Justice committee  Mr. Garrison, thank you for this question. It is a complex task. It's not a small task, and I think it will have to take, to my mind, as long as it needs to take. The complexity and implications and the strong different opinions play into the timing, and I think the group has t

Justice committee  No, I don't agree with this, because the specific point here is that we're asking assessors and clinicians to apply criteria during the assessment that have not been defined for a mental illness. I think it's the same when we talk about the age criteria and talk about the capacit

Justice committee  I just want to clarify, Mr. Virani. Do you want me to comment on the question of further studying or on all the points you raised before?

Justice committee  I want to underscore the fact that there is no consensus in our field about how we define “irremediable mental illness”. The fact that there are different opinions, and strong different opinions, speaks to the fact that there is no consensus. That's what the CCA, after a month of

Justice committee  Thank you. Members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss Bill C-7 and specifically the amendment that “persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness are not eligible” for MAID.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  When I was talking about the irremediable nature of the illness, I was thinking of three concepts. The first is the natural history of the illness itself. There is no proximity of death or inevitable death associated with mental illness the way there is with some other medical di

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  We don't know. We don't have enough knowledge about this. Most people would have had some form of treatment. Whether it's because of the treatment or natural history, it's hard to tell what is causing that. These are longitudinal studies that would take 10 years, 20 years, 40 yea

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Yes.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  That's very fine, thank you.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  In the first example, it's hard to make a case for eligibility just because of the mental illness, because the belief will probably still be driven by the mental illness, or the implications of the mental illness, that they are subjected to. In the second example, they could be e

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  To give a completely hypothetical example, if someone has an illness like schizophrenia and they are having an acute episode of psychosis and they are thinking of death or requesting suicide or requesting PAD, it's because of a hypothetical belief that if they don't die, then the

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  In the case where someone is requesting PAD because of schizophrenia, this is where the irremediable nature of the illness is not clear. We can't define it clearly. In the example I gave, some individuals are not acutely psychotic, but they believe there is no hope that they will

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  I understand the complexity of it and I think there needs to be a more in-depth discussion about the advance directive in such individuals. It is not black or white.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  Yes.

Physician-Assisted Dying committee  This is a question that I think we are also starting to discuss at our panel at CAMH. I don't think we have clear, specific recommendations at this point. The complexity of the issue is that the capacity changes, and that's why the advance directives are important. When individua