{"id":293614,"date":"2016-04-22T17:31:04","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T21:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/2016\/04\/does-bill-c-14-pass-constitutional-muster-a-question-parliament-must-confront\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T15:27:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T19:27:16","slug":"does-bill-c-14-pass-constitutional-muster-a-question-parliament-must-confront","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2016\/04\/does-bill-c-14-pass-constitutional-muster-a-question-parliament-must-confront\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Bill C-14 pass constitutional muster? A question Parliament must confront"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joceyln Downie<\/a> argues that Bill C-14 on medical assistance in dying \u201cmust be amended to become Carter<\/em> and Charter compliant.\u201d There is not enough room here to unpack and weigh each potential justification for reaching such a conclusion. It is nonetheless worthwhile to recognize why a failure to use the Supreme Court of Canada\u2019s parameters in Carter<\/em><\/a> does not automatically invalidate the Bill.<\/p>\n

Although the Court may be the ultimate authority on matters of constitutional interpretation, Parliament\u2014and therefore parliamentarians\u2014must also interpret and apply the Constitution. When it comes to legislating on the matter of medical assistance in dying, Parliament has the benefit of a recent, unanimous decision by the Supreme Court to inform its interpretation. Some argue that because the Bill is narrower than the parameters in Carter<\/em>, it must therefore be unconstitutional. But this is not necessarily true.<\/p>\n

Section 1 of the Charter provides that its rights and freedoms are \u201csubject to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.\u201d The question, then, is whether Bill C-14\u2019s restrictions on the rights affirmed in Carter<\/em> are \u201creasonable limits\u201d that \u201ccan be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the Court held that banning physician-assisted suicide altogether did not qualify as \u201creasonable limits.\u201d It concluded that the blanket prohibition was not \u201cnecessary in order to substantially meet the government\u2019s objective,\u201d and therefore, it was disproportionate.<\/p>\n

Just as the choice about how to characterize the impugned law\u2019s objective was crucial in Carter<\/em>, so too will it be central in any measure of Bill C-14\u2019s constitutionality. What is the government\u2019s objective in limiting the class of persons to those whose \u201cnatural deaths\u201d are \u201creasonably foreseeable\u201d?<\/p>\n

The government would appear to be trying to authorize medical assistance in dying only in circumstances where the patient is already close to death. The Supreme Court did not draw the line at having a terminal condition, but that does not necessarily mean Parliament can\u2019t. What needs to be shown is that restrictions constitute \u201creasonable limits\u201d\u2014not what the Court may view as \u201coptimal\u201d ones.<\/p>\n

The Court in Carter <\/em>noted: \u201cIt is for Parliament and the provincial legislatures to respond, should they so choose, by enacting legislation consistent with the constitutional parameters set out in these reasons.\u201d Importantly, the Court stressed that \u201ccomplex regulatory regimes are better created by Parliament than by the courts.\u201d Moreover, why would the Court be willing to twice extend Parliament\u2019s deadline to tailor a new law, if Carter<\/em> imposed a legislative straitjacket?<\/p>\n

All this implies the Court may be more deferential than critics of Bill C-14 would like it to be, should its constitutionality be challenged. Given the wording in the decision itself, and the fact that legislatures necessarily do have some margin of manoeuvre to make law, Parliament is not shackled to the conditions laid out in Carter<\/em>. At the same time, all members of Parliament have a duty to respect the Canadian constitution. And so what the government needs to do is show that Bill C-14 places \u201creasonable limits\u201d on the section 7 rights affirmed in Carter<\/em> in a manner that is \u201cdemonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly the conditions prescribed in the Bill do not match the parameters set out in Carter<\/em>. Its Charter compliance does not necessarily hinge on this. Indeed, its constitutionality turns on the government making a persuasive case for why its proposed legislation does in fact place reasonable limits on the \u201cright to life, liberty and security of the person.\u201d Leveraging majority advantage is not the same thing as forthright constitutional argument.<\/p>\n

The government needs to show that Bill C-14 does not run roughshod over what the Supreme Court has demarcated as the relevant Charter terrain. Sworn members of Parliament cannot really exercise their moral compass in the upcoming \u201cconscience vote\u201d on the Bill without grappling with the lay of the constitutional land first. What is reasonable and why, in light of the Court\u2019s interpretation of section 7 of the Charter, must therefore be central to Parliament\u2019s debate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

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Joceyln Downie argues that Bill C-14 on medical assistance in dying \u201cmust be amended to become Carter and Charter compliant.\u201d There is not enough room here to unpack and weigh each potential justification for reaching such a conclusion. It is nonetheless worthwhile to recognize why a failure to use the Supreme Court of Canada\u2019s parameters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":293612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[],"class_list":["post-293614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDoes Bill C-14 pass constitutional muster? 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