Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you, Chair. If I could, I have a quick point for Dr. Masuda. You made the statement—and we've heard this from other witnesses from time to time—that MAID is being offered up as a solution to psychological, psychiatric or social problems, etc. Do you have any evidence or the name of a doctor or a MAID provider who has offered up MAID without process to somebody who is just feeling down or doesn't have a place to live?

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Okay. Well, Chair, if I could get you.... Again, this is kind of a recurring theme, but when statements such as that are made, it would be very helpful for the committee here to have actual evidence, because, as I think I have stated before, if people are not going through the correct MAID process, then they have clearly broken the law, so we should be informed about that.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  However, do you see these as part of the mental illness category in a sense?

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Dr. Smith, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you very much. I'm sorry, but we're having problems with the video here. Can you hear me?

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you. I'd like to go back to Dr. Smith as well, and just follow up on something that Dr. Kutcher raised. When it's stated that everyone who calls a suicide prevention hotline is eligible for MAID, I would gather you don't agree with that.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Okay. I would also like to follow up with you on your comments about Alzheimer's and dementia, which are an extreme form of mental illness. Again, it comes back to the issue here, which is, if that is the case and if mental illness can in fact be the sole reason to access MAID, we come back to the issue of advance requests here, because how else could that happen for somebody who was going down that particular road?

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Okay, I'm going to leave it at that. Thank you.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  But that experience was thorough. You couldn't have walked in and said, “Look, I'm having a bad day”.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you, Co-Chair. I think many people seeking MAID are less able than they once were. Some may be disabled or have become disabled, and some may be contemplating suicide reluctantly because they don't have the option of MAID. I think we have to be very careful in our discussions here that we do some fact-checking.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you. On my second question, we've heard statements about this over the course of our hearings. As a long-time MAID assessor, do you know of any cases of forced MAID—of a practitioner or a family member compelling someone, clearly against their will, to subject themselves to MAID?

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  The safeguards are in place.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you very much.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you very much. I have two questions for Dr. Thorpe. We come from the same part of the world, which is Saskatchewan. I want to ask about the rural-urban issue and access. Presuming that the pandemic has given everybody some experience with this, are you now comfortable doing assessments on Zoom or some other kind of technology?

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  That was Dr. MacDonald's point about education.