This page is intended to be a research resource for anyone interested in tracking the publicly reported discussion of the issues raised by Canada’s social experiment in medically facilitated death. Because this work was started in May, 2022, there are huge gaps before that, going back to the 1990’s and earlier. Most recent material will be at the top of the page. Older material will be incorporated in article date order. For current clippings, visit Current News
2024
December 24, 2024 (World Social Psychiatry, Author Dr. Sonu Gaind) The Canadian Experience with Coercion and Restraint: From Physical Restrictions to Coercive Decision-making – With Special Reference to Medical Assistance in Dying
In this brief article in the international press, Dr. Gaind provides evidence regarding the coercive nature of “choices” made in the absence or extreme scarcity of viable alternatives, using the Canadian MAID system as a cautionary example.
December 19, 2024 (Canadian Press; also The Toronto Star) 52-year-old’s MAID procedure was a wrongful death
The notice of civil claim filed Friday at the B.C. Supreme Court says the businessman and father of three, who suffered chronic back pain and long-term mental illness, suffered wrongful death in December 2022.
The notice says the family only learned of his death afterward. The family filing the affidavit claims that the man was not capable of making decisions about his health at the time and allege his choice was influenced by concerns about his finances. The claim “accuses Dr. Ellen Wiebe and her clinic of malpractice, though none of the allegations have been proven in court.”
December 19, 2024 (The National Post). ‘It’s being abused:’ Group that led campaign for MAID is now calling for safeguards
If only they’d listened to the disability rights community in the first place!! The BC Civil Liberties Association is now backtracking on years of heavy pushing on the courts and the government to “liberalize” doctor-assisted suicide to include people who are not dying. They have backed every effort to demolish safeguards and push those floodgates open. Yet now they’re thinking, hmmmm … maybe there’s a bit of a problem here. Better late than never? Or forgive me if my trust level is low and I suspect they’re doing this “rethink” opportunistically, at a moment when a particular doctor has demonstrated flagrant disregard for the very notion of safeguards. In the article below, they deny that, and yet …
December 20, 2024 (Globe and Mail) Civil liberties group calls on Ottawa, provinces to enforce safeguards around medically assisted deaths
December 13, 2024 (The National Post) FIRST READING: Hundreds seeking death due to loneliness — inside Canada’s new MAID figures
Is legalized assisted suicide the best answer we as a society can come up with to handle widespread endemic loneliness? I think most people would say no — clearly the answer to loneliness is not death, but company. And yet our lives are busy, aren’t they…
This is the Post’s first take. There’s a lot to absorb in this tightly packed government report, but we’re working on it! The Post’s observations are sobering and sad. Nobody wants to be thinking about these issues in the lead-up to Christmas, so most people will not, and the report will slip by with very little attention to the way Canada has leapt into the international lead on government-assisted death. And remember, these numbers are a year old already.
December 12, 2024 (Vancouver Sun). MAID and the law: B.C. case shows how courts offer crucial oversight when lives are at stake
Excellent defence of a role for judges in helping to ensure that MAiD rules are followed and not abused.
November 29, 2024 (The Guardian). MPs back landmark assisted dying bill to give some terminally ill people right to end their lives
By a vote of 330 to 275, a bill in favour of assisted death for the terminally ill has passed in Parliament. The practice will become legal in England and Wales, but “If backed by MPs in further stages of the legislation, the option of assisted dying is still unlikely to be available for three years. The bill must pass several more hurdles in parliament and will not be brought before MPs again until April. The government is now likely to assign a minister to help work on the bill, without formally giving its support. After that it must be voted on again by MPs and go through the House of Lords. Should it become law there would be a two-year implementation period.
See also https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/29/mps-vote-for-assisted-dying-in-england-and-wales
November 22, 2024 (The Other Half). Safeguarding Women in Assisted Dying
Trigger alert: This report contains discussion of both suicide and violent homicide.
The authors present a thorough review of known facts and cases regarding women violently killed by domestic partners or others in cases that were often labelled mercy killing.
November 28, 2024 (CBC ) Canada Seen by Some as Cautionary Tale for UK’s Assisted Dying Bill
Bill 12 will be up for a vote on Friday, November 29th in the British Parliament.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, says anyone who wants to end their life must be older than 18, have the mental capacity to make that choice and be expected to die within six months. From there, interested adults must make two separate declarations, witnessed and signed, about their wish to die and receive approval from two independent doctors. A High Court judge would then hear from at least one of the doctors and be permitted to question the dying person before making their ruling, at which point a doctor would prepare a substance for the individual, who would administer it themselves.
Canada’s rapidly expanding system of MAID is proving to be a potent reminder to British lawmakers to take the “slippery slope” arguments of the disability rights communities seriously, and put stringent guidelines in place to prevent unjust and unnecessary early death by doctor-assisted suicide.
October 30, 2024 (Montreal Gazette). Explainer: Quebec starts accepting early requests for medically-assisted death
“As of Wednesday, Oct. 30, Quebec is the first province in Canada to allow people to make advance requests for medical assistance in dying (MAID).”
FYI, the practice remains illegal in the rest of Canada.
October 29, 2024 (CTV News). B.C. judge halts woman’s medically assisted death
The first injunction of its kind in British Columbian was issued on Saturday, October 22, the day before an out-of-province woman was scheduled to die. The injunction “prevents Dr. Ellen Wiebe or any other doctor from “causing the death” of the 53-year-old woman “by MAID or any other means.” It followed a notice of civil claim alleging Wiebe negligently approved the procedure for a patient who does not legally qualify.”
It went on to say that, “If the defendants proceed with MAID, the death will constitute a battery of (the patient), wrongful death and, potentially a criminal offence,” the notice of claim says. The application for an injunction sought “to address potentially serious failings in the application of the MAID regime.”
October 16, 2024 (AP News) Private forums show Canadian doctors struggle with euthanizing vulnerable patients
Doctors are struggling with the ethics of assisting suicide for people who are not dying, especially those whose main reason for seeking assisted death is poverty, according to this new report from the Associated Press.
“I have great discomfort with the idea of MAiD being driven by social circumstances,” one provider said. “I don’t have a good solution to social deprivation either, so I feel pretty useless when I receive requests like this.”
Read this article for many important examples.
October 2, 2024 (The Hub) Quebec is ignoring the Criminal Code prohibition for ‘advance’ MAID death requests
Daniel Zekfeld, a policy analyst, sounds an alarm about the stated intention of Quebec’s authorities, as of the end of October, to ignore the Canadian criminal law that prohibits ‘advance requests’ by people who are pretty sure they’ll want to die if they become disabled enough, even though they’re not there yet.
Advance requests ignore the possibility that a person’s wishes and desires might change and that in the future they may no longer want to be euthanized but may be unable to communicate that.
September 7, 2024 (The Toronto Star) Quebec begins granting early requests …[as of October 30, 2024]
““The issue of advance requests for medical assistance in dying is widely agreed upon* (see note below) in Quebec,” Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said in a press release.
“Quebec adopted a law in June 2023 permitting people with serious and incurable illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease to ask for MAID while they have the capacity to provide consent, with the procedure being carried out after their condition has worsened. … Quebec previously said it would wait to grant early requests until the federal government modified the Criminal Code in order to better protect health-care workers from facing charges related to ending a patient’s life, but last month it announced it wouldn’t wait any longer.”
* LIVING WITH DIGNITY notes that consensus is easy to achieve when dissenting voices are ignored. Toujours vivant/Not Dead Yet is headquartered in Quebec; also Vivre en la Dignité. Both of these organizations specifically exist to reject claims of consensus. Many other groups of people with disabilities agree.
July 12, 2024 (The Daily Mail, UK) The disabled woman battling euthanasia in Canada after nurses said she was ‘selfish’ for living
Another instance of a disabled woman being pressured to “choose” death over life. Quoting from the article, “Doctor-assisted suicides helps recipients escape the misery of cancer, heart disease and other terminal illnesses, but for Hancock and others with disabilities, its availability has changed the way they are seen by carers. ‘They just view me as a drain on the medical system and that my healthcare dollars could be spent on an able-bodied person,’ she says.”
July 4/5, 2024 (CTV News) Spina bifida patient says Montreal hospital staff twice offered MAID unprompted
“On two separate occasions and without prompting, she says she was informed that she would be eligible for medical assistance in dying (MAID), once by a nurse at the rehabilitation centre at Ste-Anne’s Hospital and another time by a social worker at the Verdun Hospital.”
Tracy Polewczuk says she often feels like a burden, but her choice is clear. “I want to survive. I want to thrive. I want my life back. I want the opposite of what they’re trying to have us do,” she said.
June 18, 2024 (Ricochet Media) – Canadians with Disabilities remain locked in ‘Legislated Poverty’, and many want to die
“The federal government may have hit the pause button “indefinitely” on the expansion of MAiD for mental health related issues, but it still has not offered any new help for those that say their mental health crisis is a direct result of living in “legislated poverty.””
Krista Carr, executive vice president of Inclusion Canada, told Ricochet that her organization receives about 10 calls per month. “Situations have gotten so desperate that they are wondering if there’s any other choice. It’s a lot cheaper for the system to end people’s lives than it is to support them to live well.”
This excellent article offers a broad review of the issues and raises important challenges that need to be addressed. Worth the time to read.
May 22, 2024 (Canadian Dimension) – Choosing Death in a society that doesn’t support life
Contributed by John Clarke, longtime anti-poverty activist in Ontario, founder of the now-defunct OCAP. John covers all the bases in his critique of a law that operates in an austerity environment, allowing quicker and more easily accessible death than the supports needed for dignified life.
May 2, 2024 (The Jacobin) – The Canadian State is Euthanizing its Poor and Disabled, by David Moscrop
A welcome perspective from America’s radical left youth. The more people who take notice of this frightful reality, the better.
April 14, 2024 (TNC News) – Quadriplegic man chooses assisted suicide after hospital stay ended with bed sores. (See also reporting below, CBC April 11)
This article reviews the facts as reported in the previous article, but adds a startling quote from MAiD specialist, Stephanie Green. She asserts vociferously that “This is not/should not be/ought not to be hijacked to be a conversation about MAiD,” Green said in an email to True North. “This story is about a major failing at an ER that left a man ill. That terrible mistake should not reflect on the cardiology service at the hospital down the road, the GI service in another city, or the country’s MAiD program (or the price of rice in Beijing for that matter).” Well, she’s entitled to her (very defensive) response, but nevertheless, had MAiD not been dangled as a “solution” to his iatrogenic condition, would this patient have chosen to hang on and try to heal? Just asking!
April 11, 2024 (CBC – French). A fatal bed wound for a quadriplegic
This story is not about MAiD. The quadriplegic in the headline, Normand Meunier, went to the hospital emergency with a respiratory infection, then waited on a stretcher for four days without proper care to prevent a bed sore. The hospital had plenty of the right kind of mattress, they just didn’t have them in emergency, and although they had a protocol requiring fragile or immobile patients be prioritized for proper care on the ward, rather than making them wait in emergency, that protocol was not followed and the bed sore developed. Eventually, the patient “chose” to die. This is just one example in the context of an inquiry into medical neglect in emergency rooms. A retired doctor is quoted as saying, “the emergency room, in these circumstances, is an environment almost hostile to this kind of patient
. The emergency stay must be as short as possible with a quick transfer to the floor with prevention measures and adapted mattress.
” The health authorities are looking into the situation. Meanwhile, Normand Meunier is dead.
