Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his good work as chair. He might remember that I proposed a mere one dozen amendments, or thereabouts, and I actually got three amendments passed. They were not substantive enough to address the major problems that remain in the bill, but I figure that is not a bad record for a member of the opposition in a majority Parliament.
With respect to the issue of national standards, I would be happy to see national standards that would provide meaningful safeguards. My concern with the legislation is that we have some of this ambiguity, the lack of safeguards, which I have discussed in my small number of interventions on this subject.
Also, the effect of the federal legislation would be that it undermines the existing safeguards that are at the provincial level. It would have the effect of changing the way that those operate. Therefore, the requirement that an attending physician be involved under provincial criteria would be negatively affected by the federal criteria, and that is pretty clear in the guidelines that have been put forward. They are put forward as interim guidelines, because the provinces do not want to be in the situation of legislative conflict.