The Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) is pleased to announce publication of a major new report: The Last Stages of Life for First Nation, Métis and Inuit Peoples: Preliminary Recommendations for Law Reform. The report shares findings from a series of engagements between the LCO and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities across Ontario, along with the many who provide health services in those communities.
The LCO committed to Indigenous engagement as a distinct but complimentary part of our Last Stages of Life Project. The project considers how the law shapes the rights, choices, and quality of life for persons who are dying and those who support them. The LCO sought engagements on the last stages of life out of the acknowledgement that health care for Indigenous peoples in Canada is in dire need of reform along with the laws that shape it.
The project is guided by recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. In 2015 the TRC confirmed the need to recognize, elevate and integrate self-determined Indigenous legal orders and traditions within Canada’s justice system.
The LCO sought respectful relations based on the revitalization of Indigenous traditions and laws. Our approach was to listen and learn how different Indigenous communities live “the last stages of life” through their experiences, values, culture, practices, and traditional laws.
This mosaic of experiences is recounted in the words spoken throughout this paper by 118 participants from Indigenous groups and communities across Ontario. Their words help establish a set of terms and approaches different and distinct from colonial law and policy. It creates space to critique, contest and de-colonize existing Canadian and Ontario law, and to think about new and different arrangements.
The LCO acknowledges that it is only from this place of Indigenous self-definition, and through the revitalization of Indigenous laws and tradition, that the reform and creation of new law is possible.
Crucially, the LCO further acknowledges that it is not our role to speak for or on behalf of Indigenous communities. This report does not purport to do so. We are instead guided by the Terms of Reference set by an independent Indigenous Engagement Advisory Group. In their view the LCO’s expertise is best suited to:
Hear how diverse and distinct Indigenous histories, cultures, traditions, practices, and laws intersect with and experience the colonial health care system in the “last stages of life;”
Trace these experiences back to specific provisions in colonial Canadian and Ontario health law (and other relevant intersecting laws) to understand how these laws impact the health and wellness of Indigenous communities, particularly regarding care in the last stages of life;
Highlight how these intersections suggest plural legal and intercultural spaces for future law reform conversations to take place between Indigenous communities, Ontario, and the Federal government in a way that nurtures self-determination and legal co-creation consistent with reconciliation; and
Compile these findings in this report which may be read alongside – but distinct from – the LCO’s Last Stages of Life: Final Report.
Accordingly, the report identifies a series of “promising directions for future law reform conversations,” including:
The need to reconceive health care consent, capacity, and substitute decision-making;
The impact of jurisdiction on Jordan’s Principle and equitable access to health care;
Facilitating traditional practices governing death in the home and natural burials;
Measuring health care performance with Indigenous practices and values;
Better supporting Indigenous health professionals, family members, and caregivers in community; and
Access to Indigenous hospices in community.
The report includes 36 recommendations as “promising directions for future law reform conversations.” The full report is available here.
For more information, please contact: Law Commission of Ontario Email: LawCommission@lco-cdo.org Web: www.lco-cdo.org Twitter: @LCO_CDO Tel: (416) 650-8406 Toll-free: 1 (866) 950-8406
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