Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his work on this. I want to address a few of the points the member made.
It is a strange definition of lack of action to say that the repeated express will of the House on the issue of euthanasia somehow constitutes a lack of action. Of course we had proposals that came forward before the court decision, and those were rejected by an overwhelming majority of this House, which included the majority of Liberal and, I believe, New Democrat members at the time, as well.
With respect to the issue of a legal vacuum, I would like to see better legislation come forward which clarifies the situation. I would support this bill if it were amended in a number of key ways. However, the existing legislation does not in any way address the task that the court asked us to do, which is to actually describe and define what the situation would look like in terms of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada.
The government has replaced some ambiguity in the court decision with greater ambiguity in the legislation. Legislation is only worth proposing if it improves on the absence of legislation.
In terms of investment in palliative care, I agree with the hon. member that there is more work to do. I would not accept his characterization of the previous government as doing nothing on that issue, but I would certainly agree that more investment is needed.
The problem with this legislation is it moves in the opposite direction. Allowing euthanasia and assisted suicide without conscience protection has the effect of pulling doctors who would otherwise want to be involved in palliative care out of palliative care if they do not want to participate in euthanasia. At the very least, conscience protection should be added. That would preserve the existing system of palliative care that we have, and then we could build on that by working to do more.