Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, that Bill 7, Personal Directives Act, be read for the second time.

Madam Speaker, this bill recognizes and regulates personal directives, commonly known as "living wills." It provides individuals with a legal mechanism for planning for their own possible future incapacity with respect to their health care or other personal matters, and it enables medical practitioners to obtain consent in respect of individuals who lack the capacity to give consent.

Some of the key provisions of the bill are concerned with:

allowing a person, known as a director, to make a personal directive that will only take effect when the director is incapable of making his or her own decisions regarding health care or other personal matters;

providing for the designation of an agent under a personal directive who can, if the director becomes incapacitated, make decisions respecting the director's health care and other personal matters;

providing that a personal directive can be combined with a power of attorney to allow for the comprehensive management of the director's health care and his or her personal, legal and financial affairs;

providing that the director will have been determined to lack capacity when two persons who are either medical practitioners or psychologists declare that he or she lacks capacity;

providing that an agent cannot make certain specified health care decisions without the granting of specific authority in the personal directive;

giving health care providers authority to render emergency medical services to a director who appears to lack capacity;

giving the Supreme Court the power to review personal directives and make orders related to them in the case of uncertainty or dispute;

providing immunity from liability for agents and health care providers for decisions made in good faith;

providing for offences for the destruction or alteration of a personal directive, improper use of personal information, improper influence and illegal acts by agents;

authorizing the making of regulations; and,

making consequential amendments to the Guardianship and Trusteeship Act and the Mental Health Act.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. The motion is in order. To the principle of the bill. Mr. Braden.

Bill Braden

Great Slave

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would like to stand and speak in support of this bill, and very sincerely in support of this bill. Over my past experience as an MLA, the need for this kind of legislation has been brought to my attention in at least a couple of situations. Some of them, Madam Speaker, have been very painful or protracted situations that families have felt because family members have been incapacitated through illness or injury. The existence of this kind of legislation may have, and in these cases would very likely have, resulted in a much less painful and difficult situation for these families. So this is a very needed and necessary legislation. It’s very welcome legislation. I believe also, Madam Speaker, that it will be welcomed by practitioners in the medical and the legal areas as well as individuals and families, because this will make the administration of their duties so much more straightforward and less painful in these situations. So this is good legislation and I look forward to dealing with it in standing committee, Social Programs, and reporting back to the House in the fall. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. To the principle of the bill.

Question.

Question is being called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried