In Carter v Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada specified that physicians who objected to MAID on moral and/or religious grounds could not be compelled to participate in it directly. However, it left open the quesion of whether they might be obligated to refer patients to other physicians willing to engage in MAID. Bill C-14, in turn, leaves it up to individual provinces to regulate referral. The Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group on Physician-Assisted Dying recommended that physicians with such objections be required to engage in referrals. As of the time of writing, not every province has adopetd the same requirements on this front, with Ontario and Alberta, for example, providing starkly opposite pictures of how the health-care system is to manage MAID. As we have senn, Ontario counrts have mandated that physicians cannot claim the feedom of conscience exemption from making referrals for MAID, whereas in Alberta physicians with conscientious objections are not obliged to provide referrals (the province having set up a telephone hotline for patients wishing to recieve confidential advice on MAID and rererrals to willing physicians).
(p. 136)
