The other area is definition, and again, we are focusing on definitional issues because they were highlighted, through our consultation, as an area where clarity within the Criminal Code would be an enabler of some consistency across the provinces. One topic is the definition of “adult”. As was noted a little bit earlier this evening, there are different ages of majority across the country—18 and 19. In the area of health care decision-making, there is no age of consent in most of the provinces. This means that a number of provinces do actively recognize a mature minor rule, which allows for the mature person under the age of 18, who is competent, to make decisions at the end of life.
Our position on this is that whatever definition of “adult” we might use, it should be a competency-based definition, not one that is based on age.
There are a couple of reasons for that. Again, current practice over a number of years has been that capacity has been the driver of whether or not somebody is able to or should be able to consent to a treatment at the end of life. That would involve a very significant practice change for which there is no justification in other end-of-life situations. Also, we believe that competency really gets at the heart of what the Supreme Court of Canada was going for here: somebody who can voluntarily choose to take a direction, for either self-administered or physician-administered death, according to these criteria, because they are competent to make such decisions, because they believe a decision is in their own interest, or because it is consistent with their values. Competency is the key to being able to do that, not someone's age.
Was there anything else you wanted to put forward?