Gladly. The court, in Carter, absolutely had psychiatric illness in front of it. I was there. Joe Arvay, the lead counsel who argued the case, explained in a previous parliamentary committee hearing that psychiatric illness was present through affidavits and was in front of the court.
The second point is that if you look at E.F., what they did—and what I was relying on—is look at whether Carter, within its parameters of “a grievous and irremediable medical condition”, included mental illness. It did, which means that the striking down of the absolute ban on MAID for people with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” captures mental illness. That is what E.F. said it was.
Truchon expressly addressed the meaning of Carter, and it expressly addressed the issue of psychiatric patients and mental disorders. There's a whole passage. That's why I've given you the paragraph numbers where the judge in that case went directly into the evidence about mental illness, psychiatric illness and what's gone on in the Netherlands, Belgium and so on. She quoted the E.F. decision and Carter, and explained the paragraph that gets cited—paragraph 127 is cited all the time—and the evidence that was introduced from Belgium.
That is exactly what the courts considered. The argument you've heard tonight against what I presented is exactly what was presented in court, in E.F., to the Court of Appeal of Alberta, and in Truchon. In both cases, it was found to be unpersuasive. They said the quote was taken out of context; they do consider psychiatric illness, and it's not excluded by their saying these are the parameters. It's all explained. It's difficult in the time constraints we have to explain the legal arguments, which is why I gave the passages, but what's been said about psychiatric illness not being before the courts is not true in all of the cases.
What is an issue, in looking at those three cases, to be specific, is mental illness inside “a grievous and irremediable medical condition”, because the Supreme Court of Canada said it was unconstitutional to ban it for “a grievous and irremediable medical condition”. The answer from those cases, and the judgment of the Department of Justice, was that it is included in “a grievous and irremediable medical condition”.