Canada’s lawyers want to see the Trudeau Liberals expand their restrictive new law on assisted dying.

A statement from the Canadian Bar Association says mature minors, people suffering strictly from psychological illnesses and those diagnosed with competence-eroding conditions such as dementia should be allowed to get medical help to end their suffering.

But even as lawyers seek to extend the right to medical assistance in dying, the federal government is maintaining that the facts on which the Supreme Court decided to strike down the ban on assisted dying are no longer applicable.

In a response to a court challenge of the new law, government lawyers argue that the top court’s findings of fact in the landmark Carter case last year applied only in the context of the absolute ban on physician-assisted dying that existed at the time.