Thank you, Madam Chair.
Allow me to repeat what you said. We aren't making life or death decisions for patients who are suffering. It is them—and only them—who will make those decisions. All we are doing is empowering them to make a choice. They have had no choice given that, for the past 50 years, accessing palliative care has been held up as the only way to die with dignity, as though receiving palliative care represented the full experience of what it is to die with dignity.
We aren't deciding for patients, on the contrary. The bill seeks to set aside medical paternalism so that patients can decide with freedom of conscience, and provide free and informed consent.
Dr. L'Espérance, you said your organization wanted the bill to go a bit further with respect to cognitive and neurodegenerative diseases. Can you tell us why? Can you describe what those diseases are and how they should be included in the bill?