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Garnett Genuis

Conservative on Medical Assistance in Dying Safeguards Act

Replying to Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault (Liberal)
“Mr. Speaker, I really want to make sure I understand my colleague correctly. MAID gives people who are living with an incurable illness and facing significant suffering a choice in their end-of-life care. I emphasize the word “choice” because no one is under any obligation to request MAID. Those who choose to do so make a free and informed decision. They can withdraw their consent at any time, and there is a process, an assessment carried out by two independent medical practitioners. I would really like to understand whether my colleague is opposed to allowing people who are living with an incurable illness and significant suffering to make this free and informed choice for themselves.”

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Mr. Speaker, my speech in the debate tonight was about advance requests for MAID, which are not about autonomy. Advance requests deny autonomy because they prevent a person whose condition has deteriorated from having a choice. They would involve the past self making predictions about the future self and binding the future self under conditions in this legislation where, incredibly, it would not be required that they be told what is happening to them when their life is being ended. That would be a denial of autonomy, a denial of the ability of a present individual to consent. The requirement of contemporaneous consent, as I discussed, is fundamental in law and in practice. This would be a denial of autonomy, of contemporaneous consent. On that basis, as well as others, the bill must be opposed.