Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll start with Ms. Cohen.
Good morning, Ms. Cohen. Welcome to the committee.
I am somewhat perplexed. I understand that you left the Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying and Mental Illness. However, I'm sure you read the final report.
On page 10, assessing the capacity to consent to care, it reads: “[W]hen the assessment is so difficult or uncertain that the clinicians involved cannot establish that a specific individual is capable of giving informed consent, the intervention is not provided to that individual.”
Further, on page 11, the report examines crises involving suicidality: “In any situation where suicidality is a concern, the clinician must adopt three complementary perspectives: consider a person's capacity to give informed consent or refusal of care, determine whether suicide prevention interventions—including involuntary ones—should be activated, and offer other types of interventions which may be helpful to the person.“
When reading this report, it's very clear that anyone with mental disorders or personality disorders, who is suicidal and in their 20s, for instance, would have to wait several decades before someday having access to medical assistance in dying, after having tried the entire range of possible therapies. Indeed, an assessment would be needed at that time to determine if they could have access.
What do you think of this part in the report? Are you for or against what it says?