Two organizations are allowed to intervene in a court case involving a Calgary father attempting to prevent his daughter from accessing medical assistance in dying (MAID), a judge ruled Tuesday.
The 27-year-old woman was set to receive MAID on Feb. 1 but her father has engaged in a four-month legal battle in an attempt to prevent that from happening.
The father argued his daughter does not have any medical conditions that would qualify her for MAID and wants the courts to intervene.
The father wants the courts to get to the bottom of how she was approved and to prevent her from accessing MAID.
A publication ban protects the identities of both the father and daughter. CBC News is referring to the father as W.V. and the daughter as M.V.
Right now, the case is before the Alberta Court of Appeal after W.V. lost his battle in the Court of King’s Bench when Justice Colin Feasby ruled in March that the daughter’s right to dignity and autonomy outweighed the “serious issues” raised by her father.
Appeal arguments are set to take place in October.
Interveners
In her notice of appeal, Sarah Miller, the father’s lawyer, asked the court to reinstate the injunction preventing M.V.’s access to MAID until the application for judicial review of the approval process can be heard.
Miller also wants to force the daughter to answer questions about her MAID application and medical conditions.
Two organizations — Inclusion Canada and Euthanasia Prevention Coalition — applied for intervener status, which was approved by Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Willie de Wit on Tuesday.
M.V.’s lawyer opposed the application to allow interveners at the October hearing.
Inclusion Canada, formerly known as the Canadian Association for Community Living, is an organization that advocates for adults with disabilities and their families.
“It has a substantial interest in this matter as persons with disabilities are not categorically excluded from eligibility for MAID,” wrote de Wit.
Expertise on end-of-life health care
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has “also has been granted intervener status because of its expertise on matters related to end-of-life health care,” de Wit wrote.
The interveners are allowed to address three issues, including whether the courts can weigh in on decisions made in assessing an applicant’s eligibility for MAID.
After M.V. was approved for MAID and one day before she was scheduled to die, W.V. got a temporary injunction preventing his daughter’s death.
He asked the judge to order a judicial review, which would examine how his daughter was approved for MAID.
Dad believes daughter healthy
The father also wanted the interim injunction preventing M.V. from accessing MAID to be extended while the review takes place.
At the same time, the daughter applied to have the injunction set aside so she could proceed with her approved MAID.
W.V. believes his daughter is generally healthy, and his lawyer argued in court during an injunction hearing that any physical symptoms she presents are a result of psychological conditions.
The daughter’s only known diagnoses are autism and ADHD, but those conditions do not qualify her for MAID.
‘Tie-breaker doctor’
Two doctors or nurse practitioners have to approve a patient for MAID.
Only one of the two doctors initially approached by M.V. signed her MAID approval. The other denied the application.
A third “tie-breaker” doctor, as described in court, was then offered to M.V. That doctor signed the MAID approval paperwork.
M.V. did not have to disclose any details of her health issues to the courts.
But to qualify, the two doctors had to have found that she had a “grievous and irremediable” medical condition that causes “intolerable” suffering.