Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you, Madam Chair.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I think as a general matter, clearly when it's widely recognized that there is an area where that the services are not sufficient, it would make sense to have more services available and for those services to be better resourced. Let me just note, though, that when we're talking about MAID in cases in which the sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness, these are likely going to be cases that have not responded to treatment.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  If I may, Senator Martin, I'll ask Venetia Lawless to respond to that question.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Senator, maybe I can start by saying that we know that the panel has looked very closely at measures taken in other jurisdictions when it comes to safeguards for dealing with cases involving mental illness. Rather than my trying to speculate on what the panel will say in their report, I would ask that you wait for the report and the opportunity to question the leaders of the panel.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  First of all, I think when MAID first came in there was a small critical mass of providers who were ready to proceed. There were individuals who had done everything but assisted dying with their patients at the end of life and they were ready to proceed, but fairly quickly we got to the point where there are close to 1,500 providers now and assessors.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I don't think I could respond, Mr. MacGregor, with real data that says here's the actual gap. We know that there are gaps very significantly when it comes to the provision of palliative care in people's own homes, when people are needing palliative care but their situation is not such that they need to be hospitalized.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I agree absolutely. That is precisely what the panel has set out to do. These are undoubtedly complex and difficult decisions, but I think it is important not to enter into the discussion with, if I may use this word, “biases”. The fact of the matter is that an impulse to commit suicide manifests as a symptom of some mental illnesses, but the overwhelming majority of mental illnesses do not have suicidality as a symptom or a characteristic.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I'll add if I may, Madam Chair, that in some countries the person—

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I'm sorry. I was just going to note very quickly that in some of the Benelux countries the only minors who are eligible for an assisted death are those whose condition is terminal, so there would be no equivalent to our situation of people whose death is not reasonably foreseeable.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  We can try, but I think we don't have good data on that under the current data collection system. It's more focused on the main underlying conditions. I'll defer to my colleague Jacquie Lemaire, if I may, Madam Chair, to just quickly respond to Mr. Maloney's question.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  We do have data, and it's in the annual reports, Dr. Fry, so rather than my expanding on that data, I'm happy to follow up with the actual chart that shows you that information and how it's evolved over the life of MAID so far. What I will tell you is that the number of requests that are declined is a smaller proportion than one might think.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Not conducted by us, but I mentioned earlier in response to another question that there are oversight mechanisms in provinces and there are quality review procedures, and the oversight of MAID is generally, in our opinion, quite good. We are not concerned at this point. We don't have reason or evidence to be concerned that there are MAID reports being filed by practitioners that have incomplete or inaccurate or fraudulent data.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I think that at a certain point in time you have to have some trust in these providers. I think that anyone who has dealt with the MAID community of practitioners has been struck by the due diligence—

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  —that these people exercise. If the report is incomplete, we go back to the person who submitted it.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  We are not out there auditing every single—