Thank you very much, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
Cardinal Collins and Mr. Worthen, you bring a refreshing perspective. I would say respectfully that it's a perspective I wish we could have had an opportunity to hear more of at this committee.
I have two specific issues I'd like to raise. I'll raise them both at the same time, if that's okay, and then leave the balance of my time to you gentlemen to respond to them as you wish.
My understanding is that the idea of dignity, a word we hear often in this committee, is very important in the Catholic tradition as well, but I think sometimes we use words like “dignity” and “compassion” without a certain precision to them.
Cardinal Collins, could you talk to us a little bit about the understanding of dignity in the Catholic tradition, and give us a bit of a definition? Of course, we would all like to see people have dignity at the point of their death. Perhaps, then, we need to think a little bit about what dignity really means.
The second issue I want to hear more about is palliative care. I think all of us agree that palliative care is good, and we would like to see more palliative care. I think we need to go further than that and recognize that it is not just desirable but necessary to provide people with palliative care.
This was made clear by the report of the expert panel—and I'm quoting here—that a request for physician-assisted death cannot be truly voluntary if the option of proper palliative care is not available to alleviate a person's suffering. In other words, it isn't a genuinely autonomous choice at all if we continue to provide palliative care to such a tiny fraction of Canadians. In fact, if we proceed with this and don't respect conscience for institutions, I fear we'll see the closure of more faith-based palliative care services that aren't willing to provide this.
I wonder if you could comment both on the issue of what dignity means and also on the centrality of palliative care.