Thank you very much for that question.
First of all, one of the most important stands we're taking is that there are still too many gaps in adequate palliative care services in the country.
I had a very interesting experience. I'm probably the only palliative care physician in Canada who has worked in a jurisdiction that allows assisted suicide. I worked for three years in Switzerland. I learned during that experience that it's probably impossible to put foolproof safeguards in these types of law.
But before we even get there, in making the decision we need to understand what we're talking about. We need to address the fear society has about talking about dying. We need to address the misinformation that people have—for example, many people believe that withdrawing futile treatments is euthanasia. It's not. That's good palliative care. It's good end-of-life care.
Health professionals still think that using morphine and opiates—I heard this from someone I was speaking to just last night—are dangerous at the end of life and they shorten life. That's absolutely incorrect.