Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to both the witnesses for joining our committee today and for helping us on this journey.
Both of you have mentioned the fact that MAID should be based on decisional capacity. I know in my home province of British Columbia—and I'm sure this is echoed across many different provinces—in the health care interests of a child, an assessor has to determine whether the child understands the need for the health care, what that health care involves and what the benefits and risks are, and I think that a MAID regime, according to both of you, would be based on the same basic principles.
For many children, especially those who are living with disabilities or who have chronic and incurable conditions, you may have examples of how two children have the same medical conditions that may make them eligible for MAID, but they have had completely different experiences with the medical system. One has had the privilege of being born into a wealthy family or a well-to-do family and has had access to all kinds of services, while the other may have come from a broken home, lived in poor socio-economic conditions and never had access to any of those kinds of treatments. What we've been hearing at this committee is very real fear from those in many segments of society who feel that if you have not had those choices to obtain that kind of medical intervention, it's not really a choice at the end.
Maybe, Professor MacIntosh, I'll start with you. What can we do to address that perception out there and the inequities that exist in the levels of care in two completely different circumstances when both people are coming to the place where they're making that very big decision?