Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I would like to say that I'm happy to be here with my colleagues from the Senate and the House of Commons for this crucial study.
Chair, I'm going to start my questions with Ms. Long.
Ms. Long, first, I want thank you for your work and your advocacy. I was a supporter of medical assistance in dying when our government was faced with the challenge of moving this forward back in 2016. I think that we found the necessary balance in order to provide Canadians with the right to do so.
In this particular instance, though, based on the research that I've done and looking at the testimony received so far including in the last panel as well, we heard Dr. van Os say that the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the International Association for Suicide Prevention and lived experiences in Holland say not to move forward with an expansion of MAID in Canada. We heard Dr. van Rooij say that euthanasia requires certainty and we simply do not have certainty when it comes to mental illness. We have had psychiatric associations and many other practitioners who have appeared before committee over the last 15 hours or so of testimony who have said that there is no consensus and that we should not move forward. As recently as just a couple of days ago, the Province of Quebec, where I call home—I represent the community of Vaudreuil in that province—shared a letter with us reiterating the fact that the province has not moved forward or given their support for an expansion. They had conducted their own study, which came to the consensus that they should not move forward. It did not have the public support necessary to do so as well.
Whatever I say here doesn't count. It's your testimony that will make its way into our report and will determine whether we recommend to move forward or not. What are we missing? What are all of these experts, provincial governments, etc., missing? What would be your strongest arguments against what they have said?