Perhaps I could respond to that very intuitive question.
The charter also involves “the right to life...and security of the person”, which seems to have been forgotten. Clearly, the trial judge in the Truchon case did not, in my opinion, pay sufficient attention to that. The fact is, as you mentioned, that there need to be strict limits. The problem, as I was mentioning earlier, is that this is a subjective decision based on potential influence and coercion. All we have here is government questionnaires with leading questions.
With respect to anyone who is making a decision—the MAID assessors—there's the risk of confirmatory bias. If they believe that assisted dying is right, they are more likely not to see issues with capacity, not to see issues with the consent and not to see coercion, because they think what they're doing is something humane and right. So there need to be robust, strict protections here, including not only substantive protections of only doing it near end of life, but having committees decide this, and not a physician who's actually doing the act, because they're more likely to find that what they're actually doing is correct. There need to be substantive safeguards and procedural safeguards that are strict and rigid.
Thank you.