Thank you, Chair.
MP Aldag and I had a town hall meeting on Saturday, which was very informative. The term “physician-hastened death” was shared as a more appropriate term. “Physician-assisted dying” was seen as being very general. That was what was suggested by a number of people, so I'm going to use that term, because I would agree that it is a more accurate term.
Interestingly, as I was reading on the plane on the way here, I was sitting beside a physician with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, who is here testing specialists to determine whether they have the qualifications to practise as specialist surgeons and physicians in Canada.
I went onto the website and found that they, as physicians, are having a dilemma on this issue and on how to deal with it, so I would think Mr. Cameron is quite right in saying there are physicians and physicians. There are diverse opinions on this issue.
The Supreme Court said that we are mandated to create a carefully designed system that imposes strict limits that are scrupulously monitored and enforced.
One of the suggestions we have heard around this table, Mr. Cameron, is that an advance directive later in a person's life, when he or she is no longer competent to make that decision, would be binding on them. I'm not sure how long an advance directive would be. You are suggesting that a superior court should have the final say, in a timely fashion, so that a person would have the right to end his or her life. However, the Supreme Court decision was that it should be a competent adult. If somebody has the opportunity to end their life through physician-assisted suicide or voluntary euthanasia, meaning that a physician would introduce the drug, and the person is competent enough, at the point of death, to end their life, would you see an advance directive as diverging from this requirement to have a strict regime enforced and monitored if you do not have consent at the point of death?
Thank you.