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The matter is likely to raise some tough issues for corrections officials, said Catherine Latimer, who leads the John Howard Society of Canada, which advocates for a “effective, just and humane” corrections system.

Their mandate is to protect the lives of these men and women who are serving sentences, so their mindset is to keep everybody going

“Their mandate is to protect the lives of these men and women who are serving sentences, so their mindset is to keep everybody going,” Latimer said. “I think it will be difficult for them.”

It may be best for an independent body to oversee the matter, she said.

Trudo Lemmens, Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Toronto, has cautioned against Canada adopting Belgium’s open-ended approach to assisted dying.

As the Van den Bleeken case demonstrates, he said context needs to be taken into account.

“The prison system is quite unique because it’s an environment in which there is a lot of anxiety, a lot of suffering, a lot of medical issues, a lot of mental health issues,” Lemmens said.

“Are there particular components that make the person who is asking for physician-assisted dying more vulnerable? Is this indeed a prisoner who is suffering from a terminal illness? Could it be that the prisoner is asking just because he or she is in pain and there no adequate pain relief, because the prison system is not accommodating a more humane way of dying?”

Lisa Silver, who teaches criminal law at the University of Calgary, wonders whether prisoners will have the means to give their informed consent. That goes beyond mental health and competency — do they have the same access to medical and legal advice in making their end-of-life decisions?

The bill being debated in Ottawa, C-14, would amend the legislation that covers prisons — the Corrections and Conditional Release Act — so an investigation is not required if a prisoner dies with medical assistance.

But Silver said she would like to see the law clearly outline how the issue would play out in prisons.

“Why didn’t the government take the time to really look at the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and amend it so that this can be meaningful?”