Thank you, Françoise.
Thank you for having me here. My name is Nino Sekopet, and I am a psychotherapist retained by End of Life Planning Canada to support people who want a safe place to talk about dying. For four years before this, I played the same role with Dying With Dignity Canada.
I deal every day with the complex and profound topic of the end of life. I see it as a continuum that, unfortunately, consists of two emotionally charged and polarized extremes. We have people who support physician-assisted dying and we have people who oppose it. There is also a vast space in between. Looking through a purely psychological lens, I believe that when we as individuals or as a society stand in either one of those polarizing extremes, deserting the vast in-between space, we miss something very important. We miss the very thing that gives the charge to those polarizing extremes. We fail to recognize the impact on the end of life. We fail to recognize the impact of the fear and insecurity that drives the emotional charge at both extremes.
I believe that if we are able to correctly address the impact of fear and insecurity, and if we do it to the degree that is necessary, those polarizing extremes will lose some of their charge. We will become less polarized. As individuals and as a society, we will become healthier and more willing to consider and accept our differences. We will become more inclusive rather than exclusive. We will become more tolerant.
What I've learned through my work with people approaching death is that clarity is the best way to contain fear and create a space where these patients can feel more secure. Clarity provides a psychological frame within which individuals can rest safely, knowing that they are secure, recognized, and validated. This applies to everyone at the end of life, to all of us. It applies equally to health care professionals, to patients, and to their families.
In my professional opinion, the reasonably foreseeable natural death criterion proposed in Bill C-14 provides little security, little frame of reference. Because of its openness to interpretation, it encourages fear and insecurity, rather than creating space for safety. Removing that criterion from the proposed legislation will restore clarity in line with the Supreme Court's Carter decision. It will benefit everyone engaged in the end-of-life territory, patients as well as health care professionals. It will ultimately benefit all of us as individuals and as a society.
I would like to invite you to step into the vast in-between space and contain the fear of all individuals engaged in end-of-life territory by removing the reasonably foreseeable natural death criterion from the proposed legislation. I invite you to trust the individual who is suffering terribly, and that person's physician, to know when their time has come. By doing that, you will make us all feel safer, regardless of our place on the end-of-life spectrum.
Thank you.