B.C. committee’s advice on doctor-assisted dying on hold while feds mull issue

VICTORIA – Lawmakers in British Columbia have suspended a committee’s recommendations on physician-assisted dying while they wait for guidance from the new federalgovernment.

Health Minister Terry Lake says it only makes sense to see the direction that Justin Trudeau’s government takes after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the law banning doctor-assisted dying.

The B.C. committee made up of New Democrat and Liberal members recommended that access to physician-assisted dying be available provincewide from care homes to hospices and palliative care.

New Democrat committee member Judy Darcy says the suspension is an affront to the democratic process and that the committee’s difficult work has simply been bypassed.

But Lake says it would be premature to jump into a policy when all the provinces have to work closely withphysicians and the federal government to obey the law.

The Supreme Court gave the federal government until February to change the law, and Lake says it’s unclear if Trudeau’s government will be asking for an extension to that deadline.