Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have just a couple of very brief comments. The first one is that I was a firefighter, a first responder, for seven and a half years, so of course I went to a lot of car accidents and I went to a lot of fires, but I was equally a paramedic as well and responded to a lot of folks who had DNR orders. At the time, the fire department I was part of didn't recognize DNR orders, so we would send them to the hospital.
I will tell you that, in my seven and a half years in the small town in which I was a firefighter, on more than one occasion I did meet somebody on the street, a cancer survivor, who upon going to the hospital actually found a new specialist, a new treatment and indeed survived.
My point is this. I think we'd all agree that at the very least we'd have what I call the 24-hour rule. This is now somebody's life, and life deserves, at the very least, a 10-day reflection period.
Again, I go back to my time served in the fire department. I've seen this. I've been part of it. I've seen people who have been in a coma with the doctors saying to pull the plug, and 18 days later they have woken up with thumbs-up and are living a normal life today.
Because I have seen it, because it's first-hand for me, I really don't understand why we would not have that 10-day reflection period at the very least to talk it through. It is absolutely vital.
The last point I would make is that this was the Liberals' legislation through Bill C-14 and if they don't believe now that we need a 10-day reflection period, are they suggesting they were wrong when they put this legislation forward in the first place?
Thank you, Chair.