Madam Speaker, the minister tells us correctly that the court left the task of defining certain terms to Parliament. Therefore, it is regrettable that the key term “reasonably foreseeable death” in this legislation is not defined. This is problematic, because in her speech, in which she expresses the intent of the government on the subject, she is ambiguous as to what the meaning could be.
She said that it is not necessary to be “terminally ill”. Therefore, “reasonably foreseeable” does not mean that we have a projected end date to that person's life, unless she has some definition of terminally ill that is different from the one normally used. On the other hand, she said that we do not promote premature death. Again, these two are directly in contradiction, unless she has some definition for the term premature death that has not yet been shared with us.
Therefore, I will ask this question to the minister. Would she object to an amendment to this legislation in the committee process that would give a definition to the term “reasonably foreseeable”, so that it is not left up to other individuals who may apply different standards, and so that Canadians are not faced with what I think is an unreasonable amount of uncertainty as to what this bill will do once it is put into practice?