Thank you for your really important question.
There has been extensive consultation, as my colleagues have said, and we all have spoken directly with disability advocates, disability rights groups, and individuals.
As I said in my remarks, we heard about the long-fought battle for personal autonomy and choice and also about the concern that nothing we do in any way should devalue an individual's life by saying that some lives are more valuable than others. That's a really important distinction to be made, because in my mind and our mind, they are not opposing views. It's not as divisive as sometimes it has been portrayed.
Listen, we have been very clear that this law is based on equality rights, both the personal autonomy rights and the equal value of each right, but what we heard was that we had to make sure that people had a choice in front of them, that they knew what options were available to them, that they weren't going to choose to end their life because they didn't have the proper disability supports around them to make their lives meaningful and valuable and productive and healthy.
That's why we went so far in the non end-of-life track to make sure that people knew, and that there was an obligation on medical practitioners to discuss counselling, mental health supports, disability supports, community services, and palliative care and make the assessment a minimum of 90 days.
As I said, we know that in some places in our country, it's easier to access MAID than it is to get a wheelchair. That shouldn't be the case. That isn't what this law is about, but we wanted to make sure we spoke about the charter and the UN convention. I am committed to working with my provincial colleagues to make sure people are making the choice for reasons related to their circumstances, but not their social circumstances, not their lack of housing, not their lack of equipment, not their lack of employment.
It's really hard to talk about this in the context of amending the Criminal Code, but it still needs to be talked about. That's why we put such effort in the second track to provide access to alternatives for people who might not think they have any.