The lawsuit was filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Wednesday
The second track of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying law, which provides assisted suicide to people with disabilities whose deaths are not “reasonably foreseeable,” has resulted in premature deaths and is discriminatory towards people with disabilities, a new lawsuit alleges.
Filed Wednesday with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the Charter challenge asks the court to strike down track 2 of the MAiD law. The lawsuit argues that providing individuals with assisted death solely based on their disability is unconstitutional and that assisted suicide should only be available to people when their natural deaths are reasonably foreseeable.
"We are witnessing an alarming trend where people with disabilities are seeking assisted suicide due to social deprivation, poverty, and lack of essential supports," Krista Carr, executive vice president of Inclusion Canada, said in a statement issued Thursday.
"This law also sends a devastating message that life with a disability is a fate worse than death, undermining decades of work toward equity and inclusion. It’s time to put an end to helping people with disabilities commit suicide and start supporting them to live,” Carr added.
Inclusion Canada is part of a coalition of disability organizations behind the lawsuit, including the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, Indigenous Disability Canada, and DAWN Canada. Two individuals who allege they have been harmed by track 2 of the MAiD law are also plaintiffs.
Carr told Law Times on Thursday that the lawsuit is not challenging track 1 of MAiD, which is available to individuals whose deaths are reasonably foreseeable. Track 2, on the other hand, “is only available to one particular group of people: people with disabilities,” Carr says.
“So, one Charter-protected group only has access to dying by lethal injection, assisted suicide funded by our government when they are not already dying.”
She cited a story that Heather Walkus, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, shared at a press conference in Toronto announcing the lawsuit Thursday morning. Walkus has several disabilities and went to a physiotherapist after she fell out of a taxi and bruised her hip, Carr says. The physiotherapist asked Walkus if she had considered MAiD.
“This is happening regularly for people with disabilities, so there's significant harm that’s caused just by the existence of the law,” Carr says. “We have one group of people that society has said, well, your lives we see as being so unbearable and so unworthy that we're going to offer you this option of dying – not an option to get support that you need to live on an equal basis with others, but support you need to end your life.”
Lawyers at Birenbaum Law and Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP represent the coalition’s legal team.
