The committee has said no to prior judicial oversight. The only form of oversight at this point...and the Carter decision...were that we had a regime with strict safeguards, including enforcement. To this point, Bill C-14 does not have that oversight, other than two physicians or two nurse practitioners. But there is no oversight—no judicial oversight, no oversight whatsoever. We're relying on two people of that competence to end a life, to assist in the ending of a life of an individual at the individual's request.
If we want to amend this, I'd be in favour of amending it, but you would need...and we heard this from testimony. I'm thinking of the special committee; I'm not sure if this committee heard that from the witnesses. There was an encouragement to make sure you do not have the physicians putting themselves in a very dangerous position where the government of the day says that in this case, if there was a charge or a complaint made against a physician or a nurse practitioner, they did this inappropriately. Maybe a family member would not be happy with how the situation was handled, and now we have these physicians in a very dicey situation where they could be charged with homicide.
The encouragement was to have some sort of oversight. I think this is an attempt to provide some oversight—if not judicial, because of concerns it would delay, then in another way.
In the spirit of what is being attempted here, if we don't want a minister of health, is there an appetite to have any oversight? I think it's needed. We've heard that it was needed. Without it, you're going to leave physicians vulnerable to possibly being charged. I appreciate the spirit of it. Maybe we need to find another way.
The other thing, Mr. Chair—and I think it's salient—is that we have one approved amendment to this point. It was a Liberal amendment—and that's good. It was a good amendment; it actually got unanimous support. But that was it. I think that when we, through the discussion, through the debate, highlight some needs for changes, we need to seriously consider them and amend them, if appropriate.