A bill legalising medically-assisted suicide in Canada strikes the right balance between defending fundamental freedoms and protecting against abuses, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Saturday, predicting confusion if it is not approved.The draft legislation, introduced by Trudeau’s Liberal government in April, would allow people with incurable illnesses or disabilities to end their lives with a medical professional’s help, but stopped short of extending the right to minors and the mentally ill.

“There are people who think we should have gone further with this bill, there are people who think we already went too far,” Trudeau told reporters at a Liberal convention in Winnipeg.”Making this first step a responsible, prudent one that gets the balance right between protecting vulnerable Canadians and defending rights and freedoms is what we have focused on and I’m confident that we got that balance right.”

The Supreme Court of Canada overturned a ban on medical-assisted suicide last year and gave the new government until June 6 to come up with a law, adding Canada to the handful of Western countries that allow the practice.Trudeau said he expected Parliament to meet that deadline. He added, however, that failing to do so could lead to uneven access to assisted dying across Canada. If new legislation is not in place by June 6, last year’s Supreme Court ruling comes into effect, allowing assisted dying for those with a “grievous and irremediable” medical condition.

Some Canadians who should have access to medically-assisted death may not get it if doctors conclude there isn’t legal protection for them, while others may gain access to it when they should not, he said.Trudeau’s Liberals hold a majority of seats in Canada’s House of Commons, but not in the Senate. Bills must pass both chambers on their way to becoming law.

Venezuela’s opposition and top government officials said on Saturday they met with a group of mediators in the Dominican Republic to lay the groundwork for a dialogue amid a political standoff and a deepening economic crisis.The OPEC nation is suffering a severe recession due to low oil prices and a collapsing socialist economic model. President Nicolas Maduro is locked in a standoff with the legislature after the opposition won a sweeping majority last year.

Both sides said they met with former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and former presidents Martin Torrijos of Panama and Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic. On Friday, the U.S. State Department announced Secretary of State John Kerry had spoken to Zapatero to welcome the initiative and said that the United States stood ready to help the mediators.The opposition’s Democratic Unity coalition said its representatives told the mediators any talks with the government would have to include discussion of a recall referendum on Maduro’s rule, the release of jailed opposition leaders, foreign humanitarian assistance to cope with chronic shortages and respect for laws passed by the congress.

“These points were taken by the ex-presidents to the representatives of the ruling party, with whom there has been no direct encounter whatsoever,” the coalition said in a statement. “This has been an encounter with the mediators.Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez wrote via Twitter that government officials had also met with the same mediators.”The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela informs that it has held the first encounters for a dialogue between the government and the opposition,” wrote Rodriguez.Opposition leaders have been deeply sceptical of talks with the government, describing them as a stalling mechanism that would allow Maduro to gain time.

Former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, who is leading the recall push, said in an interview this week that the only way to resolve the crisis was through a vote.The two sides held talks in 2014 amid months of violent anti-government street protests that left more than 40 people dead. Both sides agree that the dialogue did not produce any substantive agreements.Opposition leaders accuse the National Electoral Council of stalling their effort to recall Maduro, whose popularity in March dropped to 27 percent according to local pollster Datanalisis.

They also say the ruling Socialist Party has used a pro-government Supreme Court to shoot down nearly every law passed by Congress since the opposition won a two-thirds majority of seats in December. Maduro insists his government is the victim of an “economic war” led by business leaders with the backing of Washington, which has been an ideological adversary of Caracas since the presidency of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.