Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Professor Sheehy, I'd like to start with you.
I have taken note of your opposition to extending medical assistance in dying to mature minors. I hope you understand that the questions I'm asking you are coming out of a sense of curiosity, as I'm trying to understand this subject matter.
My home province of British Columbia has the Infants Act. That's a provincial law that does allow someone in the medical field to treat a minor as long as the minor has the necessary understanding to give consent to the treatments. That is provincial law that protects someone in the medical profession. As long as they think that child has the understanding, they can go ahead with treatment if they're under the age of 18. No specific age is required; it's just whether that understanding exists.
Some medical conditions are incurable. Some medical conditions cause intolerable suffering. I'm thinking more of the physical ailments that would be covered under track one when we're quite sure that there is no coming back from them.
If minors in British Columbia already have this ability protected under provincial law, and if, say, a 13-year-old or 14-year-old had a medical condition where it's quite obvious they're not going to be cured, they are not going to come back and you can see they are in an obvious state of physical suffering, why must they wait until they are aged 18? Why must they live three or four years with that kind of a condition when we already have this precedent under provincial law? I'm just trying to understand this.