I just want to elaborate a bit upon what Mr. Maloney was saying. I think that sometimes it gets complicated and gets a bit muddled when we get so mired in these terms.
We have a regime under Bill C-14 that talks about a sort of an end-of-life regime. We have a decision about reasonable foreseeability in Truchon, which says that if you keep it to just an end-of-life regime, you are not actually promoting the dignity and autonomy of individuals, and therefore a change must be made.
The change that must be made is what's presented before us now in Bill C-7. It creates two tracks. There is a track where your death is reasonably foreseeable, and then there's the track where your death is not reasonably foreseeable. There is facilitated access when the death is reasonably foreseeable, and there are enhanced safeguards where a natural death is more of a long-term one, in what we call track two.
In trying to narrow down how you divide between a death that is reasonably foreseeable versus one that is not, I appreciate what Mr. Thériault is trying to do, and I'll echo the sentiments of Mr. Maloney. I appreciate the statements he made in the House. I appreciate his interventions in this committee. I know that he and his party believe very strongly in the model that Quebec has rolled out provincially and in ensuring that there is access that grants autonomy and dignity to individuals.
Where I'll differ with him is just this idea about demarcation, the 12 months as a demarcation, a line in the sand, so to speak, as to when something becomes reasonably foreseeable or not and determining whether you fall into track one or track two.
The reason for this is that everything I've learned through the course of this committee study, and everything I've learned in the consultations that I was privileged to be a part of in January and February, indicates that the medical practitioners who are involved in this very sensitive, very complex assessment are doing so with a lot of professionalism and with the care of the patient in mind. I remain strong in that faith that they will continue to execute their functions professionally. Allowing them to have the flexibility to make that determination rather than carving out a line is, to my mind, the best path forward in terms of ensuring consistency with the regime in the past but also making the constitutional changes that are required by the position of the court.
Simply for that reason alone, I think demarcating 12 months as a line in the sand would not be beneficial and, in some respects, I certainly wouldn't want the inadvertent consequence of limiting access to MAID for those who would otherwise be eligible, who otherwise had made an informed decision and were trying to make an autonomous decision, and impeding or limiting that autonomy.
Thank you.