Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for appearing before our committee and providing an update.
After Bill C-7 was passed, we're now faced with an impending deadline next year, when mental illness as an underlying condition will be removed.
Ms. Hoffman, you did say in your opening remarks that you anticipated the new regime would be difficult for practitioners, and I understand that's in the context of Bill C-7 coming into force. I also think you could use the future tense of that verb in that you anticipate that the new regime coming into effect in March of 2023 will also be quite difficult.
In the context of mental illness and the fact that it will now be considered to be an illness, disease or disability—and I understand that patients will also have to meet other requirements that they are in an advanced state of irreversible decline and that it also causes them enduring psychological suffering—given that Health Canada is working with this deadline in less than a year, what are your conversations like as a department with practitioners? What kinds of conversations are going on and how are they going to develop the guidelines to deal with this very fundamental change to Canadian law?