April 10, 2024 (Corruptario – A blog “connecting the dots on corruption in Ontario)
Maple and Brett Belchetz, at the intersection of private, for-profit healthcare and MAiD
This is an investigative report following the breadcrumbs between the push for privately funded health care, the Westons of Loblaws, Shoppers Drug Mart and Maple (a private healthcare advocate) the Fraser Institute, Dying With Dignity and MAiD. One doctor shows up on each of these converging trails. “Dr. Brett Belchetz is a key figure in Canada’s increasingly privatized healthcare space, as CEO of private healthcare provider, Maple.”
“The intersection of MAiD advocacy and lobbying for private healthcare is not at all coincidental.”
“As a sector of society, disabled people pose a barrier to the aims of private healthcare, which is profit. It would certainly be beneficial to their growth and profitability to have fewer and fewer disabled people in our society.”
“Many of the horrifying neglect stories from private long term care (of both staff and residents) have their roots in cost cutting and maximizing profit. Providing quality care costs money, and that cuts into profitability. Neglect saves money. Lobbying to reduce oversight and inspection (“removing gatekeepers”) increases profitability again.”
“… the motives of the interests behind MAiD advocacy … cannot be taken at face value.”
March 25, 2024 (Calgary Herald) Calgary judge rules woman with autism can seek Medical Assistance in Dying
The father, WV, has 30 days to appeal the ruling allowing his autistic daughter to seek a medically assisted death. We know nothing — her parents appear to know nothing — about any physical illness that could “qualify” this young woman for death. She is not dying. It is illegal in Canada for a person whose only condition is a mental illness or disorder to be approved for MAID. And yet, here is a judge clearing her path towards death. The two doctors who approved her application don’t appear to be required to justify their approval in any way. The one doctor who did not approve may not have even been questioned by the judge. So does it really matter that Maid for mental illness is illegal, at least until 2027? What a hollow victory we’ve won …
March 13, 2024 (Toronto Star) They’ve waited years for the help they say will improve their lives. Where is the money the Trudeau government promised?
“Advocates say Ottawa has abandoned them as they grow increasingly anxious another budget will go without the Canada Disability Benefit being funded.” The journalist points out that it’s been nearly a year since the Canada Disability Benefit became law, but that the “blank” legislation has not been fleshed out with the necessary regulations. Legislators gave themselves two years to do that work — which would take them up to just before the next scheduled election in 2025.
They’ve promised that the benefit would be available to working-age people with disabilities, and that it will take into account the poverty line and additional costs faced by people with disabilities. However, although advocates had pushed for an interim emergency benefit while the regulations were developed, the government argued that an interim measure might require additional legislation and could cause further delays.
Meanwhile, people wait. The Canadian Human Rights Commission has weighed in, saying it’s aware of reports that people with disabilities are choosing medical assistance in dying because they have not been able to access basic supports.
March 13, 2024 (Press Release, Inclusion Canada) Alberta Injunction Case to have Implications: Can MAiD providers be held accountable?
We know the Courts would prefer to leave it to the doctors; and so, of course, would the doctors. But in a legal vacuum, do the courts have a role in protecting against infractions of the Criminal Code by MAiD providers? The family in Alberta believes that they do and have sought an injunction against what they believe to be an improper approval of MAiD for their adult daughter.
“As Sarah Miller, the lawyer for the father, is quoted as saying, “If the courts can look at this in the criminal context, the courts can look at this in a pre-criminal context.” This is a critical point because if MAiD after the fact was found to have been misapplied, the person is still dead. Examining the application for MAiD beforehand may ensure life is not needlessly and criminally taken.”
March 13, 2024 (Toronto Star) Delaying medically assisted death for mental illness will give us time to find an acceptable place for MAID – by Dr. Harvey Schipper, professor of medicine and adjunct professor of law at the University of Toronto.
“On Feb. 29, Bill C-62, received Royal Assent. The bill serves to pause, until 2027, consideration of expanding our laws to allow medical euthanasia to include those whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness.” Dr. Schipper says, “Volumes have been written about MAID, making evident the complexity of the issue, far more so than was anticipated by both its advocates and the legislators.” “The delay saved lives. We are all the beneficiaries.”
Dr. Schipper wants to credit politicians and legislators for having considered four questions:
1) Given that the success rate for rigorously developed and evaluated medical procedures rarely exceeds 90 per cent, were politicians and legislators prepared to publicly acknowledge and be accountable for the 10% of wrongful deaths that may have already occurred, before the inclusion of mental illness? That could amount to between 2,000 and 4,000 wrongful deaths.
2)Given the widely acknowledged inability of mental-health experts to accurately predict the irremediability of those with mental illness, were parliamentarians prepared to … be accountable for an error rate of as much as 50 per cent … should MAID for mental illness as a sole criterion go forward?
3)Did politicians and legislators consider the need to publicly acknowledge and be accountable for an increase in societal suffering, based on the almost unanimous input of the disability community, those without supports and services, saying they are driven to MAID for lack of options or even those who have developed a tormenting fixation on getting MAID, which one might call maidism?
4)Were politicians and legislators aware of the fact that MAID selection and training programs have been designed and administered only by advocates without independent oversight?
“This is not a screed in opposition to MAID. Rather it is a grateful acknowledgment that direct clinical consequences among the many other complex and possibly irresolvable issues were deeply considered. This is a vital starting point in our struggle to find — with time and experience — a culturally, morally, legally, and medically acceptable place for MAID.”
I have paraphrased and attempted to clarify Dr. Schipper’s complex thought and language for those of you who do not subscribe to the Star.
March 12, 2024 (Globe and Mail) Father fights to stop assisted death of 27-year-old daughter in MAID case that tests role of families
Globe reporters, Carrie Tate and Erin Anderssen dig into the importance of this case to “… define the rights of patients and family members under Canada’s new assisted death legislation and … determine what role, if any, the courts have in reviewing expert opinion from medical professionals when it comes to MAID.”
They go on to quote the father’s lawyers, saying, “There is no other means by which the proper functioning of the MAID system in Alberta can be checked prior to the patient’s death,” his lawyers argued. The lawyers added that Alberta’s “refusal” to enact regulatory oversight for MAID “seems to be an invitation for the court to step in and fill the role of an absent legislature.”
“Clarifying the role of families was one of the issues raised by experts calling for the federal government to delay legislation last year to expand MAID to include people with mental illness as a sole condition. Last month, the federal government announced that it will delay the expansion for another three years, while consultations with doctors and provincial governments continue.”
March 11, 2024 (CBC) Father asks court to stop 27-year-old daughter’s MAID death, review doctors’ sign-off, Meghan Grant, CBC Calgary Crime reporter.
“Emily Amirkhani, a lawyer for W.V. [the father of the woman known as M.V.], argued that MAID is “an incredibly unique system” where if a person seeking MAID is wrongfully approved, “that person is never going to cause anyone to look behind that curtain” because they got what they wanted. … It’s unlike any situation I can think of where the wrongful administration of the system cannot be brought to light but for someone besides the patient,” said Amirkhani.
“The judge reserved his decision on whether he’ll set aside the temporary injunction preventing M.V. from accessing MAID. The other part of his decision will deal with whether a judicial review will take place, which would examine how doctors came to sign off on M.V.’s MAID application. “
March 7, 2024 (The Montréal Gazette) Quebec judge won’t exempt church-supported palliative care home from MAID law
The hospice associated with (but not run by) a Catholic Church in Montreal wanted a temporary exemption from a law that says all facilities caring for dying people in Quebec must offer MAiD even if they don’t believe in it. This exemption was to cover the period between now and when their lawsuit can be heard in court. NO, says a judge, and down goes freedom of conscience in Canada.
March 3, 2024 (The London Free Press). Why it’s time to start looking at the forest instead of the trees on MAiD, Gabrielle Peters
In this entertaining article, Peters spells out for us the obvious dangers in counting on a “perfect” government program, when there’s never been any such thing. “And in this perfect program every mistake and misdeed will be caught and stopped in sufficient time to prevent harm.” She says, “If you find yourself thinking that the chance of seeing Bigfoot riding a unicorn seems more plausible, please know you are not alone.”
She encourages us not to always imagine the “best-case scenario”. “Instead of imagining the doctor you respect and admire, imagine the one you think is arrogant or lazy or worse, the one who was arrested and charged with decades of crimes against various patients. And more so, wonder about the ones who were never caught.”
Doctors, systems, cost savings. Think about it!
February 29, 2024 (Euthanasia Prevention Coalition). US Senators ask Pfizer about donation to Dying with Dignity Canada, Canada’s pro-euthanasia group.
Here’s a really good example of activism — directing queries to a company who receives government money (in this case for pandemic vaccines) but also donates money to a cause that would increase demand for their own products (in this case, euthanasia drugs) — a cause that many of their shareholders would not approve of.
Of course it drives me mad that these are extreme right-wing politicians — and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is also very catholic, anti-gay, anti-abortion, etc. Why are these our most reliable allies for “life”, although not for a strong social safety net to support life in all of its forms … ?
But still, good for them! Credit where credit is due.
February 21, 2024 (The Hill Times) MAiD Expansion Advocates have wrongly appropriated the abortion debate – Trudo Lemmens and Isabel Grant (both law professors)
Behind a strict firewall, Lemmens and Grant argue that abortion rights and disability rights are entirely compatible. Championing reproductive rights for women is attuned with championing the rights of disabled people to get the supports and services they need to live equally in society with others.
These law professors argue that the attempt to appropriate feminist arguments about reproductive choice is a “sleight of hand” and should be seen for what it is. For more on this topic visit https://living-with-dignity.ca/2023/05/09/my-body-my-choice-tricky-territory/
February 21, 2024. (MacDonald-Laurier Institute/Inside Policy) Barriers to care persist but access to MAiD keeps expanding, Ramona Coelho
“Our government has allowed the incredible power and influence of certain lobby groups and their members to control the public discourse and policies around MAiD and its expansion, prioritizing access to MAiD over the safety of Canadians. Besides the current discussion about when to legalize MAiD for mental illness, the parliamentary committee has also recommended expansion to children and MAiD by advance directives. With eligibility for MAiD continuing to broaden, we are not giving priority to serving those most in need, but instead seem intent on rapidly expanding a path to end their lives.”
“Suicide prevention organizations have also highlighted how the promotion of doctor-assisted suicide undermines suicide prevention efforts. These are only a few of the alarms that euthanasia has set off in this country.”
February 19, 2024 (National Post). Sanctuaries from euthanasia must be protected, by Brian Bird
“[Can] faith-based health-care facilities — and by extension any health-care facility — decline to offer euthanasia, on the view that this practice is a type of killing and therefore unconnected to health care.” ?
Bird tells us that a coming constitutional challenge “will claim that the existence of sanctuaries from euthanasia … violates the Charter rights of Canadians …. The lawsuit would, if successful, make it impossible for a Canadian hospital to opt out of providing euthanasia on ethical or conscientious grounds.”
However, he claims,saying that “euthanasia in certain circumstances should not be criminalized (per the 2015 Carter decision) is not the same as concluding that it should be compelled, or must be provided throughout the health-care system.” (My emphasis added).
This excellent article provides some important links:
–Legal scholars have argued that its use, especially in patients who are not even dying or approaching death, and in the absence of adequate supports, potentially undermines Charter rights.
-United Nations human rights experts have argued that legalizing euthanasia in these contexts sends the harmful and discriminatory message that it is “better to be dead than to live with a disability,” and that it is contrary to Canada’s international human rights commitments.
