Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear the member talk about how she sees the protection of conscience as very important, but I would simply ask, why not protect it in the legislation? There is, of course, a precedent for this. We have talked about the Civil Marriage Act including protection for conscience at the federal level. A similar model could be used.
Essentially, what we are being told by the government is that we are talking about it, so why not just take the government's word for it. Taking the government's word for it just is not good enough. We want to see conscience protection included in the legislation.
Also, does the member clearly understand that the protection of conscience includes the right to choose not to refer? There has been some confusion about that by some other members. Respecting an individual's conscience includes the right to not only not provide a service but to not be complicit in providing the service by using a formal referral. Physicians do not have an objection to providing information, of course, and facilitating the orderly transfer of records, but there is a big difference between that and a formal referral. I would appreciate the member's comments on that as well.