Physician-Assisted Dying committee  I think the Constitution in general gives this Parliament such jurisdiction or such an authority. Again, the Supreme Court said that health is a shared jurisdiction and did not give any description or definition of what would be the respective jurisdictions of the provinces and o

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Exactly.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  You're right. I wouldn't see the federal intervention to be on just some aspects of the question. That would be unjust, in my view. If there has to be an intervention, it should be on all aspects, including first assuring that there is access all over Canada. My second point is

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Yes, under the reservation that the Quebec act does not go as far as the Carter decision itself.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  That's right. That's a big problem.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  The fact that it does not fit the Carter decision absolutely well is a big problem in this case. I would like to see what Quebec did fully respected. To be frank, I would prefer co-operation and collaboration among the governments. If there is one issue, Mr. Chair, where such c

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Yes, you've noticed that the Supreme Court of Canada talked about “physician-assisted death”, and in French we sometimes say “aide médicale à mourir”, which is of course larger, but the Supreme Court really talks about physicians. Although the Supreme Court says that medical pe

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  I think that the federal government should give the provinces considerable leeway to act on this issue, while perhaps legislating on matters such as age, which we discussed earlier. For instance, it could perhaps also legislate on the issue of residence requirements. In fact, if

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  That is clearly a possibility Parliament should look into. From a strictly personal perspective—and I am not engaging other members of the committee here—I would say that the debates before the courts will eventually be based on the principle of equality. In the Carter decision,

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  That idea of oversight is quite reassuring for the population. The population likes to know that there might be a body or different bodies collecting data and analyzing how physician-assisted dying is provided all across Canada, and maybe doing some study on the impact it has on

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Concerning the representative sample for the question “To what extent do you agree or disagree that you...should be able to receive a physician's assistance to die” if you “have advanced dementia and cannot make decisions on your own”, what I see in the report is that 42% of peop

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Combined, it's 62%: 20% agreed, and 42% strongly agreed.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  I first want to say that you are correct. The Parliament of Canada can go beyond the Carter decision, which adopts the principle that physician-assisted dying is accessible to an adult. Of course, that raises the question on who is an adult and at what age adulthood is reached. N

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Of course some people argue for these terms to be defined, and some people argue for the opposite. Those who argue for the terms to be defined say that in fact these terms could be interpreted in different ways and that the physicians who will be facing the physician-assisted d

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Well, the fact is that this question of advance directive is not a question that we have examined as closely as other questions. I think it would be good for this committee, or eventually other institutions, to pay more attention to the specific question of advance directives.