Thank you for your question.
I'll touch on a couple of comments from Dr. Grant and Mr. Russomanno. Dr. Grant mentioned that you should not put administrative oversight between the patient and the physician. As I mentioned in my preamble, we've created a system design that absolutely does this. When we're looking at the application of physician-assisted dying in particular, and we're looking at it through the context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action for health, the goal is to become patient-centred. It's to make sure that the objective of the law is achieved, just as Mr. Russomanno mentioned.
When you're looking at objective 22, it's not just respect for traditional healing practices; the outcome is to ensure that patients receive access to those services in a way that's patient- and family-centred, keeping in consideration the realities of our health care system. I think with the application of physician-assisted dying in the framework of the provinces, indigenous patients will fall between the cracks, because they exist in federal jurisdictions. Health Canada is supposed to provide those programs to ensure that we have primary care on reserve and for our off-reserve indigenous peoples, but time and time again you get this jurisdictional ambiguity going back and forth.
When we're writing up the rules of physician-assisted dying in the context of indigenous patients, it's important to always go back to what those outcomes are: ensuring that the patient-physician relationship is respected, ensuring that there's transparency, and ensuring that the outcome of the law is achieved regardless of what policy and procedure might currently be in place.