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Rules for advance requests for assisted dying

C-41 Medical Assistance in Dying Safeguards Act: An Act to amend the Criminal Code and An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying) and to make related amendments to other Acts

Allows advance requests for medical assistance in dying and keeps people with only a mental illness ineligible.

What Bill C-41 would do

The bill would permit doctors and nurse practitioners to provide medical assistance in dying to people who have lost the capacity to consent, if they made an advance request while still able to do so. To qualify, the person must have been diagnosed with a serious and incurable condition expected to cause that loss of capacity, and their province must have a system to store and track those requests. The bill would also permanently exclude people from receiving assisted dying solely on the basis of a mental illness.

Official text

Official summary

This enactment amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, (a) clarify that a person cannot receive medical assistance in dying on the basis of a mental illness; and (b) create exemptions from the offences of culpable homicide and administering a noxious thing, in order to permit a medical practitioner or a nurse practitioner to provide medical assistance in dying to a person who has lost the capacity to consent to the procedure if the person made an advance request to receive medical assistance in dying when they had that capacity and if (i) the person is eligible to receive medical assistance in dying and the medical practitioner or nurse practitioner ensures that the applicable safeguards are complied with, (ii) the person prepared their advance request in accordance with the applicable criteria, including that the person was diagnosed, before the request was signed, with a serious and incurable illness or disease that was reasonably expected to lead to an irreversible loss of the capacity to consent to receiving medical assistance in dying, and (iii) the province in which the person would receive medical assistance in dying has in force a provincial legislative regime that identifies the repository in which advance requests are stored and that includes rules in relation to, among other things, making, storing, withdrawing and amending or replacing advance requests.

The enactment also amends An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying) so that the exclusion from eligibility to receive medical assistance in dying in relation to a mental illness remains in force. Finally, the enactment makes related amendments to other Acts.

The government's summary, printed at the front of the bill as introduced.

Kind
Government bill
Sponsor
Sean Fraser, Minister of Justice (Central Nova)
Introduced
in the House of Commons
Last activity

Where it stands

  1. ProposedOct 27
  2. Being debatedsince Oct 27 Exact stageAt second reading in the House of Commons · since October 27, 2026MPs or senators are debating it in the chamber where it started.
  3. Almost law
  4. Law

First debate in the House: 1 day so far

  1. First reading in the House done

    Before the House on 1 sitting day,

  2. Second reading in the House now

    Before the House on 1 sitting day, · 2 debates here

  3. Committee in the House not yet

  4. Report stage in the House not yet

  5. Third reading in the House not yet

  6. First reading in the Senate not yet

  7. Second reading in the Senate not yet

  8. Third reading in the Senate not yet

  9. Royal assent not yet

Exact procedural stages

Officially: At second reading in the House of Commons · since October 27, 2026.

  1. House
  2. Senate
  3. Royal assent

Debates in the House 4

Members who spoke: Conservative 8 Liberal 7 Bloc Québécois 3 Green 1

Second reading 2

  1. Medical Assistance in Dying Safeguards Act

    · Sitting 159 · 27 statements · 24 graded

    11 members spoke

  2. Medical Assistance in Dying Safeguards Act

    · Sitting 159 · 40 statements · 35 graded

    13 members spoke

Time allocation, closure and other motions on the bill 2

  1. Points of Order: Bill C-41-Proposal to Apply Standing Order 69.1

    · Sitting 157 · Point of order · 2 statements

    2 members spoke

  2. Points of Order: Bill C-41-Proposal to Apply Standing Order 69.1

    · Sitting 158 · Point of order · 1 statement

    1 member spoke

Also raised in 4

Question Period, members' statements and other debates where the bill came up.

Show 4

  1. Medical Assistance in Dying

    · Oral Questions · named 1 time

  2. Business of the House

    · Routine Proceedings · named 1 time

  3. Safe Social Media Act

    · Government Orders · named 3 times

  4. Business of the House

    · Oral Questions · named 1 time

Discussion

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Status, stages and votes from LEGISinfo. Debates are linked from the House's own record of what was before it. Grades are the site's analysis of each statement.