Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Yes, thank you. It's all in my brief. I'm sorry; I submitted it in English only. It is with the clerk of the committee.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Us? No. We discuss all options with our patients.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I can't go into specific examples, but we make sure patients have all the understanding they need, which includes understanding palliative care. One of the biggest—

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  It's actually part of—

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I'm speaking about how I would respond.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I would like to answer the question.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I will first make sure to know what is going on with the patients and what they understood about palliative care. That is crucial. Palliative care is so misunderstood by people, and people don't understand what natural dying and death look like. I am saying that's part of how we

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  That's what I'm trying to explain. I'm explaining that first we explore the whole question with the patients and ensure they understand all the options, including palliative care. They may have misconceptions, because palliative care is very stigmatized.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you, Senator Martin. Unfortunately—and that was an add-on to the question Mr. MacGregor asked me earlier—while we haven't seen new investments in palliative care in terms of improving accessibility and being able to measure the quality of palliative care that's being refer

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  First and foremost, our expertise is in addressing suffering, so we come alongside a person to understand what's going on in their unique context. Not all requests for MAID are from somebody who wants to immediately terminate their life. Often requests for a desire for death in M

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  This is not about MAID being right or wrong. This is about access to care that relieves suffering before it becomes irremediable.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  My goodness, absolutely not. I'm not sure where that idea came from. We provide our patients with all of the information so that they can make a choice that's best for them. We have a special expertise that comes through our certified training program. Palliative care has come s

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you for the question. We don't have any recent statistics on that, Senator Kutcher. Our most recent survey from the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians shows that 92% of palliative care physicians did not provide MAID, but we haven't resurveyed recently.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Sorry; what do you mean by “should be provided”?

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  The consensus among palliative care physicians was that hastening death and ending someone's life is not part of the practice of palliative care. Certainly there are some individual palliative care clinicians who choose to make MAID part of their medical practice, as you can in