Thank you, Madam Chair.
To avoid interrupting a discussion with a witness, I will first introduce the following notice of motion:
That, given the importance of the Special Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying's work with regard to the provisions of the Criminal Code and the application thereof, the Committee allocate time as follows to hear witness testimony for each of the components of this study: (a) 12 hours for testimony related to mature minors; (b) 12 hours for testimony related to advance requests; (c) 12 hours for testimony related to mental health; (d) 8 hours for testimony related to palliative care; and (e) 5 hours for testimony related to persons with disabilities; it being understood that the time already allocated to hear from witnesses at the Committee meetings of April 25 and 28 is taken into account when calculating the number of hours allocated per component.
I'll go to Mr. Deschamps first.
First of all, welcome, Mr. Deschamps, and thank you for being with us today.
I'm sure you'll agree with me that medical paternalism has had its day. First it was overtreatment; then they tried to provide better palliative care. Many practices are being considered, such as refusal of treatment, discontinuation of treatment and so on.
The government's role is not to be paternalistic or to decide what's good for the patient, but rather to provide patients with conditions in which they can exercise free choice, choice made by free and informed consent. I imagine you agree on that principle.
Don't you?