–Suicide prevention organizations have also highlighted how the promotion of doctor-assisted suicide undermines suicide prevention efforts. These are only a few of the alarms that euthanasia has set off in this country.
February 10, 2024 (CBC). Advocates worry federal disability benefit program won’t be fully funded in upcoming budget
“Bill C-22, which passed unanimously in June, was meant to lift people like Giles out of poverty by topping up provincial support funding. But the program hasn’t yet been allocated funding or been fully designed, and many are concerned the program won’t receive the funding it needs this budget, which is expected to be unveiled in March or April.”
February 9, 2024. Three important articles today!:
- February 9, 2024 (The Toronto Star), The real problem with MAID for mental illness
In this article, Isabel Grant and Elizabeth Sheehy conclude by affirming the exact premise of Living With Dignity, i.e. that “It is not the job of the state to offer death where it is unwilling to provide the necessities of a dignified life.”
The authors point out that “Eliminating the state’s complicity in the intolerable suffering of many Canadians with mental illness is simply not part of the [current] conversation.” But clearly it should be.
“… We agree with experts who say that we cannot differentiate suicide from MAID for those with mental illness, [but likewise] we also cannot differentiate intolerable suffering based on disability from the suffering caused by inadequate housing and health care, poverty, loneliness and social isolation.”
The authors point out another worrying sign of trouble, i.e. the gender imbalance becoming evident in Track 2 MAID for people with disabilities who are not dying.
“While we are relieved that the government has decided to put a (temporary) halt on MAID for mental illness alone, disabled Canadians who are not at the end of life are still dying from MAID, with and without coexisting mental illness, at the rate of more than one every day. Why is there no public outcry about ending these disabled lives?” - February 8, 2024. Dr. Shelley Tremain, in her Biopolitical Philosophy blog writes about how the mainstream media participate in shaping the “eugenic agenda” in Canada. Tremain doesn’t hold back on naming a particular journalist, networks and publications which she sees as uncritically endorsing the MAID agenda and promoting “mainstream Eurocentric ethics/bioethics values —autonomy, individual rights, and personhood” to the exclusion of disability concerns and critical points of view on the subject.
A short, enjoyable read. - February 9, 2024 (The Globe and Mail) It’s too late for the Supreme Court. Ottawa needs to step up and fix MAID
In this article, U of T law professor Trudo Lemmens points out that while “…MAID remains a Criminal Code exemption to prohibitions of assisted suicide and homicide” … “Canadian guidance and standards primarily focus on access to, not protection against, death.” Meanwhile, he points out, “suicidal patients currently face weeks-long waits for access to basic mental health care. This context, in particular, highlights the tension between MAID and suicide prevention.” The results of our MAID regime’s promotion of access to death as a benefit, and the trivialization of death as a harm to be protected against, are increasingly clear.”
Some people are suggesting that the question of MAiD for mental disorders should go to the Supreme Court for a decision, but professor Lemmens discourages that approach. He argues that the passage of Bill C-7 in 2021 undermined protections for persons with disabilities while sunsetting the act of likewise undermining protections for people with mental illness. Thus a question to the Court regarding one group based on the fate of the other seems doomed to result in a distorted decision.
Professor Lemmens concludes: ”Policy-makers now seem to at least acknowledge the issues with expanding MAID for mental illness. They should now also take seriously the mounting evidence of current risks for other disabled persons. [Almost 700 people with disabilities who were not dying have died.] Instead of filing a reference with a distorted premise, they should stop further expansion and muster the courage to take constitutional responsibility for law-making and address the MAID regime’s fundamental problems.”
Febuary 7, 2024 (The Globe and Mail) Catholic Church Challenging Quebec MAID Law on Religious Freedom Grounds
The article is behind a paywall, but the essence of it is contained in this paragraph.
“The lawsuit argues that the law forces the church into an unsolvable dilemma: stop supporting its palliative care centre, or “accept that their property, a former church, be used to commit acts that they consider morally unacceptable.” ”A person’s dignity isn’t affected by whether they are sick or near death, Lepine said, adding that ending someone’s life isn’t the solution to pain. “The solution is to take care of the person and bring comfort.””
February 1, 2024. Ottawa to wait until after next federal election to expand assisted dying legislation
First, let me say that Living With Dignity is pleased and fully supports the government’s decision. While we will continue to work towards the repeal of all assisted suicide for non-dying people, this delay is welcome.
Then let me say that Senator Pamela Wallin makes me laugh. The government, she says, was supposed to meet three requirements for expansion readiness: 1) a training program for MAID providers, 2) that data collection requirements be spelled out and 3) that the committee studying the issue release a report. Check, check and check — except that the report (#3) recommended AGAINST expansion! Not what she wanted. It seems the committee actually listened to a lot of voices speaking against expansion, unlike the good senator who attacked and belittled those witnesses at every opportunity. [Rumour has it that the development of a very pro-MAID training program (#1) travelled a bumpy path, with dissenting voices over-ridden, resulting in resignations. And (#2), there is still no consensus on data collection.]
January 30, 2024 (National Post, Chris Selley). Canada will never be “ready” to euthanize the mentally ill – Of course we can ‘discriminate’ against people seeking a medical procedure for which they have no medical need.
“[Punting the issue down the road again] probably seemed like the easiest thing to do: keep hope alive among those disability and mental-health advocates who see MAID for the mentally ill as an expression of human rights; keep fury at bay among those disability and mental-health advocates who see MAID for the mentally ill as an engraved invitation to further abuse, neglect and degradation.”
“It’s a grotesque notion: Once we get a handle on Canada’s myriad mental health-care crises, then we’ll be in a morally justifiable position to euthanize the mentally ill? Once we solve the housing crisis, then it’ll be fine to euthanize the homeless? These are artifacts of a debate that has gone miles off the rails.
“Not ready” aren’t the words Canadian politicians are looking for. “Not ever” are the words.”
January 30, 2024 (First published January 27th, updated on the 30th) (The Toronto Star) Surge in medically assisted deaths under Canada’s MAID program outpaces every other country
Only subscribers can read the full article, but one paragraph sums it up nicely: ”Some experts see the rapid growth as a human rights triumph that allows Canadians to make their own choice about when they wish to die with the full support of the state and their doctors. Others fear that failures in the health-care system and social safety net may be contributing to the surge.” We are amongst those “others”.
Another quote from Dr. Scott Kim: ”Kim says the deliberations about the roll-out of MAID in Canada took place largely behind closed doors where physicians and lawyers appointed by the government pushed hard for broad accessibility to assisted death for Canadians. ’The aggressive philosophy of implementation, in coordination with advocacy groups rather than wide input from varying perspectives, has been truly astonishing.'”
We acknowledge that this article was printed just before the government decided against the expansion for now.
BREAKING NEWS (Jan 29/24)
Federal government seeking another pause on planned expansion of medical assistance in dying
January 29, 2024 (CBC)
January 29, 2024 (The Province) Ramona Coelho: MAiD for those with mental illness should never be on the table: Canadians face major barriers to access mental health care, which can lead to wanting death as the most accessible option
“That the federal government even considered expanding MAiD to provide death for mental health suffering, while simultaneously failing its duty to provide timely care, counselling, community-enriching funding and livable income is unconscionable. Death is not the answer.” Hear hear!!
January 29, 2024 (Vancouver Sun) We must reject assisted suicide as a solution for mental health challenges
Kurt tells the story of the devastation of his father’s suicide on his family’s ongoing mental health. We must, he believes, find other, better solutions to dealing with the heartbreak of mental health problems.
January 23, 2024 (Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Newsletter). Parks Canada permits euthanasia (MAiD) on its premises
January 22, 2024 (msn). Ottawa acknowledges ‘concerns about readiness’ on medical aid in dying expansion.
Health Minister Mark Holland says the provinces are concerned about lack of readiness, although at the federal level, he’s convinced that there’s an equivalence between physical and psychological suffering. The article quotes Dr. Sonu Gaind’s November statement to the AMAD committee in November, 2023, in which he said, “There are no meaningful safeguards to protect vulnerable and marginalized individuals who could get better from getting MAID during periods of despair and suicidality fuelled by mental illness.”
January 12, 2024 (The Walrus) The Lobby Group That Owns the Conversation around Assisted Deaths
I learned a lot from reading this article and I believe you will too. For example, did you know that DWD is simultaneously a registered charity AND a registered lobby group? I didn’t even think that was possible!
January 3, 2023 (Vancouver Sun) People who experience mental illness don’t need our help to die — they need our support to live
This opinion piece by Moira Wilson argues passionately that “Our elected officials are pursuing MAID for mental illness of their own accord and on their own rushed timeline.” She believes that by legalizing MAID for mental illness, Canada will further deviate from the practice of preventing suicide — for everyone. People with mental illness who are dying of some physical ailment are already eligible for MAiD. If they are not dying, then they are being assisted with suicide, pure and simple.
She warns that “If no further action is taken, this predetermined course of action will come into effect in March, with no new safeguards being added to the law. That leaves us, Canadians, in the unfortunate position of needing to ask elected officials to admit they made a mistake. Join me in encouraging them to do so.”
We do, and we hope you will also.
********************************************************************************
2023
December 30, 2023 (Toronto Star) Intensive, compassionate caring — not MAID — is most effective way to address mental illness
Dr. Harvey Chochinov closed out the year 2023 with a stirring and persuasive opinion piece in the Toronto Star. While the headline says it all, Dr. Chochinov offers one very convincing argument.
He says, “I would suggest [Members of the Special Joint Committee tasked with the decision] behave like NASA. When a potentially catastrophic problem is identified before blast-off, space engineers don’t set an arbitrary new launch date … Either they scrap the mission or delay launch, which should proceed only when the problems are solved, and not a moment sooner.”
December 30, 2023 (Toronto Star) Intensive, compassionate caring — not MAID — is most effective way to address mental illness
Dr. Harvey Chochinov closed out the year with a stirring and persuasive opinion piece in the Toronto Star. While the headline says it all, Dr. Chochinov offers one very convincing argument.
He says, “I would suggest [Members of the Special Joint Committee tasked with the decision] behave like NASA. When a potentially catastrophic problem is identified before blast-off, space engineers don’t set an arbitrary new launch date … Either they scrap the mission or delay launch, which should proceed only when the problems are solved, and not a moment sooner.”
Lives hang in the balance. Ottawa should scrap the mission!
December 17, 2023 (Toronto Star) Buried in the story below (Critics caution…) is a video that has nothing to do with the headline or mental illness. It is a story of an outrageous medical failure ultimately “resolved” when the patient, Dan Quayle — a man with esophogeal cancer — gave up on waiting for treatment that never came, and applied for and was granted an assisted death instead of treatment. I have added an entry in his memory on the Remembering Lives Lived page. Here is an article from December 6, 2023 that provides more detail: Cancer Treatment delayed, Victoria man opts for MAID
December 17, 2023 (Toronto Star) Critics caution against plan to expand medical assistance in dying to those with mental illness
Nothing new here, except a beautiful human being with a history of being very close to death in her younger years but who held onto hope and survived to live another two decades. Laurel Walker, now 44, says, “I remember my dark times, and it felt hopeless. The fact that I considered ending my life, and tried [in 2005], it’s so sad to me. People living with a mental health issue, who would even consider MAID, are in a great, great deal of pain. … Allowing MAID without adequately funding treatment for people who may repeatedly end up in emergency rooms is akin to saying there is no hope”, she said. Her biggest concern is that vulnerable people languish on long wait lists and can’t afford to pay for psychological care that is not publicly funded.
