Good morning. It's an honour to have this opportunity to appear as a witness for this committee.
I'm speaking to you as a young person who has conducted a study with other young people aged 16 to 24 about their views on MAID in general and also on MAID for minors. Specifically, we conducted five focus groups, each consisting of three to five participants. I began working on this project when I was 18 years old in my last year of high school, and I conducted this research with the VOICE childhood ethics research program at McGill University. We recently completed the project, and an article is currently under review for publication.
I'm currently 23 years old. I'm a youth adviser as part of the youth advisory council for the VOICE childhood ethics program. The VOICE youth advisory council also contributed a statement in a report on this topic that was commissioned by the Quebec health ministry's end-of-life commission, which Franco Carnevale submitted to this committee as part of his testimony in a previous meeting.
I was given 48 hours to prepare for this testimony, and I'm also a full-time student in dental school, so I tried to prepare as best I could with the time that was available.
My comments this morning are drawn from the results of the project regarding youth perspectives on MAID and MAID for mature minors. Please note that neither I nor the participants in this study are living with life-limiting illnesses and are otherwise from the general population.
Some pertinent results of the study include the following—