Health committee  Sure. I can start it. First of all, let's acknowledge that I think we are speaking to a degree in hypotheticals here. But I doubt that the kind of situations you are speaking of—situations where a women has had an ongoing interaction with one or several health care providers ov

Health committee  I don't think we could say with absolute conviction in every single case. As I was mentioning before, in hospitals, in terms of the issues of what constitutes valid consent, what is truly voluntary consent, and when is the person giving the consent really truly capable of giving

Health committee  It will depend on what the circumstances are and what the particular issue is. In these cases or the kinds of circumstances we're talking about here, we're speaking about practices that, unfortunately, have been perpetrated by health care providers. In hospitals, generally spea

Health committee  I do not either.

Health committee  In most cases, any procedure of this nature, forced or otherwise, would be taking place in a hospital that is part of the provincial or territorial health system, so the cost would be paid out of a global hospital budget covered by the province or territory—but not as a discreet

Health committee  I think it's hard to say categorically, but given the circumstances under which these kinds of incidents might occur, it wouldn't be impossible to imagine, as I was saying earlier, that a woman with mental health issues or addictions or someone who, for whatever reason, is not re

Health committee  I think, Mr. Davies, that's the group I was referring to a couple of minutes ago. Quite a few jurisdictions have indicated their intent to participate. We're hoping to hear from others soon. So, no, the individuals have not yet been appointed, nor have we met.

Health committee  I'm not aware of that. Again, I think that for useful responses to that kind of question, a representative of the Department of Justice should appear.

Health committee  The group is just in the process of being created. At the moment we have indications from a number of provinces—British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, one of the territories, and Newfoundland and P.E.I.—and we expect other provinces and territories to identify people. The grou

Health committee  I haven't either.

Health committee  I'm certainly happy to get that data and table it. I can't say that any examination of it, that I'm aware of, would have suggested from the data that there were anomalies. I think—and I'm not saying this at all to diminish the significance of this issue—that if one looked at th

Health committee  I do not.

Health committee  I can try, but again, I'm not really in a position to speak from an expert legal standpoint. Certainly, if someone is subjected to a procedure where, arguably, what has happened is an assault, it's a little bit unclear in the health care context whether or not that is a criminal

Health committee  I can start, and maybe my colleagues will want to add to it. I think the history, such as has been documented, is that certain women might be more vulnerable: women of very limited economic means, women who suffer moderate to severe mental health issues, women who suffer addictio

Health committee  I would say that pretty well universally in medical education there are units or modules that are a mandatory part of training on informed consent. That training covers the ethical, legal and clinical dimensions of the issue of informed and valid consent. Beyond what happens in