December 15, 2023 (Globe and Mail) Weighing our Options: Ottawa open to further pause to expand assisted dying rules
That’s not quite a decision …
December 6, 2023 (Policy Options). When is Suicide Considered Rational?
I have republished this article in full on the Blog page under a Creative Commons/No derivatives licence. The disability perspective on this issue is ably and respectfully represented by the two authors, Mary Shariff and Derek Ross. If you are encountering these ideas for the first time, please take this opportunity to contact your federal representative and urge them to do what they can to harness this runaway train. Thank you.
December 6, 2023 (Times Colonist): Cancer Treatment delayed, Victoria man opts for MAID
This case made the news. I believe there are many similar cases which do not. I have no proof. But this would be an important research project for someone to undertake.
November 20, 2023 (Globe and Mail) Some nurse practitioners in Canada not being paid for administering MAID
I scarce know what to say about this one. Nurse practitioners are responding privately, on their own unpaid time, to a demand for death-by-MAiD from patients in the community. They want to be paid for these “provisions”, naturally. Doctors don’t have to do volunteer MAiD provisions, so why should they? Not all nurses are women, but it does appear that there’s a gendered aspect to this … injustice. The sheer number of people wanting to be terminated on weekends and evenings appears to be higher than the system is prepared to cope with through normal channels. I think what has me scratching my head is the very obvious lack of supervision of this volunteer life-ending enterprise. Who’s paying attention? Where are the systemic vulnerabilities being cautiously processed? Is anybody watching as this big wheel spins?
November , 2023 (Al Jazeera) Do you want to die today?
Sad and hard to watch, but so important!! 25 minutes of your life, but so worth it. Comes with a content warning.
November 4, 2023. (Globe and Mail ) It’s time to take a step back on assisted death.
An important note of caution from the Editorial Board of the Globe and Mail. Although it’s behind a paywall, this article draws attention to the dangers inherent in the looming expansion of doctor-assisted death to people with mental health issues — their point of view is that it should not happen — but also to other troublesome facts that come to light in their review of the 4th Annual MAID report, issued recently. For example, “are Canadians being approved for a medically assisted death simply because they are old?” (See the new blog post on this site being published tomorrow.)
The final paragraph reads: “A delay until March is not enough; Ottawa needs to withdraw its amendments that include mental illness in the law for MAID. There are too many uncertainties, most crucially the inability to determine who is suffering from a truly irremediable mental disease and who will recover given enough time, treatment – and hope.”
September 12, 2023 (Vancouver Sun) A letter to the editor in response to the letter from Bonita J. Thompson (September 11, 2023) on the topic of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID):
To Harold Munro, Editor, in response to the letter from Bonita J. Thompson on the topic of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), I would like to point out that the ability to determine the time and manner of one’s death when dealing with intolerable suffering in irremediable medical circumstances is not in dispute. This describes the current Canadian law as it applies to Track 1 MAID. Very few people are arguing MAID should not be available in these circumstances. I am glad that her husband had access to MAID in the end stages of his life, and that it was within the law for him to exercise his right to make the request he did.
The subject matter under dispute is the expansion of MAID (Track 2 MAID) to those who are not actually dying, to mature minors, and to those whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental disorder.
I know our health care system in Canada will never be perfect. However, it must be substantially better than it is now before we can even consider the expansion of MAID. We are a long way from determining which mental disorder may be considered irremediable and at what stage of diagnoses and treatment this determination should be made, and by whom.
We all know about the housing crisis. We must wait for a substantial improvement in that situation before we tell despairing people, who will be smart enough not to give poverty or horrible housing as the reason they are applying, “Yes, you are right, your life is not worth living. In fact, there is probably no hope it ever will be.” Do we really want to tell an 18-year-old, or anyone, that? If we approve Track 2 MAID that is what we may as well come out and say. That is the message we will send.
I am hopeful it is easy for people to discern the difference between someone who is diagnosed with a terminal illness, and in unbearable pain, and someone who is young with a serious mental disorder who can’t get any psychiatric or psychological assistance. These two may both request MAID – one should be granted the request and the other should not.
Yours truly, Laurel Jones
Full disclosure: Laurel is my sister-in-law. The letter is entirely her own.
September 1, 2023 (BBC News) Critically Ill UK teen in legal fight with NHS
A 19-year-old patient with mitochondrial disease is fighting to be kept alive to fight another day, but her doctors, and now a judge, have ruled that her life is not one that can be saved. Her condition and the case itself are being compared to that of infant Charlie Gard, whose parents were over-ruled by a judge in 2017. These are not “assisted suicide” cases — Charlie Gard was an infant, incapable of expressing a wish to live or to die; and the teen desperately wants to live and to be supported to do so for as long as possible, but her doctors have deemed treatment to be futile. She will die quickly when her ventilator is turned off, which it will be now that the judge has ruled in favour of the doctors. In Fox News coverage of the same story, her legal advocate has said, “ST has wanted to tell her story to the world in order to try and access further treatment but has been prevented from doing so by the ironically named Court of Protection.” Linguistic irony is becoming an embedded feature in the international end-of-life conversation!
August 24, 2023 (CBC Nova Scotia) Cape Breton woman seeks MAID over lengthy workers’ compensation delays
“A Cape Breton woman who has been fighting for more than a decade for benefits from Nova Scotia’s Workers’ Compensation Board says she will continue to push ahead as long as she can. But Melissa Ellsworth said she can’t wait any longer for pain relief and has applied for medical assistance in dying, also known as MAID.
Ellsworth says, “I can’t live with this type of pain and I’m disintegrating to nothing, and the options that I have for quality of life are there, but workers’ comp is refusing to provide them, so I have no option really but to apply for MAID.”
Nova Scotia’s Workers Comp system is overdue for review, but meanwhile, case workers’ “deny” decisions are overturned 56% of the time. Ellsworth has gone through 11 appeals, and won 10 of them. But problems with service delivery remain.
This is another case of “The system is broken; let’s give the patients an easy option.” This is not okay.
August 19, 2023 (Christopher Lyon on SubStack) Healthcare, Serial Murder and MAiD — How does Canada’s MAiD system stack up against the conditions that enable medical murderers?
Christopher Lyon has undertaken a study comparing the prevailing conditions that enable serial medical killers to operate undetected, sometimes for long periods of time, with the conditions under which the medically-assisted dying regime operates in Canada. There are some stunning overlaps.
August 15, 2023 (National Post) Quebecers no longer seeing doctor-assisted deaths as a last resort, says oversight body
The law says a person must be medically “grievous, irremediable, in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability and suffering intolerably” in order to qualify for death by doctor. But evidence is beginning to show the erosion of this standard. Quebec’s MAID watchdog, Dr. Michel Bureau “… worries doctors are being put in difficult situations by elderly patients who are ready to die but whose health problems aren’t serious enough for them to qualify for MAID.” In other words, they are suicidal, but not grievously or irremediably ill. The doctors in these “difficult situations” need to learn the word “No” in English, “non” in French. “You do not “qualify” for euthanasia. You must wait for your page to be turned naturally. That is the law.” Doctors who fail to transmit this message and instead euthanize such patients are guilty of murder.
August 10, 2023 (The Tyee). She Sought Help in Crisis and Was Suggested MAID Instead
Another article on the case of Kathrin Mentler, a young woman in a mental health crises, feeling suicidal and worried about her ability to resist the urge to kill herself, asked by a clinician if she’d ever considered medical assistance in dying. She has been added to our “Lives in the Balance” page.
August 9, 2023 (Globe and Mail). Vancouver hospital defends suggesting MAID to suicidal patient as risk assessment tool
It is so inappropriate that this incident happened! It is even more outrageous that the hospital defended the horrific “error”, making an excuse for the “clinician” involved. From quotes in the article, it is clear that the worker not only mentioned medically assisted suicide to an actively suicidal patient, but actually promoted it as a “better choice”. Never mind that maid for mental illness is still illegal everywhere in Canada, at least until March of 2024.
July
July 18, 2023 (Cambridge University Press) The realities of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada
An important article published in a prestigious academic journal reviews the factual landscape of doctor-assisted death in Canada, complete with evidence of big gaps in interpretation, safeguards, oversight and enforcement of the law when violations occur.
July 15, 2023 (Reuters) She’s 47, anorexic and wants help dying. Canada will soon allow it.
“Lisa Pauli wants to die. The 47-year-old has wrestled with the eating disorder anorexia for decades; she says she has had a warped relationship with her body since age 8.” When I read this, I feel such exasperation! Who is working with her to explore what happened to her at age 8? Who is trying to use the latest techniques in treating childhood trauma to help her disentangle traumatic events from her sense of herself as a worthy human being? Who is offering her hope that such disentanglement is even possible? Or is everyone involved — her mother, her psychiatrist — colluding in her hopelessness?
Of course, I do not know Ms. Pauli or her history of trauma and/or treatment. I wish her well. I wish she would find that the help she needs is out there, and that she is not hopeless.
July 11, 2023 (Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Blog) Death by loneliness: Study of assisted suicide in neurodiverse people
“Loneliness was the main reason 77 per cent of 39 Dutch adults with autism and/or intellectual disability chose assisted suicide, according to a recent study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.” (See May 23 entry below).
“In two-thirds of cases, doctors’ reports didn’t mention the patient’s family or other important people in their life. Presumably this would have provided a more complete social picture, and perhaps been a source of alternative solutions.”
July 10, 2023 (Not Dead Yet, USA) Good (old) News: In Early 2023, [American] Suicidology Group Withdrew Statement NDY Protested.
The American Association of Suicidology quietly withdrew a statement that has caused trouble for disability rights groups in Canada and the US. Back in October 2017, the prestigious US organization stated that medically assisted death can easily be distinguished from regular suicide, and that despite minor overlaps, “legal physician assisted deaths should not be considered cases of suicide and are therefore a matter outside the central focus of AAS.” This statement was used as evidence in the Truchon case to support Track 2 MAiD for non-dying disabled people, despite protests from Canadian disability rights advocates. Disabled Americans leafletted the organization’s next conference (2018). In March of 2023, the statement was quietly “retired”. The “retirement” of the statement garnered little press but should make a significant difference to physician assisted death in the Canadian context. “Now the assisted suicide movement has no scientific basis for its assertions that PAS is not suicide.”
July 6, 2023 (The Bulwark). What Canada’s Euthanasia Advocates Ask Us to Believe
“Perhaps the government’s choice of a reality-obscuring euphemism is partly to blame for my compatriots’ hazy understanding of what is happening up north.”
This is a thorough review and an excellent analysis. Another quote: “But even if limiting access to euthanasia is a limit on autonomy, we must hold on to the idea that a decent society simply does not allow people to do anything they like. That is so even when the state’s response to particular actions is therapeutic rather than punitive. … Indeed, the state has special duties to protect the vulnerable, which means, in different stages of life, all of us.”
July 1, 2023 (Daily Mail, UK). ‘Disgusting’ slideshow offering assisted suicide ‘is emailed to HEALTHY patients by Canadian healthcare provider,’ as unease grows over country’s euthanasia program.
Apparently, Fraser Health in BC sent out a MAiD powerpoint slideshow promoting assisted suicide programs to healthy patients who were simply receiving information on their pension packages. This could use some independent verification. Can anyone living in the Fraser Health district confirm that this is true?
June 28, 2023 (Daily Mail, UK) Canada is on track for another record-busting year of euthanasia deaths, with a 35% jump to some 13,500 state-sanctioned suicides in 2022, a DailyMail.com projection shows (Article first published June 7, updated June 13; accessed June 28). The federal numbers will be coming out soon, but these projections are based on known provincial numbers.
