Madam Speaker, we have a motion before us today with a few basic points, and it seems to me that conscience rights for health care professionals are a fundamental freedom, and I argue that they are guarded and protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, the failure to protect those conscience rights within our health care system cannot do anything but damage our health care system.
We have a private member's bill, Bill C-268, that addresses these issues and specifically talks about giving people the opportunity to be able to exercise their freedom. I appreciate the minister's attention to this bill. Earlier today, though, she said that this does not create a duty that was not there before. I would argue that actually it does, because this is new ground. This is completely new ground that we are going into. There has never been an expectation in the medical community before that health care providers need to participate in causing death. There are new duties being created here that are not being addressed by Bill C-14 that need to be. We need to stop, take a look at it, and then try to reapply some of those things that are important in terms of conscience rights.