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Some Quebec doctors are likely to soon become the first in Canada to legally help end their patients’ lives, the head of the province’s medical regulator said Tuesday after the Quebec euthanasia law cleared a key legal hurdle.

Dr. Charles Bernard, president of the Collège des Medecins, said he is aware of patients who want a doctor’s help to die, and he believes some physicians are ready to make history by offering it.

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“It’s good news for patients in the province of Quebec, and I think it’s reassuring to the doctors,” Bernard said in an interview after the province’s Court of Appeal upheld the new law. “There are some patients who have been waiting for this for a few weeks, a few months, so they’re anxious to be able to have that care.”

As recently as a few days ago, the governing body urged physicians to tread carefully amid continued legal uncertainty.

A lower court had found the new legislation in contravention of the federal Criminal Code, which effectively bans assisted dying, and halted it temporarily at the request of a group of anti-euthanasia doctors.