June 2023 (The Atlantic) THE OUTER LIMITS OF LIBERALISM: What happens when a society takes individualism to its logical conclusion? By David Brooks
Although this article is behind a paywall, the ideas are well worth considering. We have placed a pdf version of it in the Philosophy section of the Library.
June 27, 2023 (The Nation) When Death Is the Best Choice, Is It a Choice at All? Disabled Canadians need support, but without proper government funding, voluntary death through MAID may be their only option. Featuring the story of Michael Kaliszan, mentioned here and in “Lives in the Balance” earlier this year, this story. “The indignity of it all is just overwhelming,” Kaliszan said. “The question should be: Why is a disabled person considering [MAID] simply on the basis that they can’t get the support services they need?” The answer from the Canadian government at this point seems clear: It’s easier to expand MAID than to give disabled people the support they need to live long and fulfilling lives.
June 23, 2023 (National Post) Quadriplegic Ontario mother says her only option is assisted suicide due to lack of support
Featured on the “Lives in the Balance” page on this website, and also in the “Ways to Help“. This is a young, bright woman with small children. Death is not the right answer!
June 8, 2023 (National Post) Debate over MAID in funeral homes is yet another bizarre distraction
Once the conversation becomes unhinged, there are few limits to how unhinged it can get!
May 30, 2023 (The Walrus) Have Assisted Dying Laws Gone Too Far?
Meagan Gillmore reviews the law that allows medical professionals to end lives with impunity, and considers some of the moral and legal dilemmas raised by these laws.
She quotes Madeline Li, a doctor who provides MAiD, saying, “The problem has been that the people who first entered MAID work are now very experienced, but they’re confusing experience with expertise. They’ve been very focused on ‘Does a patient qualify?’ and not ‘Should a patient have MAID?’”
May 23, 2023 (Cambridge University Press) Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorders: investigation of 39 Dutch case reports (2012–2021)
The authors conclude: Examination of societal support for suffering associated with lifelong disability, and debates around the acceptability of these factors as reasons for granting EAS, are of international importance. We couldn’t agree more!
May 14, 2023 (Substack). Kevorkian’s Ghosts
Another excellent post by Dr. Christopher Lyon, whose father was euthanized under troubling and highly questionable circumstances
May 9, 2023 (National Post). Canada shouldn’t deny assisted suicide if social conditions made life intolerable: bioethicists
I wasn’t going to post this article, but one of our readers pointed out to me that — horrific as its conclusions are — is at least interesting for the fact that the “bioethicist” authors acknowledge that the social support for people with disabilities is totally inadequate and renders their lives intolerable. I agree. IS DEATH AN ACCEPTABLE SOLUTION?? HELL NO! Support is the solution, not death.
May 4, 2023 (National Post) Canada is putting prisoners to death again (with MAID this time)
Nine federal inmates have died by assisted suicide since 2016
“It’s been 61 years since Canada has carried out a sentence of capital punishment, but state-assisted death has apparently returned to the prison system amid revelations that at least nine federal inmates have received medical assistance in dying.”
“In his 2020 annual report, Zinger detailed the circumstances surrounding one of Canada’s first in-custody MAID deaths. The inmate was serving a two-year sentence for a non-violent offence when he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and opted for MAID after he had a request denied for “compassionate parole.”” Shocking.
May 3, 2023 (The Globe and Mail) Depression is a liar
Dr. Harvey Chochinov, a psychiatrist and palliative care specialist, helps readers understand clinical depression in a way that most folks may not have thought of before. It’s not just feeling sad!
April 28, 2023 (Vancouver Sun). Canadians adopting assisted death at 22 times the rate of Americans
The author, Douglas Todd, questions this extreme variation in uptake of this end-of-life option. Daryl Pullman, Memorial University medical bioethicist, told UBC’s Centre for Applied Ethics that Canadians could learn from the U.S. about safeguards against unnecessary assisted suicides. Philosophically, Pullman maintains many proponents of MAID have adopted an ethic of individualism and personal autonomy over an ethic of mutual care. “Regardless of their views on assisted suicide, Canadians would be smart to not pretend such thorny ethical issues have been resolved once and for all.”
April 26, 2023 (Press Release, Disability Rights Coalition of Nova Scotia). Interim agreement reached on a systemic human rights remedy for persons with disabilities.
Pending final approval by the Human Rights Board of Inquiry, this landmark settlement will usher in a new era of life for Nova Scotians with Disabilities.
“Unlike past government reports and commitments … the government’s commitments to persons with disabilities will be legally binding and enforceable“.
Living with Dignity Canada congratulates all of the hard-working and committed folks who made this massive step possible. Well done!!
April 20, 2023 (MacDonald Laurier Institute) More than we imagined? Unresolved tensions and the current state of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada
This article is also to be found on the Library’s Philosophy page.
Shawn Whatley thoroughly reviews Canada’s current (and growing) doctor-assisted death culture, it’s origins in history, anthropology, philosophy and law. A 20-minute read. Well worth it.
April 20, 2023 (APTN) MAiD in prison: nine inmates have used Canada’s assisted-death program
Ivan Zinger, the Correctional Investigator of Canada, said ““Under no circumstances should the procedure of MAiD be dealt with inside a penitentiary,” he tells APTN. “That is highly problematic, unethical and immoral in my view. I think we would be the only jurisdiction in the world who would do that.”
APTN has learned some of the first inmates to use MAiD were Indigenous and all of them were male.
“More than one person shared that they felt like part of their duty to own their debt to society was to free up space, essentially. Knowing that they were going to be there forever.”
April 17, 2023 (Globe and Mail) Canada’s permissive assisted-dying culture is devaluing people with disabilities
I’ve been working on a blog post on this issue, but here is a strong legal voice saying clearly what I’ve been feeling my way towards. Excellent article!
April 9, 2023 (Global News) ‘Awful for patients’: Frustration grows over delay in assisted dying expansion
This is not the kind of article I usually feature, but in the interest of keeping up with the culture of death, I post it here. “Supporters argue [expansion] will give autonomy and dignity to people who have exhausted all other treatment options…” and yet the proposed law does NOT require them to exhaust all treatment options.
I will give in to the temptation to contrast this article with one in Winter 2023 issue of The New Atlantis, titled Arcs of Life. It is a beautiful rumination on life and death and trajectories in between the two events. Whether the arc is long or short, it is precious. And all of us, each on some stage of our own arc, is called to care for others whose path is difficult — to find ways to help and support others. “A just society does not kill suffering people, it shares their burden.” It also features a beautiful artwork by Gustav Klimt that I had never seen before. Treat yourself to this one, as an antidote to the first.
April 4, 2023 (CTV NEWS) Former Quebec doctor faces manslaughter charge after patient dies following surgery
In this case, the surgeon determined, and told a family member, that treatment was futile. The patient would die from his obstructed bowel condition within a few hours or days. But when he closed the incision and left the operating room, the plan was to return the patient to a bed for palliative care. The anesthetist, on the other hand, reportedly questioned “the usefulness of finding a room for the patient when he could be brought directly to the morgue“, and proceeded to remove his ventilation and inject him with “a substance” while he was still under anaesthetic. This happened in October of 2019. The anesthetist resigned in December of 2019. The case is just now coming to court. Watch this space!
April 4, 2023 (Christopher Lyon, Substack) Suicide solution: A year of tennis in Medical Assistance in Dying and suicide
Read this excellent article by Christopher Lyon, who lost his father to assisted suicide. It is bleakly almost humorous to follow the language-manipulators as they try to establish their official propaganda line.
March 30, 2023 (Mad in America Blog) Medically-Assisted Suicide Is Not a Win for Mental Health
“Some disability rights activists are starting to warn that MAID programs lowering their standards for acceptance is already lowering the quality of healthcare being offered, especially in places like Canada, where it’s alarmingly easy to get accepted into their MAID program. In our current for-profit healthcare system in the United States, it’s difficult to see how such a program wouldn’t become a common crutch for saving money…”
March 29, 2023 (Connecticut Mirror). Nietzsche and assisted suicide in Connecticut
Here’s an amazing example of how language can be used to distort and disguise the true motives and meanings driving assisted suicide expansion. An American legislator quotes a famous European philosopher saying “One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly”, but leaves out another part of the quote that would chill the blood of anyone who cares about disability rights. “The sick man is a parasite of society… A new responsibility should be created, that of the doctor — the responsibility of ruthlessly suppressing and eliminating degenerate life.” The 19th Century philosopher, Nietzsche, was not himself a Nazi, of course (any more than the American legislator is), but his ideas were adopted (and distorted when necessary) to support the Nazi regime. We are on VERY dangerous ground here, folks.
[The author of the article includes a link to a fairly readable academic paper about Nietzsche that is well worth taking the time to read.]
March 13, 2023 (Psyche) Should Assisted Death Be Available for Intractable Mental Illness?
A thoughtful psychiatrist/ethicist, Marie Nicolini, testified to the Parliament of Canada as an expert witness on the issue of assisted death for mental disorders. In this article, she reviews the troubling and persistent issues. Here’s a quote: “Of course, one could argue that people will inevitably suffer, unbearably so, due to all sorts of social issues, and that certain structural injustices won’t be solved during our lifetimes – so we should accept that for some, death is the best option available. But there is something cynical and nihilistic about that perspective. As members of a society, we must hold ourselves accountable and recognise our overriding duty to mitigate the harms that people with mental disorders experience.” (Emphasis added).
As non-cynical and non-nihilistic members of society, we DO have a duty to mitigate harms, do we not?
March 20, 2023 (Edmonton Journal) Edmonton man, 75, who killed severely disabled wife on ‘compassionate’ grounds sentenced to house arrest
Oh my word!!! So now it doesn’t have to be a doctor or nurse practitioner — it can be your husband, or your caregiver, or anyone else who’s fed up with looking after you! First degree murder charge pled down to manslaughter, then manslaughter sentence pled down to … WHAT! Two-year conditional house arrest? That’s not even a convincing slap on the wrist, it’s an affectionate hair-toussle! WTF!!
We’re going to have to have a SERIOUS talk about “care-giver burnout”!
March 18, 2023 (National Post) Barbara Kay: Thanks to Trudeau, Canada’s death-care system is top of the line.
The Post, in its wisdom, has guarded this page behind a subscribers-only paywall — pay four bucks and you can read the whole thing. Don’t have four bucks to spare? Let me try to sum it up for you. The author identifies the “winning strategy” adopted by Liberals: Don’t make euthanasia a political plank; let the courts do the work of keeping the expansion ball rolling. And don’t look too closely at the courts in question: e.g. the (newly appointed) judge in the Truchon case was the daughter of one of Quebec’s leading pro-euthanasia advocates; her law firm had financially supported his pro-euthanasia work; her father’s pro-euthanasia publications were accepted by her into evidence in the trial; she did not recuse herself, although it would have been appropriate to do so. The government, far from appealing the weak decision, “welcomed it as a springboard into new legislation”, i.e. the Bill C-7 expansion. The Minister of Justice, David Lametti, promoted that rookie judge to the Quebec Court of Appeal soon after the Truchon decision.
These facts are not brand new, but if you’re learning about them for the first time, you are entitled to feel rather shocked. I did not have them at my fingertips when I wrote Gaslit!
