I asked former senator Carstairs that years ago, and she explained it to me this way. She said that people who support MAID—the vast majority of Canadians—have been supporting it for decades and are not single-issue voters.
People who are opposed to MAID—it's a right-to-life movement that was against it at the time she was talking about—will target you for being in support of MAID, so you'll lose an election. If you take the pro position, if you go that way, you'll lose an election on that single issue.
Others, people like me who support MAID.... I'm not making my political decision on the basis of what the MP or the party thinks about MAID.
I think it's a political calculation. What happens is—this is very frank—that they look at what the impact on elections will be and they don't want to inflame and alienate people who are opposed to MAID. They know the court will come along. That's what happened after the last time this extension happened. They said, “We know you'll go to court.” They can wrap themselves in the court, and they don't have to take the political heat for it.