Thank you very much for the question.
To your first point around the social determinants of health, you're correct. That applies equally to everybody in the population, much like track 1 MAID applies equally. If you have a terminal illness, it doesn't matter what socio-economic conditions, disability supports, any other kinds of supports or anything you have in your life; you qualify for track 1 MAID. Track 2 MAID is a completely different story.
We have singled out one group of charter-protected individuals—persons with disabilities—and that is the definition that is met under track 2 MAID: It's if you have a disability and you are not dying. There's a fundamental equality issue at play here because we only offer track 2 MAID to one particular group of people. The people we are offering it to—persons with disabilities—tend to have multiple forms of intersecting discrimination, such as poverty and lack of access to supports, etc.
When someone is in the general population, suffering is equal across the board. Anyone can suffer intolerably. It's part of the human condition. When someone else is suffering intolerably, we do what we can to alleviate that suffering or provide the supports and services necessary. That's not the case when it comes to people under track 2 MAID who are experiencing those same conditions.
To your second question on whether the social determinants of health apply less to people with mental illness than to people with a physical disability, I believe—