March 9, 2023 (Vancouver Sun) MAID should never be used as a solution to a broken mental health system
Two new voices from inside the mental health “system” such as it is. Where are those billions of dollars that were supposed to be invested in the mental health system, I wonder? Was there a plan? You might want to ask your member of Parliament to keep you posted on where and how that money is being spent. MAID for mental illness has only been delayed for one year and that will speed by quickly!
March 6, 2023 (Globe and Mail) Doctors, disability advocates condemn parliamentary committee’s recommendation to expand MAID law
In a public letter being released Tuesday, the 43 committee witnesses say the final report “misconstrues, misrepresents, minimizes, and completely ignores key evidence necessary to protect Canadians,” while “amplifying” those who favoured more wider access.
“The whole process was dismissive of the evidence,” said Leonie Herx, the chair of palliative medicine at Queen’s University, who was one of the committee’s witnesses, and a signatory to the letter.
March 5, 2023 (Globe and Mail) Judy Heumann, ‘mother of the disability rights movement,’ dead at 75
[Although this is not an assisted suicide story, so I wouldn’t normally include it,] it seems fitting to pay tribute to this dynamic achiever and natural leader who made such a huge difference to the disability rights movement in America. Imaginative, tireless and determined, Judy Heumann will be remembered in Canada for her impressive achievements, not only on her own behalf, but for the entire disability rights community in her own country and around the world. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) was and is monumental. The effects of this law can be felt by Canadian tourists travelling through America at every restaurant and motel stop. She made people with disabilities welcome and expected. Thank you, Judy. Rest In Peace.
March 4, 2023 (Globe and Mail) A right to die, but first a better life
The Globe editorial board is clear on where the government needs to go to get medically assisted death back on the track it was intended to run on. The last two paragraphs read as follows:
“Above all, there should be no further expansion of the right to die in Canada until Ottawa and the provinces invest in publicly funded mental-health care, more palliative care beds, more social housing for people with physical and mental disabilities, and easy access to social supports.
It is Ottawa’s duty to be absolutely certain that a lack of care for the living doesn’t turn state-assisted death from it what should be – a last resort – into just another treatment option. “Irremediable” should not be code for “we don’t have the resources to help you.” That’s barbaric.”
We couldn’t agree more!
March 2, 2023 (Hill Times) Senators agree on extending MAID sunset clause but split on its future
An important article in the Hill Times reports that the bill to delay the adoption of MAiD for mental illness will pass the Senate, with almost everyone agreeing that “we’re not ready”. Some think we’re not ready because doctors have been pre-occupied with COVID-19 (? Really?), others think we’re not ready because we’ll NEVER be ready. However, all agree that a one-year delay is essential. The headline will take you to the article, but it is behind a paywall. I offer a few quotes from the article:
Natalia Hicks, who works for a coalition of Disability Rights organizations explains, “[During discussions about Bill C-7] There was a lot of advocacy happening, but none of us anticipated the need to advocate around MAID on the sole basis of mental illness.” The result, said Hicks, was when the bill returned to the House with a last-minute “amendment to include mental illness” tacked on by the Senate, MPs were legalizing this form of MAID without proper “details on what eligibility would look like, or what safeguarding would look like.” Instead, she said, this was left to an expert panel on MAID, appointed by the health and justice ministers, which convened during the sunset period. Hicks noted the mandate of the expert panel did not include consultation. She said. “For me, it puts a lot of power in the hands of those medical bodies.” We agree with Natalia that the power ended up in the wrong hands!
February 25, 2023 (Globe and Mail) In Canada, MAID has become a matter of ideology
In this stunning article, Dr. Scott Kim cuts right to the heart of the matter. “Reasonable people may disagree about whether MAID should be legal. But one need not be for or against the procedure to see that it should be considered a tragic last resort, and that calling it a medically effective treatment is an especially cruel form of gaslighting.”
February 21, 2023 (The Plough) Canada’s Euthanasia Industry
A 48-minute conversation about what the heck is going on in Canada, with its massive, government sponsored assisted suicide regime. Investigative journalist Alexander Raiken is interviewed.
February 13, 2023 (Angus Reid Institute) Canadians Question Looming Changes to Canada’s assisted-death law
“Since 2016 when the original MAID law was passed, the number of Canadians using the procedure per year has increased ten-fold, to more than 10,000 in 2021. Asked if they consider this a success, that Canadians are now controlling their end-of-life decisions, or a failure, that MAID may be overused or abused, Canadians are more inclined to see value in its availability. More than two-in-five (43%) say this, while one-quarter (25%) disagree and say this trend is a bad thing.”
It seems that a majority of Canadians are opposed or unsure about MAID for mental illness, and yet a majority are okay with MAID for physical disability. Hmmm. Why?
February 13, 2023 (Statistics Canada Press Release) Stats Canada catches up with last year’s annual report.
February 12, 2023 (Vancouver Sun). Colby Cosh: What the court actually said about MAID for the mentally ill
The writer struggles with the legal concepts outlined in the letter by Trudo Lemmens, signed by over 25 other legal scholars. He states that “… it boils down to a plea to the justice minister of Canada, David Lametti, to please stop lying to the public.” You can read the full text of the letter the Sun writer is critiquing below (Feb. 2, U of T Law Review) and come to your own conclusions.
February 7, 2023 (Vancouver Sun). Canada’s mental health minister says suicidal people can’t get assisted suicide. Is that true?
“Carolyn Bennett accused Poilievre of being “totally irresponsible” and misrepresenting what medically assisted death would mean for people with a mental disorder, saying that “all of the assessors and providers for MAID are purposely trained to eliminate people that are suicidal.” Testy!
““On the face of it, even if you look at what the word means, when somebody wants to die and they’re not dying, of course that means that they’re suicidal,” said [Dr. Sonu] Gaind, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. “I’m saying that in a non-pejorative way, but that’s literally what the word means. And the reluctance to acknowledge that very simple literal reality is concerning,” he said. In his view, “it sends a message from our minister of mental health and addictions about a false safety that does not exist.” Dr. Gaind goes on to say, “We now provide MAID to more people in absolute numbers than any other country on the planet,” despite having only had MAID for six years.
February 7, 2023 (Hamilton Spectator). Many people living with mental illness are haunted by suicidal thoughts. So why make it easier?
Dr. John Maher lays out 10 steps in a sick logic that endangers the survival of a great number (57,000!!) of Canadians. “Research tells us that 75 per cent of people thoughtfully plan their suicides. Of the people who try to kill themselves, only 23 per cent try again, and only 7 per cent go on to complete suicide. Tragically 4,000 Canadians complete suicide each year. Ninety per cent of those who die have mental illness. Thankfully 57,000 people don’t die. [emphasis added] What does that tell us? That with support people heal and recover and live full lives.”
February 4, 2023 (HeraldScotland) Health expert issues warning over assissted dying
Once again, Canada makes the international news. “WHEN privileged groups impose bespoke ethics to remove humanity’s unsightly wrinkles, it’s usually the powerless and the marginalised who suffer the unintended consequences.” As Scotland contemplates introducing medically-assisted dying, a Canadian palliative care doctor, Leonie Herx, speaks out, warning that what seems innocent and compassionate at first can quickly devolve into a system that endangers the lives of people on the economic margins.
February 2, 2023. (U of T Law Review) Parliament is not forced by the courts to legalize MAID for mental illness : Law Professors’ Letter to Cabinet.
You should take the time to read the full text of a letter to Cabinet from Professor Trudo Lemmens and 25 co-signatories (the list of endorsing legal scholars has grown since the letter was finalized and delivered).
“We disagree as law professors that providing access to MAiD for persons whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness is constitutionally required, and that Carter v Canada AG[1] created or confirmed a constitutional right to suicide, as Minister Lametti has repeatedly stated. Our Supreme Court has never confirmed that there is a broad constitutional right to obtain help with suicide via health-care provider ending-of-life.”
February 2, 2023 (National Review) Canada’s Ministry of Death
Alexander Raikin strikes again!! (First strike was Dec. 16, 2022 — see Clippings Archive). This time his focus is on the mysterious way the notion of doctor-assisted death went from a marginal interest of a few people to the national (even international) obsession that it has become.
“To understand how we really got here, to promoting the assisted deaths of the most vulnerable people in society and calling it progress, it is necessary to look past Lametti’s talk about a supposed “consensus” and see a multimillion-dollar PR campaign to persuade the public and elites to stop worrying and love MAiD.”
Raikin clearly sketches out the way DWD moved in on the Federal Liberals and took centre stage.
February 2, 2023 (CBC). Federal government moves to delay MAID for people suffering solely from mental illness
“They’ve announced that a year from today they will introduce measures to end the lives of people who are depressed,” [Poilievre] said. “Will they recognize that we need to treat depression and give people hope for a better life rather than ending their lives?”
Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett chastised the Conservative leader, saying that “health professionals are trained to deny MAID to people who are suicidal.” But are they? Fact-check her by visiting our Remembering Lives Lived page.
February 2, 2023 (The Globe and Mail) Federal government introduces legislation to delay changes to the MAID law until next year
The federal government tabled legislation on Thursday to delay until next year an expansion of Canada’s medical assistance in dying law to allow mental illness as a sole condition. The MAID legislation was set to expand this March, a change that would have made the country’s euthanasia rules one of the broadest in the world.
“It is clear more time is needed to get this right,” Justice Minister David Lametti said in a news conference Thursday.
“Delaying the expansion for maid for mental illness is only the tip of the iceberg of what the Canadian government must do,” said Ramona Coelho, a family physician whose practice is predominantly low-income and marginalized patients, and who has been a vocal critic of expanding MAID to mental illness. Her patients, she says, often have trouble accessing timely care and affordable housing. “Canada has not done its part to ensure them a quality of life that should rightfully be theirs.”
February 1, 2023 (La Quillette) Death on Demand: Cautionary Tales from Canada
What a shame that Margaret Wente spoils an otherwise excellent article by dumping on a group of vulnerable citizens, some of whom have chosen MAID as a last resort when their needs for safe housing went unmet!! She doesn’t believe they have a “real” physical disability, despite acknowledging that her judgement itself is disputed. Over a million Canadians have environmental sensitivities, some of which are quite severe and life-limiting. Her eagerness to dismiss this fact totally undermines the usefulness of her article. TO LEARN MORE, CLICK HERE.
Wente goes on to accuse the disability/poverty advocate community (of which LWD is proud to be a part) of “weaponizing [certain] examples as part of their campaign for more generous social services.” While we agree that social services are underfunded and legislated poverty is a real thing, that is not our main goal and purpose. We want people not to be induced to kill themselves by outside influences, including the very existence of MAID.
There is much in the article that we agree with. For example, “even if ours were the best system that humans could devise, there would still be [disabled and] mentally ill people who’d want to kill themselves. The real issue is whether the state should ever help them.” Our answer to that question is an unequivocal NO!
January 31, 2023 (The Conversation) As eligibility for MAID expands, the ethical implications of broad access to medically assisted death need a long, hard look
An excellent review of the state of affairs and the ethical implications thereof.
“Part of the reason it made sense to allow MAID for people already actively dying was that doing so seemed equivalent to accepted practices such as withdrawing life-sustaining treatment or palliative sedation. This equivalence fails when we broaden the scope of MAID to those who aren’t dying, and all the more when we countenance offering it for non-terminal mental illness, or loneliness, or loss of ability to engage in meaningful activities.”
January 24, 2023 (OrilliaMatters.com) LETTER: MAID turning into ‘a form of sanctioned eugenics’
” Local reaction to the article below regarding a homeless man applying for MAID has been divided: On the one hand, you have people joking, assuming that this is some sort of cry for a free ride or money for nothing. On the other hand, we’ve seen people full of compassion who wish they could help.”
