Thank you.
You can't ensure that. That's what I was trying to say. It's not possible. You need to recommend an amendment to the law that allows for advance requests, because that's what Canadians want. They really want it. Most of them want it because there is such terrible suffering at the end of life that can be prevented and that some of us are horrified by. But you will not be able to actually ensure...because we have limited MAID providers. We don't have enough for our track one, which is those for whom natural death is reasonably foreseeable. We don't have nearly enough for track two, which is those for whom natural death is not reasonably foreseeable. Come March, we won't have enough for those with mental illness as the sole underlying condition, and we won't have enough for the people with an advance directive that needs to be acted upon.
But to do the best we can for the most people, I will just say that, first, the person must be very specific, and even specific about things like, “If I'm happily playing with my dolls, I do not want to continue that sort of life.” Then you have to leave it to the clinicians, as you do now, and we have to take it case by case. In these kinds of cases, I will look at what the person wrote. I will try to find out what their aims in life were in general. Were they the kind of person who told their kids 20 years ago that they never wanted to live in a demented state? Were they part of this? Was this part of their whole being? That will make it easier for me to be able to provide.
You're never going to be able to fix this problem completely, but you can do what's best for the most people.