Madam Speaker, this is by far the most complicated area. There are some easy cases, like the Audrey Parker case, where people are already eligible for MAID, they understand their condition and it is very clear an advance request ought to be in place. It is harder, but still fairly straightforward, when people are diagnosed with a disease and there is a short-term trajectory when they can see that they are going to deteriorate significantly.
It is much harder when a person is not diagnosed at all. I am 35. Would I put an advance request in right now? How could that be intelligible? How could we make sense of that? There are two things to say to that.
I mentioned sunset clauses. If we are requiring certainty, individuals would have to revisit their advance requests and uphold those requests. There has to be a window of time when it would then fall away and not be legally valid.
The other thing to note is that the Supreme Court's criteria are also pretty key here. I cannot just say an advance request for anything of which I am eligible to die. I still have to be in a condition that is an incurable illness and where there is grievous, intolerable and enduring suffering. These are incredibly important safeguards to keep in mind.