Thank you, Jennifer.
Again, thank you very much for asking us to be here.
I think all of you have the slide deck that was just handed out. The nub of it is on page 6, really, with regard to priorities to raise with the federal government. Jennifer and I will address a couple of these for you.
The first one is about something you just raised with Mr. Pelletier in regard to other health professionals who may need to be involved in physician-assisted death. We take a different view. We very strongly think that the Supreme Court decision, although it mentioned physician-assisted death, did not mean to exclude other health care professionals.
Anyone who understands how health care is delivered in this country knows that it is delivered not solely by physicians. We heard very strongly from the territories, which said that they have fly-in communities where there is no physician. There is a nurse in a nursing station. If we're going to guarantee access across the country, we have to give a mechanism for them to be able to assess patients using telemedicine in conjunction with physicians in other areas, as well as to deliver it.
I also want to say that nurse practitioners, if you're not familiar with them, have a stand-alone scope of practice that absolutely should encompass end-of-life care, so we're asking that when you redraft the Criminal Code to carve out the Carter decision, you make it clear that other health care professionals, such as nurses and pharmacists—I'm a physician assistant, by the way—will be protected, but also especially that nurse practitioners and health care professionals acting under the directive of a physician will be able to assess patients for their eligibility and carry this out. That's an access issue.
I also wanted to talk about one of the later points on the definition of “grievous and irremediable”. Although Mr. Pelletier said they heard from people who think it should be defined but no one was sure how, we have a very strong opinion that it should be defined in what is the common usage. It should be “very severe or serious”. As someone who works in front-line health care, I think we understand, as health care professionals, what “very severe or serious” looks like. Obviously, acne is not very severe or serious.
I wanted to address those, and now Jennifer is going to address a couple.