Federal government appoints panel to review assisted dying but critics fear bias

For an issue so sensitive to both sides of the debate, a more balanced panel would have been more appropriate:

The panel, announced Friday by Justice Minister Peter MacKay and Health Minister Rona Ambrose, will conduct online consultations with Canadians and “key stakeholders” on possible options to the high court’s ruling. It is to report back to the government by late fall, likely after the October federal election.

The panel will focus on which forms of assisted-dying should be permitted — assisted suicide, where a doctor prescribes a lethal dose of a drug the patient takes herself; and voluntary euthanasia, or death by lethal injection — eligibility criteria and safeguards to protect a doctor’s “freedom of conscience” not to participate against his or her moral or religious objections.

Chochinov’s fellow panellists are disability rights lawyer Catherine Frazee, professor emerita at Ryerson University and former chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and Benoit Pelletier, an expert in constitutional law at the University of Ottawa and former Quebec cabinet minister.

Both Chochinov and Frazee were witnesses for the B.C. government in the original case that eventually made its way to the Supreme Court.

… The B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which filed the original lawsuit that led to the landmark ruling, said the government appointments to the panel hint of bias.

“Two of the three members of the panel were actually witnesses for Canada in the case against physician-assisted dying,” said Josh Paterson, executive director of the civil liberties group.

“They’re people who are deeply engaged in the fight to stop physician-assisted dying from being recognized as a right in Canada.”

“I have nothing but respect for either of them in terms of their credentials, and as individuals. But their majority on the panel does for us raise questions on the appearance of bias. There’s just no getting around it.”

Federal government appoints panel to review assisted dying but critics fear bias