So Much for Sunny Ways

It's a safe bet that the Trudeau government's politicized assisted dying law is being met with the same howls of derision in law schools across Canada as it is being spurned by our superior courts.

It's bad law. There's not even any argument. It's the very sort of thing we used to get from the Harper gang.

It speaks more for the integrity of the Trudeau government than anything else. They are playing politics at the expense of Canadians suffering from irremediable, unendurable conditions. That's beyond immoral and it is utterly inexcusable, unforgivable.

It's no wonder they can't tell the truth about it. They literally mock the afflicted and their suffering where that suits their partisan purposes.

Every lawyer in the country worth his salt sees through Trudeau's scam. It's that obvious. Lest there be any doubt, however, even the slightest shred, you can take it from the legendary Peter Hogg, for decades the leading expert on Canadian constitutional law.

Peter Hogg — who literally wrote the book on constitutional law in Canada, a text frequently cited by the Supreme Court — says Bill C-14 is inconsistent with the top court's landmark ruling known as the Carter decision last year, which struck down the ban on assisted dying as a violation of the charter right to life, liberty and security of the person.

Hogg is among the witnesses scheduled to appear today before the Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee to discuss the bill.

In speaking notes prepared for the committee and obtained by The Canadian Press, Hogg notes that the Supreme Court specifically said Parliament could respond to its ruling "should they so choose, by enacting legislation consistent with the constitutional parameters set out in these reasons."

...If C-14 is enacted in its current form, Hogg says, "the class of entitled persons would no longer include people whose suffering is not an end-of-life condition."

"It is incredible to me that the court in Carter, when it called for legislation by Parliament 'consistent with the constitutional parameters set out in these reasons,' was envisaging legislation that would narrow the class of entitled persons."

...If the bill is enacted with the near-death provisions still intact, Hogg says "it can be safely predicted that a member of the newly excluded class" — someone who meets the Carter criteria but is not close to death — will challenge the constitutionality of the new law.

And he suggests the result of such a challenge is inevitable: "What judge would not strike down the end-of-life provisions?"

Judging by how superior courts in three provinces have handled it so far, the answer to Peter Hogg's question would be "none."