Will Another Trudeau Betrayal Be Set Right?

Relax, Liberals. Then justice minister Jody was also neck deep in this.

'This' is the Carter decision on assisted dying. The decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, the most compelling decision of a nation of laws.  More compelling still because it was a per curiam decision. Not just that nine justices agreed. Per Curiam means 'one voice.' There was only one judgment. It was the judgment of the entire court. For the laity, it doesn't get any stronger than that.

The Carter decision is no mumble-jumble of legalese. The beauty of it, what makes it so compelling, is that anyone can read it and make full sense of it. The decision extends the protections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to what is, for many, the most horrible ordeal of their lives - death. The gravity of the subject matter, our right to die on our own terms, makes the decision so visceral that it floods the mind with notions of compassion, justice and decency as you pass from paragraph to paragraph.

Justin Trudeau deliberately put himself above and outside of the law by the whittled down legislation his government passed that deprived many of the worst afflicted to access to death with dignity, death on their own terms, painless and compassionate death. I knew right then and there that this guy was a huckster, perhaps even a monster who would throw many of our fellow citizens to the wolves for political advantage. It saddened me to think he was the progeny of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Now a Quebec court has laid the foundation for a challenge of Trudeau's truncated and cruel assisted dying legislation.

From Day 1, it has been clear that the legal requirement that only people whose natural death was imminent would be eligible for assisted death was unduly restrictive and discriminatory. 

What we have, Canada, is not so much a right to die as a right to die if you’re already on the verge of death. 

But that could soon, and mercifully, change. In a landmark ruling, Madam Justice Christine Baudouin of the Quebec Superior Court invalidated the “reasonably foreseeable” death clause of federal law and a similar section of Quebec law that says people must “be at end of life” to access assisted death. 

She said the restrictions were unconstitutional because they infringed the equality rights of the two claimants in the case, Nicole Gladu, a 73-year-old with postpolio syndrome, and Jean Truchon, a 51-year-old with cerebral palsy. Both were denied assisted death despite living with what they described as persistent, unbearable suffering, and they argued that was discriminatory. 

Justice Baudouin agreed: “The reasonably foreseeable natural death requirement deprives both individuals and claimants of their autonomy and their choice to end their lives at the time and in the manner desired,” she wrote in the 198-page judgment.

Who condemns a person to a long, protracted death of unbearable suffering? That would be Justin Trudeau. He should suffer the same fate. Only that's for the plebs.

Say what you will, I'm sure Slap Happy Andy would be worse, but someone who aspires to be prime minister yet believes he has the right to go outside the law and place himself above the law to trample on Canadians' Charter rights, particularly on something as important as the right to a decent death, is not fit to lead the country.

So make fun of Elizabeth May all you like but her incautious comments don't hold a candle to Justin Trudeau's abuse of power.

In case you can't be bothered to read the decision, just try one paragraph:

Insofar as they prohibit physician-assisted dying for competent adults who seek such assistance as a result of a grievous and irremediable medical condition that causes enduring and intolerable suffering, ss. 241 (b) and 14 of the Criminal Code deprive these adults of their right to life, liberty and security of the person under s. 7 of the Charter . The right to life is engaged where the law or state action imposes death or an increased risk of death on a person, either directly or indirectly. Here, the prohibition deprives some individuals of life, as it has the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely, for fear that they would be incapable of doing so when they reached the point where suffering was intolerable. The rights to liberty and security of the person, which deal with concerns about autonomy and quality of life, are also engaged. An individual’s response to a grievous and irremediable medical condition is a matter critical to their dignity and autonomy. The prohibition denies people in this situation the right to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care and thus trenches on their liberty. And by leaving them to endure intolerable suffering, it impinges on their security of the person.