Thank you for that question, Mr. Arseneault.
In this case, I will put on my clinician hat. That stage of my career ended when I joined the Collège des médecins du Québec, but I still had a long career as a clinician. I have also worked extensively in palliative care, participated in the implementation of medical assistance in dying, and administered medical assistance in dying to many patients myself.
To answer your question, I can speak from my experience as a clinician in Quebec, particularly in Quebec City, where I was, among other things, head of palliative care at the university hospital. The vast majority of people, as you said based on your numbers, had access to palliative care when they requested medical assistance in dying. You really have to look at it as a continuum of care. When medical assistance in dying was implemented in Quebec, we put a lot of emphasis on the fact that palliative care must be present.
It should be remembered that legislation was passed in Quebec a number of years ago, so that palliative care would not be optional in institutions. All public institutions must have a program or plan to provide palliative care, which is not the case everywhere in Canada and which is completely different from what I had experienced some 15 years before the passing of that legislation. I had even been told by someone in an administrative position that my palliative care business was irrelevant to the mission of their institution—