We have two stories in the “And then there was this” section at the back of the paper that demonstrate that it is impossible to hold the line on euthanasia. In Quebec, the Superior Court threw out the restriction that euthanasia be limited to those whose deaths are reasonably foreseeable. In British Columbia, the provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons ruled that a doctor who killed a patient in a facility that did not allow “medical aid in dying” did nothing wrong. Both of these cases illustrate the difficulty in drawing and holding lines once euthanasia is permitted. We observed when the Liberal government was pushing its law through Parliament in 2016 that so-called safeguards would eventually be interpreted as discrimination because it allowed some people access to assisted-suicide but not others. The BC case shows that institutional restrictions can easily be flouted with impunity. The only safeguard is not allowing euthanasia and assisted-suicide in the first place. Rescinding C-16 should be the first order of business for the new government following the Oct. 21 election.
