[Music] he was diagnosed with ALS early on within days of the diagnosis he said I'm not going to go to the end of [Music] this I went into the stud one day and he said he was I'm I'm just Googling suicide his name was Bill kenet a senior public servant in Ottawa a man accustomed to making weighty decisions but his last was shrouded in secrecy and I remember on uh the 1st of October he came into breakfast and said it's time to set a date October the 20th Monday [Music] 2:00 it's been 20 years since
another Canadian also dying of ALS forced the right to die debate onto the national stage when she asked a simple yet profound question whose body is this who owns my life 20 years since the Supreme Court of Canada told Sue Rodriguez it was illegal legal for a doctor to end her life how do we rationalize carving out the terminally ill from the disabled she too died in early death shrouded in secrecy now one of the judges who ruled against Sue Rodriguez so long ago says the federal government needs to act if your question was would
you like to see Parliament decide something on this my answer is yes poll after poll shows the majority of Canadians support the decriminalization of assisted suicide yet we're stuck in limbo in this country caught between courts reluctant to take the lead and politicians unwilling to risk backlash come election day but whether or not politicians choose to take part that discussion is happening and sometimes the voices come from unexpected places two decades ago he was the new guy on the bench the Supreme Court of Canada when one of the biggest cases of his career would come
along Jack major recalls the Rodriguez case as haunting I don't think any of the nine judges had anything but sympathy for this woman I can't recall anybody being absolutely firm and the Judgment took quite a while to come out because because I think [Music] uh judges had a difficult time but I would suspect some of my former colleagues may have thought one way one day in a different way the next day till they finally you finally come to a conclusion and you can't sit on the fence forever in the end it was a split decision
5 to4 against Rodriguez justice major sided with the majority still he's emphatic the court sent a message to Parliament modernize the law on assisted suicide if your question was would you like to see Parliament decide something on this my answer is yes they should decide something that's what they're there for so they know it's a an issue of public concern debated in the house have a vote I mean what's Parliament for Bill kennet always had a healthy respect for the law he played it by the book his whole career first as a deputy Minister of
Finance later as Inspector General of banks under several Prime Ministers his retirement unfolded as planned to until at age 74 he was diagnosed with ALS unwilling to die slowly and painfully he resolved to end his own life the nagging question how could he protect his family from the law I remember there so there were several conversations with the lawyer and several meetings and I remember at one meeting I asked the lawyer if I could hold Bill's hand and he said yes I that was okay during 50 years of marriage bill and Valerie shared everything but
not this bill hid the details of his death from his wife and adult children so they wouldn't be implicated I think it was a very um hard and lonely thing for him to do to make these decisions the awful thought was an attempt and then left with a dreadfully damaged human being and where do we go from there if the mind is damaged and the body is damaged and there's still life what happens then that was I didn't spend much time there I didn't want to over the next year Bill's body declined yet for Valerie
it was like a second honeymoon the trivial no longer mattered a state she calls the radiance of the ordinary Mary right up to the last day well the last day was I look back and uh nothing too unusual about it which is perhaps unusual in itself we didn't talk about they started in in the normal way and then I believe I uh went out to plant some daffodil bulbs and he read in the sun room as he usually did with the cat on his lap we didn't uh we didn't talk about what was going to
happen later in the day we didn't need to in the early afternoon that autumn day Bill and Valerie sat down to watch a video of their lives together along with their children and two members of dying with Dignity when it ended Bill very calmly said I think it's time and got up and uh a few minutes later he was dead it was peaceful it was quick it was as he wished on his timing in his own home with his family at his side and I held his hand and let him go Bill canid ended his
life just one year after diagnosis worried if he waited longer he'd lose the ability to do it himself the law simply wasn't on his side after the Rodriguez decision the issue went nowhere in this country for years but not in the rest of the world eight jurisdictions did legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide four in Europe four in the US then this year the Quebec government announced a bold plan to pass a euthanasia Bill breathing new life into the right to die movement in Canada when Health Minister Veron tabled her end of life Bill she had
the support of all three political parties a first in this country the bill would allow medical Aid in dying not assisted suicide in other words doctors would administer the Fatal dose uh for us uh it was very important that the uh Medical Aid in dying be uh a kind of care the the the purpose is is not to end somebody's life the purpose is to alleviate the suffering and it is the only the only way to do it because pallative care can't do the job in some circumstances that plays well at home more than 80%
of quebecers are in favor and the bill is expected to pass by Year's End still there are Physicians such as Dr Gerald vanp who say euthanasia is simply wrong and the lethal injection is a slippery slope there's a lot of abuse there's a whole Lobby in Belgium now the the euthanasia Lobby that's pushing for to have this available for people with Alzheimer's disease there's all kinds of Badness happening I I don't think it's a good law and that we should develop an enlightened policy for dealing with these issues Joel backin a constitutional law expert at
the University of British Columbia sees it as a creative but futile attempt to recast the debate as a health matter not a criminal one it's black and white that if there's a conflict between a provincial law and a federal law the federal law will prevail the question of what a conflict is there's some elasticity there but it's difficult for me to see the court finding no conflict if a law says it's okay to have assisted suicide when the federal law says it's not a better answer to end of life suffering say the those at the
