Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I certainly believe that in the House we have the ability to work together on something so important.
I listened to the member read through the motion, which identifies how many people would sit and where they would sit and what they would do. I did not see the phrase “palliative care” anywhere in that motion. This motion is to deal with the fact, as it says, “...that the prohibition on physician-assisted dying violates Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms...”. That is the mandate being set up by the Liberal Party for this.
I heard my colleague talk about how we could work in an apolitical fashion: let us talk, let us make changes. He said we could amend the motion. He is not really speaking truth to power, is he? When attempts were made to work with this motion, to ensure we have a comprehensive view of end of life, the Liberals insisted that this motion was going to stay focused on assisted suicide. That is the problem, because we have to look at the full slate of issues with end-of-life health care. That is what is incumbent upon us. Harvey Max Chochinov, who is the distinguished professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, has recently stated that under the situation we are faced with now we have the right to die but not the right to quality palliative care.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague why the Liberals have been standing up in the House all day saying we can talk about palliative care if people want to bring in palliative care. However, they cut it out of the motion so that it is only focused on assisted suicide, and we are not responding to the larger issue of end-of-life care that we need.