Check List for Legislators: Towards a Canadian Approach to End-of-Life Choices

In this article, the author reviews Supreme Court of Canada and European Court of Human Rights case law to identify the factors the Parliament of Canada should take into account when it creates legislation regulating physician-assisted suicide. He also highlights the Criminal Code provisions that currently govern the provision of assistance in a suicide. The author concludes that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires a unique Canadian approach to the subject of physician-assisted suicide--an approach that provides adequate safeguards to protect the vulnerable, adequate oversight to ensure transparency, and adequate accommodation for the ethical and moral concerns of physicians to respect their human rights.