Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his generosity.
I was simply getting to the issue of mature minors, to say that I do have some additional trouble and am concerned about appropriate safeguards. That was my other particular area of concern.
Let us get back to the question that my friend posed with respect to ALS or other conditions where the body is sound but the mind is not and the person may not be able to express the issue of consent. Again, I think the key is the particular regulatory framework that is put around the issue of advance consent.
Clearly, a person, knowing that at some point in the future he or she will be losing his or her mental capacity, would have to have expressed it extremely clearly in an unreserved fashion that would ultimately meet the regulatory framework set out, with two physicians concurring that in fact consent was given in an express manner, and setting out the clear guidelines, the clear situation in which he or she would be prepared to be administered with medically assisted death.
If we could create that kind of a framework, I think that would address the concern the hon. member may have.