Madam Speaker, obviously this debate engages all of our emotions and often from both sides. We have heard the testimony that the member shared. I shared in my speech a story of a woman who had her life taken in very sketchy circumstances. It was at a hospice in Vancouver, where someone took that person's life and said it was based on a demand for euthanasia and that the testimony was based on her own notes, but there had been no consultation with, or awareness by, the local staff.
We struggle with cases that involve major concern, cases that exist on all sides of this issue. I hope that through the amending process we may be able to find some common ground.
The member spoke specifically about the issue of advance consent. I think we should have some mechanism in that advance consent section to ensure that there is contemporaneous consultation with the patient. We know of other cases in which someone gave an advance directive and then had their life taken while they did not want that to happen.
Is there a way to meet in the middle and have a requirement for some kind of contemporaneous consent, even in the context of an advance directive?