The letter makes a strong plea for people to support those in need by supporting a strong social safety net. “Disabled should not mean worthless, useless, or hopeless.”
January 23, 2023 (OrilliaMatters.com) Homeless, hopeless Orillia man to seek medically assisted death
Are a patient’s homelessness, hopelessness and bleak outlook on the future acceptable reasons to allow a doctor or nurse practitioner legal immunity for helping that patient to complete suicide? Or is this an opportunity for compassionate suicide prevention?
“Tyler Dunlop, 37, has experienced homelessness on and off for the past 12 years. With a background of traumatic experiences, and a bleak outlook on the future — not only considering himself, but the state of society — Dunlop has begun the process for medically assisted death.”
“He recently began a job at a fast food restaurant in the city, but he said he’s been unable to keep his job due to a lack of stable housing.
Dunlop was born to a dysfunctional family, he said, experienced physical and sexual abuse in the foster care system as a child, has previously attempted suicide, and both of his parents have now passed away. He lives with schizoaffective disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his trauma, and he has long used alcohol as a means to cope.
However, he has lived and worked his way across Canada, from Vancouver to Halifax, and says he has always accepted responsibility for his situation and sought to contribute to the world around him.”
Dunlop himself would advocate for a Scandinavian-style “housing-first” policy for people experiencing homelessness. He has not yet applied for or been approved for MAID. And yet the lure of its very existence enters his troubled mind as a “logical” solution in a country that refuses to offer disadvantaged people more opportunity to advance in society.
According to the government’s website, Canada already has a “Housing-First” approach to ending homelessness. The closest office to Orillia is in Barrie:
https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/homelessness-sans-abri/communities-communautes/on-eng.html
This gentleman should not be a candidate for MAID. Any doctor who says he is doesn’t deserve to have the power he/she wields.
January 21, 2023 (The Guardian) Assisted dying seems humane, but can we protect the vulnerable from the malign?
Canada is being watched internationally. Other countries are learning from our experiment. For better or for worse.
January 18, 2023 (Globe and Mail) A complicated grief: Living in the aftermath of a family member’s death by MAID
“Last year, the federal expert panel reporting to Parliament recommended that doctors could deny MAID requests if they felt the lack of family input prevented a full assessment. But it is still unclear how those recommendations will be implemented. The parliamentary committee studying the MAID expansion isn’t slated to report back until February.” Meanwhile, read about three very disturbing incidents that should raise alarms about current practices.
January 18, 2023 (CTV News) Canada performing more organ transplants from MAID donors than any country in the world
The idea that one may be more valuable dead than alive is not new. (The 1947 classic movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, springs to mind.) For people who are already discouraged and feeling worthless, the thought of helping others by dying and donating body parts may be a powerful personal and cultural incentive. The Supreme Court in Carter asserted that, when we allow doctor assisted death, we have to protect vulnerable persons, in times of weakness, from being induced to end their lives. Is organ donation an inducement? We shall see whether or not it is challenged in the future.
January 10, 2023 (Bioethics – Wiley Online Library) Autonomy to a fault: The confluence of organ donation, euthanasia, and the dead donor rule
A published scholarly article raising concerns that were quickly reflected by CTV News in the clipping above. From the abstract: “This paper … critiques proponents’ oversimplified understanding of autonomy with an autonomy-based argument against any linkage of organ donation and euthanasia, regardless of its timing. Respect for patient autonomy does not unilaterally require fulfilling patients’ every wish. Moreover, the very possibility of organ donation with euthanasia limits donor autonomy qualitatively and quantitatively substantially more than by offering it. In fact, organ donation after euthanasia violates the purpose of the dead donor rule, even if not its technicalities.”
January 5, 2023 (Vancouver Sun) FIRST READING: Disability groups now assuring members they won’t recommend killing them
For example:
A growing coalition of disability and mental health groups have begun openly advocating against Canada’s liberalized MAID (medical assistance in dying) regime, including posting signs assuring patients that they will not recommend them for assisted suicide.
“This organization will not recommend, suggest or refer anyone to Medical Assistance in Dying as an alternative to assisting in obtaining necessary supports and services you require,” reads a sign recently circulated on social media by the group Disability Without Poverty.
January 4, 2023 (The Orchard on Substack) Why I changed my mind on MAiD
Jeremy Appel finds dissonance between the public rhetoric on MAiD and its practical application in a country that fails to meet the needs of people with disabilities.
January 3, 2023 (Canada’s National Observer) Unpeeling the false justifications behind MAID expansion
Dr. Sonu Gaind, a MAID provider from the beginning, has become increasingly worried about MAID for people with mental illness as their sole condition.
January 1, 2023. (The Guardian, UK). Assisted dying seems humane, but can we protect the vulnerable from the malign?
A British columnist tries to work through the dangers of assisted death in the UK, using Canada as a cautionary tale.
2022
December 21, 2022 (The TORONTO STAR) Give mentally ill patients a chance at healing before offering MAID
There’s no voice like the voice of experience. This is not an anti-MAID voice, but one that speaks from a place of having recovered after a turbulent and difficult involvement with the involuntary mental health system. The author points to an old adage, that “suicide is a long-term solution to a short-term problem.” There is hope for recovery — a hope that can be as simple as finding a friend, a compassionate professional who listens, or even a quiet park bench. Once the long-term solution has been pursued, recovery is no longer possible. “If we do take that responsibility [of offering the long-term solution], we have to guarantee that we will first give them every opportunity in the world to get better, before they rid themselves of their short-term problem forever.”
December is wake-up month!! Alexander Raikin’s (December 16th) article (see below) has busted down the doors of secrecy and it’s all over the news: The Star, The National Post, Twitter and who else? is all over this! Some really thoughtful meditations on the big questions that folks have been ignoring up to now. Rick Salutin points out the error of replacing a medical category with an existential category, for example. Please read all of the articles you can find and share them with LWD and your friends so we can keep up the momentum over the holiday season and make sure the New Year starts with truth instead of obfuscation!
December 20, 2022 (Global News, Saskatchewan) An intellectually disabled woman needed help. She went to jail instead
The pandemic really interfered with Jessica’s life, removing the supports that she counted on to cope on her own. When a worker suggested that they couldn’t help her unless she was going to hurt someone or herself, she threatened to hurt someone. That’s just logical! Consequently, she was arrested for uttering threats, and remanded in custody — that’s not logical. That’s a system failing to cope with reality then blaming the victim for its failures. Thankfully, nobody suggested MAID to this young woman!
December 19, 2022 (Psychiatric Times) The Harms of Assisted Death Are Not Just a “Disabled Thing”
Gordon Friesen writes: “… decriminalization [of assisted suicide] requires the selective removal of otherwise universal criminal code protections.1 The mere legalization of MAID, therefore, creates a serious and discriminatory danger. That the danger is serious, we must certainly agree. Because, otherwise, we would have no prohibition, and no need for an exception. That the danger is discriminatory, appears in the fact that its burden falls upon one group alone.
In addition, … this discriminatory, lethal danger, has been imposed upon the members of that group, against their will. It is instructive, in this light, to review the recently successful passage, in Canada, of Bill C-7 (2021),2 enacted to extend euthanasia to individuals not at the end of life. Every single one of the testimonies and briefs introduced before Parliamentary Committee,3 by disabled individuals and their organizations, was opposed to the expansion. Moreover, in a theatrically orchestrated Open Letter,4 the Vulnerable Persons Standard5 presented the signatures of no less than 147 nationally representative disabled organizations (and their allies) in opposition to the Bill. If informed and engaged opinion is to be our guide, it can be confidently stated that the “disabled community” is unconditionally opposed to euthanasia eligibility for its [non-dying] members. And yet this legislation was carried, 213 votes to 106.6
December 16, 2022 (The New Atlantis) NO OTHER OPTIONS – Newly revealed documents depict a Canadian euthanasia regime that efficiently ushers the vulnerable to “a beautiful death”
A devastating article in an American magazine, detailing the state of MAID practice in Canada. Painstakingly researched and well worth the time it will take you to read it. Some peeks into meetings amongst MAID providers are beyond revealing — they’re damning!
December 16, 2022 (CTV News) The Death Debate: why some welcome Canada’s move to assisted dying for mental illness and others fear it
This is an update of an October 16th article that was overlooked at the time. The article was updated to reflect the Federal Government’s decision to delay access to MAID for people with mental illness.
For people like Mitchell Tremblay, delay is not good news. “The 40-year-old says he was diagnosed with severe depression as a teen and he also deals with anxiety, alcoholism, personality disorders and continual thoughts of suicide. He can’t work and lives in poverty on a disability payment of just under $1,200 a month. “‘You know what your life is worth to you. And mine is worthless,'” he says.”
On the other hand, “Serena Bains says all this talk about MAiD for psychiatric disorders has only heightened her thoughts of suicide. The 24-year-old who lives in Surrey, B.C. has severe depression, anxiety and borderline personality disorder. She was hospitalized once when she told a doctor she was planning her suicide. Her worry is that if she spirals downward and hits a rough patch she might be suicidal enough to ask for MAiD and qualify.”
December 15, 2022 (Globe and Mail) Liberals seeking to delay expansion of medical assistance in dying legislation
BREAKING NEWS! It’s just a delay — probably a “brief” delay — but more time is needed to make the MAID system “safe” so that people with mental illness will not die when their lives could be saved with intervention and support.
December 11, 2022 (UK Talk TV) Euthanasia
An interview of Canadian physician Sonu Gaind by Trish Goddard
December 9, 2022 (Le Monde) Assisted dying: ‘What is seen as an opportunity by some has become an urge to give in to despair for others’
While you have to subscribe to read the whole article in this famous Parisian newspaper, there’s a generous clip at the front end that you can read for free. It’s by a Dutch expert, Theo Boer, “the former regulator of assisted dying in the Netherlands”. He is informing the French of “the evolution and unintended consequences of the euthanasia law in his country”, and warning the French against introducing euthanasia laws in France. Canada makes an appearance in this cautionary tale: “Any legislation allowing assisted dying will be perceived by some as an injustice and will be challenged in court. Take Canada, for instance, where euthanasia became legal in 2016. Less than two years later, the Superior Court of Quebec ruled that the concept of terminal illness in Canadian law is discriminatory and unconstitutional. … ” and precipitated a rapid slide down a slippery slope. How does that make you feel, to be held up as a bad example on the international stage? I want to be proud of my country, but it is becoming increasingly difficult.
December 8, 2022 (Hamilton Spectator) On MAID, either we all matter or none of us do
This article is an impassioned plea written by a psychiatrist who specializes in the most serious and stubborn mental health conditions. Don’t give up on my patients!! Don’t pass a law that makes them lose hope!
December 7, 2022 (TVO Today) Should Canada Allow Assisted Death for the Mentally Ill?
Read the transcript: https://www.tvo.org/transcript/2730664
December 4, 2022 (National Post) Conservative MPs call on federal government to ‘delay this reckless expansion’ of MAID
“Literal life-or-death legislation deserves thorough review and consultation to ensure the most vulnerable people are protected,” said the Conservative MPs. But a statement from the office of federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos says Canada is committed to implementing MAID for those with a mental disorder by keeping their safety and security at the forefront.
