The Ethics Committee deals with ethical issues related to disability which are brought to the attention of MLPD. The roles of the committee are:

1.	To monitor public policy developments in Manitoba which raise specific Ethical and Human Rights concerns for persons with disabilities.
2.	To develop recommendations for the MLPD Provincial Council on ethics and public policy.
3.	To share the perspective and work of the committee in ethics forums.
4.	To assist the MLPD to inform grassroots consumers about ethical issues and assist the MLPD in developing opportunities to increase consumer understanding of how ethical issues impact on persons with disabilities.
5.	To assist the MLPD Council to participate in national forums on ethics.

The Ethics Committee has had a very busy year. We spent the majority of time developing a response to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba's statement on withholding and withdrawing of life sustaining treatment. To this end, we have written several letters to the College outlining the issues of concern regarding the statement and asking them to consider our suggested revisions. We are currently working on the development of an alternative statement. We are planning to convene a panel of lawyers and experts to discuss the CPSM statement. This session will be of interest to MLPD members and participants from the disability community.

In the fall of 2009, we attended the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition's symposium at the Victoria Inn in Winnipeg. Two of our Ethics Committee members recently returned from a meeting of this same coalition in Washington, DC. We participated in Lunch and Learn sessions at St. Boniface Hospital dealing with ethical issues.

We explored the feasibility of joining a coalition of organizations to seek standing to appear at the Brian Sinclair inquest scheduled for the fall of 2009. Brian Sinclair is an Aboriginal individual with a disability who sat in a hospital waiting room for 34 hours. He died there without receiving treatment. At this time, the MLPD has insufficient financial resources to hire lawyers to officially represent us at the inquest. However, we are exploring the possibility of being in the courtroom during the inquest and developing a position statement to communicate with media representatives covering the inquest.
We continue to be on the lookout for ethical issues that come to the attention of MLPD and to get involved where-ever we can.