MONTREAL—The Quebec government is examining whether to let people make advance requests for assisted suicide, which could give people with dementia access to the medical procedure.

Provincial Health Minister Gaétan Barrette said Friday he wants an expert group to consider expanding the criteria under which patients can get the treatment under Quebec’s pioneering euthanasia law, which came into force in December 2015.

“I don’t believe that the Quebec population wants us to go fast,” he said in Quebec City. “I think that the population is asking us to start the reflection in the most prudent manner possible.”

Quebec will also ask the courts to clarify a section of the federal assisted-suicide law that says the procedure should only be available to those whose deaths are “reasonably foreseeable.”

The lack of definition around this term poses a “major problem” for health professionals asked to administer the procedure by patients, he said.

The move by the Quebec government comes less than a year after Bill C-14, the federal assisted-suicide legislation, came into effect across Canada.

Barrette said he was persuaded to launch the lengthy and controversial process to consider expanded access because of the larger-than-expected number of demands in the province for a hastened death.

“As a doctor and a minister, I think that Quebeckers are ready,” he said, noting that the consultation process is expected to take at least a year.

Some advocacy groups have criticized the Quebec and federal assisted dying laws for offering end-of-life patients with diminished mental capacities a way to access assisted suicide. Both pieces of legislation state that an individual must give informed consent to have the procedure when their deaths are at hand.

“Our supporters were heartbroken last year when they learned that the federal assisted dying law would unfairly restrict choice for individuals with dementia and other conditions that rob victims of their mental capacity,” said Cory Ruf, a spokesperson for Dying with Dignity Canada.

In a statement, the Federation of Quebec Alzheimer Societies said it is opposed to allowing people with dementia to make advance requests for assisted suicide because of the often long and changing nature of the condition.

“It is difficult or impossible to know what the person with dementia comes to value over time, especially if those values are at odds with previously expressed desires,” the group said.

“Life doesn’t end when the disease begins. People with dementia remain whole individuals right through till their last days.”

In December, the federal government announced it had launched a review of Bill C-14 that would examine issues around requests for assisted suicide made by mature minors, patients for whom mental illness is the only medical condition and advance requests for a doctor-assisted death.

The three federal studies are to be completed and tabled in Parliament by December 2018.

Barrette said there is a delicate and nuanced debate to be had on the expansion of Quebec’s legislation.

“I don’t think that people want medically assisted death through an advanced request at the first sign of inaptitude. At the other extreme I think that, yes, they want to have access to it. But between those two positions there are an infinite number of possibilities,” Barrette said.

He added that he was also troubled to hear of two recent cases of individuals who took extreme measures after being unable to access assisted suicide in the province.

One involved a man who is facing second-degree murder charges in the death of his wife, 60-year-old Jocelyne Lizotte. The woman had Alzheimer’s disease but was refused a doctor-assisted death, according to family members.

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Another man, Jean Brault, who had been paralyzed for 42 years, undertook a 53-day hunger strike in 2016 before he was judged to be in a condition that met the criteria for the procedure to be carried out.

“The laws are made to protect the public. I find it cruel to be unable to act in the face of these situations,” Barrette said.

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