Michael Cooper

“Madam Speaker, I would like to point out to my colleague that advance requests were the flagship recommendation of the first joint special committee. No one opposed them except, of course, my colleague and the Conservatives. I would like to point out to him that the very principle of an advance request is to be able to work with a health care team to establish the threshold of what is tolerable, in other words, the criteria beyond which a person does not wish to continue their end-of-life in a state of deterioration that can ultimately lead to a level of stiffness akin to rigor mortis. Often, people do not die from Alzheimer’s. They die from a host of concomitant illnesses. The bill states that all of this must be assessed in accordance with best practices. Does my colleague fully understand that, in a sense, his reasoning is not ethical and his objections are not ethical, but rather purely legalistic, based on a theological foundation?”