Senator Gold: Thank you for the question. I will have to go reread my speech. I’m not sure I cited that issue as the central reason as to why, in fact, there is not a consensus within the communities of physicians, regulators, health care ministers and the like. Nor am I in a position to competently predict what kind of consensus may emerge among assessors — psychiatrists, notably, but others — because other health care professionals are involved in the process.

Work is being done on that, to be sure, and one of the reasons that has been cited for needing more time is to translate the fairly general practice guidelines into more specific guidance for those in the assessment process, within individual institutions, individual provinces or across this country.

Hansard will reveal what I said, but the purpose was not to zero in on that specific issue.

The government is confident that three years is a reasonable time. It’s a clear target as opposed to an indeterminate one, and, therefore, the system will be sufficiently ready so that MAID can be administered more consistently and safely across this country.