Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for coming and providing your testimony today. It's very much appreciated. Speaking for myself, and I'm sure most around this table, there's a real appreciation of the need for a palliative care framework in Canada. In fact, as we've introduced medical assistance in dying, if you want to call that a choice, if there is no other choice, if there isn't a good, robust palliative care system to support people, then are we really providing a choice for them? It's important that Canadians and their families have access to this. I think we all have our own personal stories as well of very difficult end-of-life circumstances that we've had to work through, so thank you for coming.
I'm highly supportive of the bill. I want to thank MP Gladu for her work on this and for bringing it forward to our attention. My comments are only meant to be helpful. We have one shot at this, so let's get it right. Most of my questions will be dealing with paragraphs 2(1)(a) to (f) under the framework on palliative care. The first one is about defining what palliative care is.
Sharon, you had introduced a hospice palliative care definition, and generally I think people turn to the WHO definition of palliative care.
I guess to both of you, will there be any controversy in deciding the definition of palliative care? I'm wondering if you have a different view, because your hospice definition is different from WHO's.