West Island paliative care residence in Kirkland Quebec would be more paliative care the hospice has 23 beds in all where patients such as Geraldine can end their days in Comfort I'm glad it happened that fast and I was ready and I want to come and I'm happy here I'm happy that I came you know that's nice compassion and Care are what the dying need say says the center's director Teresa darar not a lethal injection what we've noticed certainly at the paliative care residence is that when people have their pain managed their symptoms managed um when
their psychological uh spiritual social needs are met um they want to live their final days um and they don't want to make it short they want to have the natural process happen yet very few Canadians have access to this kind of power itive care less than 30% the Ontario research chair in bioethics is Queens University Professor Udo Shu link when it comes to volunteer euthanasia there the situation is very different there the situation he says there's a pressing need for choice because what is true if you improve paliative care you always certainly would have a
smaller number of requests for assisted dying that is obvious will you be able to do away with all such requests just because you improve paliative care any paliative care specialist who would tell you you can do away with all of these requests is ly to your face what's certain Quebec's euthanasia Bill faces years of legal wrangling and it may be a mood question if a different case makes it to the Supreme Court first Gloria Taylor suffered from ALS and last year won a landmark victory in BC that that held she had a constitutional right to
obtain assistance to end her life I Taylor died of an infection without knowing an appeal court overturned that ruling so yet another case is likely heading to the Supreme Court Jo and you guys thank you so much grace and I are just sit here cry this time though Canada's highest court could come to a different conclusion I think what has changed over the last 20 years is uh we've actually got some jurisdictions in the United States and in Europe that have developed uh fairly detailed well-thought out evidence-based approaches to ensuring uh that allowing a right
to assisted suicide does not lead to abuse does not lead to vulnerable people being taken advantage of or exploited that ensures that the decision is a decision that's medically supported that's rational that's deliberate so we actually have experience uh more experience than we did in 1993 former Justice Jack major still maintains it's up to Parliament to make that change and he knows what the first step could be they just have to repeatly repeal the criminal cold section they don't have to do anything else just take it out they don't have to set out when you
can uh end your life just remove the prohibition against assisted suicide be no longer a crime so they'd be bound I think that put some safeguards around and see how they work and from time to time might have to change them but there's countries and states that have implemented this so they can learn from them as to whether it works whether there's abuse [Music] opposition however is fervent a minority for sure only 177% of Canadians think assisted suicide should be a crime according to a recent poll but it's not hard to understand why doing nothing
makes political sense do you as a politician running for reelection do you want to be called a murderer do you want um um comparisons be drawn to the Holocaust and so on and so forth so I don't understand why politicians would rather stay clear of this but that still backs the question of whether Canadians have a constitutional right and that's for the for the Supreme Court of Canada to decide not for politicians when we return when they arrived I um I took one of the young officers to where a bill was and his first question
was how did you find him and I said I was here [Music] with assisted suicide still a crime in Canada police in Perth had no choice but to investigate Bill kennett's death as a homicide when they arrived I um I took one of the young officers to where a bill was and his first question was how did you find him and I said I was here and then he said and you didn't stop him and I said no I think uh I think you're young and I think I said do you know anything about ALS
I think you have to I think you have to learn what this was all about Valerie and the others who'd been present were taken to separate rooms and interrogated the investigation lasted nearly 4 hours no charges were laid I remember saying to the sergeant I understand that you've done due diligence and you've followed your mandate but there has to be a better way there has to be in a a better way that this kind of death can be handled it's not a random unexpected violent traumatic experience it was the ending of a good life in
a peaceful way why it is illegal for someone to assist me to do something that is legal is a paradox I will never understand but more to the point it is a paradox which forces me to suffer greatly both mentally and physically so many years since her voice galvanized popular opinion I'm Dr Donald low now once again a plea from the dying has struck a cord Donald low a doctor best known for saving lives during the SARS crisis asking for the right to end his uh there's a lot of opposition to it a lot of
clinicians oppos have opposition to dying with Dignity I wish they could live in my body for for 24 hours and I think they would change that change that opinion I'm just frustrated not being able to have control of my own life not being able to make the decision for myself when enough is enough you know we've come far enough it's time to to bring it to an end Dr low only 68 when he died himself a member of the baby boom generation defined by its activism during the 1960s by its power to bring about change
a generation now ready says Udo Shu link to fight for one last right the one common feature of all the their political activism really is extending individual liberties as far as self-regarding actions are concerned that's the crucial issue control over my body well if you are fighting for control over your body you certainly want to ensure that you control what's happening to you towards the end of your life this is why these people are usually powerful because right now that's where they're at it's the last and I say it's not in in in a in
a in a cynical way this is the last big battle they have ahead of them because this is the next Generation basically that is facing death so it is not a big surprise that the push is very powerful coming next on last right Harriet Scot lived her whole life in the driver's seat in control and she wanted to end it that way too if I'm in a lot of pain that they're unable to relieve then I going to think about doing something about that myself her death bad plea for assisted suicide people can make free
choice have free will the life and death of Harriet Scott next Monday on the national
