Last June, Roland Rouleau waited until his wife left the house before firing an old hunting rifle twice into his stomach.
But it wasn't suicide, said Sylvie Coulombe, Rouleau's partner, at the public hearings held by a special committee on dying with dignity in Montreal.
"It was voluntary euthanasia because he could no longer stand the pain," Coulombe said. "He needed to find a way to act before becoming a complete prisoner of his body."
Euthanasia and assisted suicide are illegal in Canada and, barring a dramatic change in Ottawa, the hearings won't change that, committee chair Liberal MNA Geoff Kelley said earlier at the launch of the hearings.
Rouleau's family members — 15 in total — made an emotional plea Tuesday for a change to the law so others in similar circumstances don't have to make anguished decisions about dying alone without being able to say goodbye.
"It's a testimony to his memory . . . something that he believed in," said his sister Jeannine Rouleau-Auger.
"If he was still alive, he'd be here testifying himself," said his daughter Dacha Rouleau-Dumont.
Rouleau, 59, of Abitibi, had multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease that took over his body until he was unable to move without a wheelchair; he couldn't garden, walk in the woods or read.
A member of the Dying with Dignity Association, Rouleau spent the last three years of his life unsuccessfully looking for a doctor to help end his life. He even researched a trip to Switzerland. "I would wake up in the night and see him crying," Coulombe said.
Before he lost consciousness after pulling the trigger, Rouleau called 911 for an ambulance to spare his wife the discovery of his body. But Rouleau survived. At the hospital emergency room, doctors wanted to operate to save his life.
Rouleau maintained that he wanted to die, Coulombe recalled, but he was told that the right to refuse treatment does not apply to suicide cases.
Finally, a psychiatrist judged Rouleau able to make his own decisions. "He was relieved, I could see it in his eyes. He died in my arms," Coulombe said. "And I kept asking him, 'Are you sure you don't want to change your mind?' and he always said, 'No, I don't want to change my mind.' "
In planning his death, Rouleau had written letters to his children, wife and mother, telling them that he was happy.
The Rouleau family suggested a framework on assisted suicide and euthanasia must include written demands from a patient and never a doctor, be available only to those suffering from incurable and debilitating illnesses, supported by medical and psychological evaluations, and only after a long delay to rule out other solutions.
Later, however, the commission heard a much different plea from Monique David on behalf of her father, 86, who became despondent following a heart attack last summer.
"I heard him, every day for six months, say that he wanted to die," David said. "He lost his autonomy and he was very proud of that. From one day to the other he became completely dependant on my mother and on the children and it became a constant source of anxiety."
Her once-optimistic father was experiencing what the Canadian Association of Palliative care described as the four main reasons patients want to die, David said: Pain and physical suffering; the need to control the illness, his life and his body; the desire to not be a burden to anyone; and finally, depression and psychological distress linked to his illness.
"For sure, my father would not be here today," David said, had the legal system permitted mercy killing.
But every time he said he wanted to die, David told her father that he was not a burden. "My mother, my two brothers and myself, we made him understand that helping him was for us a way of giving back what he had generously given to us," David said. She reminded him that he has much to offer society.
It took nearly seven months, but David's father no longer speaks of dying. "It's amazing to see what he created in the family — a circle of solidarity."
David asked the commission to examine the meaning of the phrase: "I want to die."
Suffering is part of humanity, she noted, but we shouldn't eliminate the patient along with the suffering. As for decriminalizing euthanasia for extreme and rare cases such as the Rouleau family, David said: "I have a problem with obliging society or an individual to commit murder, or what we are trying to do in Quebec, pass it off as a medical act which I find even worse."
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