Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I'm talking about the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses. There's good research that shows that psychiatric diagnoses are as reliable as other medical diagnoses. This is in spite of the fact that we don't have biological markers like blood tests or X-rays to make psychiatric di

Justice committee  I believe it is. It's workable in a number of different scenarios. Regarding the first one in which the patient is given a prescription for lethal medication, we know from Oregon that about a third of the patients never take that medication. We know that one of the principals in

Justice committee  Well, I don't know what those words mean. When I spoke to the minister last week on this, I said that it was reasonably foreseeable that I would be back in my office within an hour, and it was also reasonably foreseeable that I would be dead in 50 years. That's a huge time frame,

Justice committee  You're quite correct. It was the special joint committee that recommended advance directives that could lead to physician-assisted dying. Now, to me, the issue always comes back to patient autonomy or, in other words, our ability to make meaningful decisions over how we live our

Justice committee  You're quite correct that the advance directives were not in Carter. They were in the report of the special joint committee and that's what I was referencing. As I said previously, we already have advance directives in Canadian medicine. We can agree to not be tube-fed, not be re

Justice committee  I will do that but, I can't do it during this conference call.

Justice committee  I'd be pleased to do so.

Justice committee  Thank you. My name is Derryck Smith, and I'm a medical doctor and a practising psychiatrist. I appreciate having the opportunity to speak to the committee, and I particularly admire the hours that you're keeping in bending your minds around this thorny issue. My name is Derryck