Thank you.
My name is Dave Henderson and I'm from Nova Scotia. I've been asked to speak as a palliative care physician. I'm the former president of the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians. That was a few years ago, when MAID was initially starting up in Canada. I'm also the former president of both the New Brunswick Hospice Palliative Care Association and the Nova Scotia Hospice Palliative Care Association, and former board member of the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association. I currently chair a group we call Palliative 4 Canadians. It's made up of the senior leadership from four different organizations in Canada, and its sole purpose is to try to improve palliative care for all Canadians. They are the Canadian Virtual Hospice, Pallium Canada, the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians and the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association.
I'm not going to reiterate a lot of the great comments that have been made by many of my very esteemed colleagues. You have all that information. I want to speak about some other issues that I feel are very important as we are looking into this issue.
I want to start off by saying that I'm not a religious man. I have said on several occasions in several different presentations I've done that I'm pretty sure I'm going straight to hell. I look forward to seeing many of you there as well. That's my standard, token maritime humour if anybody missed it.