Thank you for your question, Mr. Cooper. You brought up some very important points.
That publication is interesting because it's been brought up in some of the cases that I have testified for. That was a situation where MAID laws did not exist in Canada. That patient was not assessed for MAID eligibility whatsoever, so we have no idea whether she would have been eligible for MAID or not. Also, that was two years of improvement followed by another deterioration, unfortunately.
You're right, and I agree with what we said in the panel, that it is challenging to predict irremediability in the case of sole mental illness on a case-by-case basis. That said, there's a degree of uncertainty that is equal to that in MAID on track two already. Even in track one, we have uncertainty about whether a patient might change their mind or adjust to their life-threatening condition at the last minute.
The key is, I think, to assess patients on a case-by-case basis, remembering that patients with autonomy and capacity are allowed to make decisions in the face of uncertainty in medicine all the time. We as the assessors must share in that decision-making process with them and do the best we can, but this kind of imperfection exists throughout medicine.