Dr. Leonie Herx:

To add to what Professor Lemmens has said in the context of take-away messages, we have an increasing number of doctors in Canada who have growing discomfort with where the Canadian MAID regime has gone. It has moved well outside the end-of-life context. They are also uncomfortable with the way that it is being offered as a solution to a lack of access to care. I can give the example of a patient who was offered MAID because there was no bariatric bed available in a hospice. Contrary to what the committee has heard today, MAID is being offered in cases where there is a lack of access to care.

In terms of protests, I did not get a chance to say earlier that over 1,400 doctors signed a petition during Covid, with the expansion of MAID outside of the end-of-life context, to say that what was being offered was not medical assistance in dying but medically administered death, that the people involved were not at the end of their life and that this was not the role of medicine. A lot of literature was written on the subject but that was the only type of protesting or demonstrating that we could do during Covid. I would be happy to send the committee those references. Of course, as the committee knows, the disability community has also made significant protests as well.

Finally, I would like to comment on Professor Downie's repeated quotes about the number of people accessing MAID with palliative care being 95%. That is not factually correct. Approximately 30% to 40% of people have had either no palliative care at all or only had such care offered at the time of making the decision to request MAID, which is far too late. I will also send the committee those references which show how that is actually inadequate care, a failure of the medical system and a form of medical error because that is too late to be offering palliative care. In fact., approximately 25% to 30% of people have had no palliative care whatsoever. Again, I can send on those references.