Canadian Constitutional Law

Justice Minister David Lametti announced today the introduction of a bill which would delay by one year, until March 2024, the scheduled implementation of MAID for sole reasons of mental illness. Until today, the federal government had repeatedly suggested it was bound by 'the courts' to expand MAID and to make MAID also available for persons whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness. Minister Lametti even stated in an interview for a recent investigative documentary of CBC's The Fifth Estate, which revealed troubling components of the current MAID practice, that the Supreme Court had recognized 'a right to suicide' and that MAID was a 'species of suicide'. He made similar statements in an interview for a podcast with Althia Raj of the Toronto Star. With some colleagues of other law faculties, we drafted a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau, Ministers Lametti, Duclos, Qualtrough and Bennett, to challenge this problematic and in our view unfounded rhetoric of 'our hands are tied by the courts'.