What was Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) (2015)?

Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) is the 2015 Supreme Court of Canada decision that struck down the Criminal Code prohibition on physician-assisted dying as a violation of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The unanimous 9-0 decision overturned the court's earlier ruling in Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General) (1993) and reframed the constitutional treatment of end-of-life choices. The Carter decision led directly to Bill C-14 (medical assistance in dying), which received Royal Assent on June 17, 2016.

The case was brought by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association on behalf of Lee Carter and others. Lee Carter had accompanied her mother Kay Carter to Switzerland in 2010 for an assisted death after Kay was diagnosed with spinal stenosis, a degenerative spinal condition. Gloria Taylor, who had ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), was a co-plaintiff and obtained an individual constitutional exemption at trial. Justice Lynn Smith of the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the Criminal Code prohibitions violated section 7. The British Columbia Court of Appeal reversed; the Supreme Court of Canada restored and expanded the trial judgment.

The Supreme Court applied a refined section 7 analysis. The court held that the absolute prohibition on assisted dying deprived suffering individuals of their right to life (by inducing some to take their own lives prematurely while still capable), liberty, and security of the person. The deprivation violated the principles of fundamental justice because it was overbroad: it captured persons who could give clear consent and who were suffering intolerably. The infringement could not be saved under section 1. The court suspended the declaration of invalidity for 12 months (later extended to 16 months) to allow Parliament to enact a regulatory regime.

Bill C-14 received Royal Assent on June 17, 2016, establishing federal MAID rules requiring an adult capable of consent, a grievous and irremediable medical condition, an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability, enduring suffering intolerable to the individual, and a reasonably foreseeable natural death. The reasonably-foreseeable-death requirement was struck down by the Quebec Superior Court in Truchon v. Canada (Attorney General) (2019), and Bill C-7 of 2021 amended the federal regime to allow MAID where natural death is not reasonably foreseeable, with additional safeguards. MAID for mental illness as the sole underlying condition has been deferred, most recently to March 2027 by Bill C-62 of 2024.