Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to move this amendment.
What our amendment would do here is the following.
Bill C-14 required two independent witnesses. Parliament, in its wisdom, with a brand new regime of medically assisted dying, included that requirement. To me, when you're dealing literally with life and death, it makes sense that there would be that requirement for two independent witnesses.
What Bill C-7 does is remove the requirement for two independent witnesses.
In listening to stakeholder interventions on this bill, particularly the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians, which represents the physicians and others who are dealing with people at end of life, we hear a lot of talk about how it's not a true decision if you don't have appropriate palliative care. A lot of people pay lip service to palliative care, but any one of us, if it's someone we know, is going to want that person to have the best palliative care opportunities as possible in an end-of-life situation.
The Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians supports this amendment that would maintain the requirement for two independent witnesses. You can imagine, with the different dynamics of how, when we're talking about assisted dying and about Bill C-7.... Bill C-7 dramatically—dramatically—changes the law in Canada when it comes to assisted dying because, in fact, now people don't have to be, as we would have thought before, at end of life. They may have a prognosis that says they have 30 years to live or that says they have 20 years to live.
So, in light of that expansion, I think it's important that we maintain safeguards that make sense. To me, it makes abundant sense to have two independent witnesses, to have the request, as the Criminal Code says, “signed...by the person—or by another person under subsection (4)—before two independent witnesses who then also signed and dated the request”.
I can tell you, as someone who has dealt with legal matters before, that you don't want to have one witness to something anyway. Having two witnesses eliminates any degree of uncertainty that could exist. There are always going to be challenges, but I think of...for the.... In Parliament's wisdom under a Liberal majority government when Bill C-14 came forward, there was the requirement.
This amendment is not earth-shattering. It is as modest as possible, and it's saying, “You know what? Let's maintain that safeguard.” That's what this was couched as; it's a safeguard.
We've heard testimony that we're dealing with the most vulnerable in Canadian society, that we're dealing with people who are in very difficult times, that we're dealing with literal life-or-death decisions, so let's maintain the safeguard.
That's why I'm moving this amendment, CPC-2.
Thank you, Madam Chair.