Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thanks. Then I'll get a brief comment from Dr. Viens. You started in your opening remarks to talk a bit about advance requests. Can you give us just a moment on that, particularly on the question of Alzheimer's? I think you started to comment and then time ran out.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you very much.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you very much. Our time is brief, so I have a quick question for Dr. Downar first, which is picking up on Dr. Viens' point that MAID is not driven by a lack of access to palliative care; they are part of a continuum. Would you describe it that way?

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Because we've run through the list of witnesses, I think we should maybe move on. We can always come back to palliative care if the data suggests there is something there that we need to really drill down on. I agree with Hedy that we really need to move on to other issues. Our time has been so crunched because this committee was not convened, and now we're trying to cram and meet at all hours of the night and day.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Yes. It's not specifically on that question, but is there the possibility of getting some kind of a work plan? We all appreciate how busy this committee is going to be, but we all have other committees as well, and we kind of run on the MPs' schedule, because you have votes and whatnot.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Yes. That was more my question.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I'm fine to go to advance practice. I'm great with the other issue, which is the maximum notice that we can get. If you only just discover that we are meeting next Thursday or this Thursday night, it would be really helpful if we could be informed of that as a membership as quickly as possible.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Those people who are interested will be following along. Certainly in the emails I'm getting from people asking to participate, they already know that the website exists.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you. My question goes to Audrey Baylis, if we could start there. You talk about being denied your right to choose this in advance. We've talked about this, the catch-22 that goes along with dementia or Alzheimer's. You can't ask in advance, but then once you're diagnosed, it's hard to ask after the fact.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Your friends and your family are very aware of this, and if you have to go to another country, you will.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Ms. Gwartz, I'll go to you on this topic. We've heard the frustration, not just in this session but in other sessions, about people who have taken the ultimate step because they're afraid they won't be cognizant and won't be allowed to make the decision. They actually take their lives much earlier than is necessary because they have the same fears as Audrey has just expressed.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Yes.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  How do you do that?

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I'm not talking about palliative care.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I know you do that.