Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Thank you, honourable Chairs and committee members. My name is Dr. Gus Grant. I am the president of the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada, but speak today in my role as registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia. I'm accompanied by o

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Our position is simply that explicit direction is required on this question.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Certainly. In the absence of a response from Carter, the position of our college, and of most colleges, was that standards that most loyally adopted that which was expressed in Carter should be developed . However, we as a college did not feel that it was up to us to extrapolate

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  In my experience of over 15 years as a practising family physician, I would say that the majority of cases presenting to my office had a component, if not a dominant component, of mental illness. It is, sadly, a very common presentation to family physicians, and I would think tha

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  There are a number of questions within that. The standard puts forward the requirement that when a grievous and irremediable condition is primarily that of mental health, the opinion of eligibility should be informed by a psychiatrist, so that the physician making the determinati

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  The psychiatric opinion that we think should be relied on is not one that makes the determination of eligibility for physician-assisted death. We're simply suggesting that when the condition is primarily a mental health condition, the determination of eligibility for PAD should b

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  It all flows from the patient-doctor relationship. The essence of practising medicine is understanding your patient's condition, seeing it through your patient's eyes, and physicians make determinations of decisional capacity or competence every day. The backbone of the Carter de

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  I think what I fear most is legislation that is overly prescriptive. As I said in my submission, so much of this touches on the fundamental essence of medicine, which is understanding your patient, achieving informed consent. I worry that federal legislation that is too ambitious

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  I would say so. Thank you for the question. Yes. I would say this. The colleges and the medical profession need some clarity about things, and in my submissions I discuss the arc of the deteriorating patient. We need that direction. Physicians need to know they are on solid lega

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  There are two types of potential breaches. Perhaps that's overly broad, but one of the two potential breaches I foresee is the inappropriate provision of physician-assisted death. If that's accompanied by a mens rea, that is inherently criminal. If it's not, then it's the inappro

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  “Ensure” is a powerful word. Carter makes it abundantly clear that no physician can be compelled to participate in this. It's the anticipation of all the colleges—and I think it's reasonable to anticipate—that there will be a coalition of willing physicians who embrace this servi

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  I would say first of all that I certainly don't speak for CMPA—

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Having said that, I can absolutely assure you that they've been nothing but co-operative along the same lines as the colleges have been. The highest court in the land has recognized that this is a right. They would like clarity and direction as to how the right can be accessed.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  That's largely because they are beyond our jurisdiction. We were looking to fill a void to the extent we could, and we developed what we thought was the most complete document we could within our jurisdiction and we shared it on a consultative basis with other health professional

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  With respect to the discussion you were having with Mr. Russomanno, I would worry that the contemplation of a hybrid-type offence, a watered-down criminal charge would have the effect of chilling physicians from providing this service. It might act as a deterrent to consider gett