Discussion · Government Orders
Leslyn Lewis Conservative
“I want the minister to tell me who decides if a person lives or dies when they cannot make decisions for themselves and did not leave clear instructions.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech and the tone of his speech. There are so many people in Canada who are very interested in this subject. When I was a lawyer, I often had to take people’s directives, when doing a will, of what they wanted if they ended up in a situation where there was no prospect of recovery, they were on life support and their life was completely diminished. They set those standards, and it was very clear to a practitioner what those standards were. My question for the minister is, what happens when those standards are not there? Who is the arbiter of a person’s life? Who makes those decisions, whether a person can live or die at that particular time, when they do not have the capacity to do that?”
Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech and the tone of his speech. There are so many people in Canada who are very interested in this subject. When I was a lawyer, I often had to take people’s directives, when doing a will, of what they wanted if they ended up in a situation where there was no prospect of recovery, they were on life support and their life was completely diminished. They set those standards, and it was very clear to a practitioner what those standards were. My question for the minister is, what happens when those standards are not there? Who is the arbiter of a person’s life? Who makes those decisions, whether a person can live or die at that particular time, when they do not have the capacity to do that?