dog. And then, I will have medical aid in dying when I will not be apt anymore,'” L’Espérance said.
Protecting doctors, nurses from criminal charges
The justice minister noted he would ask the Crown prosecutor’s office not to file charges against doctors and nurses who perform the procedure.
Quebec previously said it would wait until the Criminal Code is amended so that health-care workers are not committing a crime if they end the life of someone no longer able to give consent.
A spokesperson for the justice minister had said that the federal government refused to change the Criminal Code despite multiple requests from the province.
Soon after the minister’s announcement, the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) said it would instruct prosecutors that authorizing a criminal prosecution about a medically assisted death would “not be in the public interest” if the service was done according to the wishes of a patient who consented freely.
The DPCP said in a statement Saturday the director should be personally notified of any file involving medically assisted death that could be submitted to the DPCP so that the latter can “determine the appropriate decision-making process.”
