Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will split my time with Mr. Deltell.
Thank you to the witnesses.
First, to the Canadian Cancer Society, thank you for your highlights on the importance of palliative care. You've shared the importance of palliative care and you've also highlighted the fact that in Canada right now palliative care is not readily available for a large percentage of the population. We were told by Health Canada that 70% of Canadians do not have access to quality health care.
The Supreme Court, on the other hand, has said that by June 6 we need to provide legislation that permits physician-assisted dying. Let's say palliative care were to be a component, one of the safeguards, to ensure that people were giving informed consent. In terms of some of the issues causing people to consider hastening their death, would you think palliative care would be a very important component to ensure that there is truly informed consent?
The second part of that question is this. Should the decision by the previous Parliament to ensure that we have a national strategy on palliative care, that we have this change of culture in Canada, start with, within this legislative requirement, palliative care being offered to people—anyone? We're not talking a large number, but it would be required to be offered to people who are considering hastening their death.