Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, but we're not talking about two studies. I did say earlier "that the committee undertake a comparative study". I added the word "comparative" at the outset.
Why conduct a comparative study with countries facing these two challenges? Because there is no point in comparing ourselves to countries that are not required to review their criminal codes and extend medical aid for dying to include other realities.
What needs to be relevant and enlightening for us is to determine what the expansion of the act will mean for palliative care. That's, in a sense, our challenge, and that's what the court is asking us to do. We need to answer these questions as we move to expand medical aid for dying—as Bill C-14 did in a way.
How are things going in countries where both services have been offered for years? For us, this is a slightly more recent reality. Is accessibility better or worse? Is the slippery slope argument, which some people use to argue that medical help to die is terrible, true in the countries where these two realities are applied?
I apologize to my colleague, but since we too will have to deal with these two realities, it is all the more relevant to conduct a comparative study. That is the challenge we will have to face as legislators. I hope I am being clear on this.
Conducting a study in which we would compare ourselves to countries that only offer palliative care would be of no use, as it does not correspond to our reality. That's why I think it's important to do it that way. There is already documentation on this. We would have to determine whether we are up to date, whether people who have experienced this situation consider that there have been more or fewer requests, in what areas, and so on. I don't want us to deal indirectly with medical dying. The challenge is to deal with both realities. It seems to me that looking at what is being done elsewhere is relevant, and it does not take a century to do it. I'll stop here.