LWD is definitely opposed to Minister Duclos’s position, but we also challenge the Conservative position. Why argue for delay, when what is needed is repeal. The nature of mental illness is not going to change with delay. The massive investment in mental health transfers promised by the government may materialize — don’t hold your breath, and don’t take the Conservative vote in favour of increased expenditure for granted! — but even if it happened tomorrow, actual change to the system will take much longer and there’s no guarantee it would go in the right direction. The C-7 expansion should be repealed in its entirety.
December 3, 2022 (CBC.ca) Disabled people caring for each other can be a radical act
A young disabled queer black Montreal activist speaks out against expanded MAID on the UN International Day for Disabled People.
“When the best option given by the government is assisted death, caring for each other becomes radical. It is radical simply by virtue of being performed by a group believed incapable of doing so. It is radical because it too often goes unnoticed.”
December 2, 2022 (Globe and Mail) Simons faces criticism for campaign highlighting medical assistance in dying
This romanticized commercial was not featured on this page when we first heard about it, but finally the individual featured in the ad, a person who is no longer alive, whose life was terminated by Track 2 MAID, has been named — she was Jennyfer Hatch, first known as “Kat” when her story hit the news — and Simons has pulled the commercial off the market.
Our feelings are echoed by Esther Ignani in a quote from the Globe article: “To present anything related to medical assistance in dying as clean and beautiful, and tying it to consumer culture as if it is a free choice … strikes me as deeply problematic,” said Esther Ignagni, a professor in the School of Disability Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. “What it covers over is all that we are not talking about with MAID. We are in a health care crisis. We know there are many people who cannot access even primary care, let alone complex care, good pain management, palliative care. For those people, medical assistance in dying may not be an option; it may be the only way out. Those are the difficult conversations we need to be having.”
December 2, 2022 (Global News) Trudeau says assisted dying offers to veterans ‘unacceptable’ as cases mount
Our Prime Minister stated, “We are following up with investigations and we are changing protocols to ensure what should seem obvious to all of us: that it is not the place of Veterans Affairs Canada, who are there to support those people who stepped up to serve their country, to offer them medical assistance in dying.” Is he … are they … really so naive as to think that anything to do with MAID in this fun-house mirror country we’re living in, is really so sparkling clear? Is it really obvious that anyone who’s not actually dying should (or shouldn’t) be euthanized with the blessing of the State? Why is it so clear that a veteran’s affairs caseworker must not raise MAID, but doctors MUST. Are caseworkers more influential than doctors when it comes to guiding people towards a life-ending decision? Oh yes, and why is service to your country in the military more worthy, honourable (and insulating against death) than serving in the myriad everyday ways that ordinary people, including those with disabilities, serve every day? Just what is the Prime Minister thinking? Does anyone know?
November 29, 2022 (Toronto Star) Justice Minister David Lametti under fire for ‘unbelievable’ comparisons between euthanasia and suicide
In which he said the quiet part out loud.
November 25, 2022 (TORONTO STAR Editorial Board) “We need to put the brakes on expanding access to MAiD: While the matter is reviewed, we need to improve social supports.”
Before MAiD was expanded in 2021, Minister of Justice Lametti declared that Canadians are “comfortable” with the concept now, so expansion shouldn’t cause any great alarm. What he didn’t understand is that Canadians were comfortable that there were limits and guardrails, so they didn’t have to worry about things getting out of hand. Not comfortable any more though, as expansion steams ahead!
November 24, 2022 (National Post) Another Canadian Forces member alleges Veterans Affairs offered assisted death as ‘support’
It may be worth pointing out that this is not a doctor or nurse suggesting MAID to a veteran. It is an intake worker. Just a regular citizen who thinks it’s a great thing to be able to offer assisted suicide to a person struggling with PTSD. Thankfully, this particular veteran was “in a good place” when the suggestion was made, and so is alive to tell the tale. He feels badly for not telling his story sooner, but he should know that we don’t judge him for that. His story makes the need for a strongly enforced strict policy to be put in place immediately, not only at Veterans Affairs, but throughout government and social services in general. It is NOT OK to suggest suicide to anyone, period!
November 23, 2022 (Coast Reporter) Renu Bakshi: ‘Calm before the storm’ – upcoming death laws test Canada’s woke values
“You can see a euthanasia assessor in Vancouver sooner than a family doctor.”
“In the Netherlands, where psychiatric euthanasia has been practiced for 20 years, those seeking it are mostly women marginalized by poverty and trauma. Chan fears Canada will follow a similar path: “Administering MAiD would seem premature for people with disabilities and psychiatric conditions when the matter may be resolved by addressing poverty, loneliness, or a lack of housing.”
November 21, 2022 (TORONTO STAR) Canada is now No. 1 in world in terms of MAID. We should think twice before expanding it
The headline says it all, really. The article is accompanied by a photo of the Minister of Justice who has taken upon himself the burden of relieving — no, ending — the suffering of humanity by allowing the medical system to end the lives of those suffering. This “moral” stance effectively ends all arguments.
Q: “Shouldn’t we be fixing the system that makes them suffer?”
A: “Well yes, of course, but meanwhile, they are suffering and we must not allow that!”
If you think there’s something wrong with this reasoning, please join LWD and help us make the government “press the pause button”, as the author of this article suggests.
November 11, 2022 (Globe and Mail) Canada will soon allow assisted dying for mental illness. Has there been enough time to get it right?
A thorough and thoughtful review of the many urgent and unresolved issues around introducing MAID as a “treatment option” for people with mental illness. We know we don’t know enough, and yet full steam ahead seems to be the only way we’re willing to go. This article suggests that we should slow down, re-think, delay that course of action until such time as we really know what safeguards would actually provide adequate protection for people — to save at least some precarious lives.
November 10, 2022 (Toronto Star). Michael’s Choice
This heartbreaking story raises so many perplexing and troublesome questions! Why the hell didn’t someone in his circle of well-heeled Forest Hill friends find him a ground-floor apartment?? A wheelchair? And how has provision of death become part of our “social safety net”?? Yes, that mythical, hole-filled net that failed him so badly at so many points in his life. Yes, it was his choice. And yet everyone involved could feel that there was something not-quite-right about it. Just something not-quite-right …
November 2, 2022 (Vancouver Sun) Canadian doctors encouraged to bring up medically assisted death before their patients do
This article raises the important issue of the use of the word “access”. It used to be all about making life better, easier, fairer, more equitable for people with disabilities. Now it’s all about making death an easier and more available “option” for avoiding “suffering” of all kinds, whether or not a person is actually dying. At LWD, we believe this is a grave misappropriation of a perfectly good word.
October 25, 2022 (National Post) John Ivison: Medically assisted death is slipping down a dreadful slope
Ivison notes, “Opening MAID up to the mentally ill may come with unpleasant and unintended consequences.” He says, “If only the government had been as effective in combatting mental illness as it has been in liberalizing access to physician-assisted death. The 2021 election platform promised to invest $4.5 billion in a national mental-health transfer that has yet to materialize.”
October 24, 2022. (National Post). Veterans Affairs caseworker allegedly admits to helping veterans end their lives, committee hears. Testimony alleges caseworker suggested medically-assisted death was a better option than ‘blowing your brains out against the wall’
“Explosive testimony Monday before the Commons standing committee on veterans affairs by Mark Meincke, a retired member of the Canadian Armed Forces suggests a combat veteran was offered MAiD twice — despite repeatedly dismissing medically assisted suicide — and was told that Veterans Affairs had carried out the service for others.”
The article contains a link to an 18-minute clip from the Committee hearing.
[Meincke has a podcast that reaches out to traumatically injured veterans, titled Operation Tango Romeo (stands for Trauma Recovery). Here’s a link to an episode broadcast two days after the Committee hearing: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-252-re-my-ottawa-testimony-about-medically-assisted/id1478155070?i=1000584278309]
October 23, 2022 (Vancouver Sun) Brian Bird: Canada seems on a road that ends with permitting euthanasia for any reason
“Many observers predicted that opening the door to euthanasia for individuals at the end of life would inevitably soften the ground for the expansion that has occurred, but few observers thought it would create a sinkhole so quickly.”
October 22, 2022 (CBC) Federal minister says she’s ‘shocked’ by suggestion of assisted deaths for some babies
Update your knowledge by reading the National Post article below on October 13th. Then think about it.
October 20, 2022. MINISTRY OF HEALTH RESPONSE TO THE MAID AND MENTAL HEALTH DISORDER INTERIM REPORT, JUNE 2022
Not surprisingly, the Ministry of Health accepts and endorses the Panel’s recommendations, including the sufficiency of safeguards and precautions already contained in the law. There is, in their view, nothing special or different about the suffering associated with mental illness that makes it dangerous or ill-advised to offer MAID as a solution. A $5B investment across the country in unspecified improvements to the current mental health system will solve any outstanding problems, they assume. They hope.
They let slip a little tidbit about a qualitative research project involving people with disabilities, short on specifics and timelines. LWD will seek more information about this research — who will be invited to participate, when and how. Stay tuned!
October, 2022 (Global News) How poverty, not pain, is driving some disabled Canadians towards medically assisted death
Two individuals are featured in this 12-minute video.
October 20, 2022 (Global News) Veterans Affairs assisted dying discussion was isolated, but probe ongoing: ministers
“… training is ongoing with all frontline staff to ensure no service agent ever again brings up assisted dying with veterans. He said to date, three-quarters of all service agents have received the training, which will be mandatory for all new hires.” “… because of privacy concerns, most calls between agents and veterans seeking care are not recorded…” so monitoring will be an unmitigated nightmare, totally dependent on upset client reports. Global News declares that “Under Canadian law, medically-assisted death can only be discussed between a primary care provider like a physician or psychiatrist and their patient. Violators of the law can face up to 14 years in prison.” Good. But good luck enforcing any such rule. Maybe they can at a place like Veterans Affairs, but what about the local food bank? What about the friendly cleaner at the hospital who strikes up a conversation with a patient and shares his views? This is a pervasive cultural issue.
October 14, 2022 (Globe and Mail) Why I resigned from the federal expert panel on medical assistance in dying
Ellen Cohen, the national co-ordinator of the National Network for Mental Health, writes compellingly about her treatment and experience on the expert panel reviewing safeguards for MAID and mental health. The conditions of her resignation from the committee after 5 months of service prevented her from speaking out until now. “It was as though the panel’s recommendations had already been set before the work had even started,” she claims.
October 14, 2022 (Toronto Star) Canada is going too far with medical assistance in dying. The danger of abuse is becoming ever more apparent
Andrew Phillips asks, “How does the unthinkable become not only thinkable, but seemingly inevitable? How do we normalize things we recently considered not just abnormal, but horrifying?” People are waking up. Take action, and let your MP know that you’re horrified too!
October 13, 2022 (National Post) Canadian parents have asked for medically assisted death for babies, doctors say
Dr. David Lysecki, a pediatric palliative care specialist said, “With surgery and life-support, we can sometimes keep their body alive for years. But that child would never be able to process the outside world in a cognizant way.”
Do we need to remind Canadians that doctors have made such dire pronouncements since Canada was a country? Massive warehousing institutions were built to house children considered hopeless lost causes, until parents, caregivers and others rose up against medicalized confinement and demanded real and meaningful community inclusion for their sons and daughters. Those cruel and discriminatory institutions have been closed across Canada (with regrettable exceptions). But now instead of inclusion, in the time of MAID, we’re talking infanticide? Legalized infanticide? Get a grip, Canada!!
Remember, before the Nazis killed 6 million Jews, they practiced on disabled people, including children, at their parents’ request! Visit the history page of the website to learn more.
October 13, 2022 (CityNews) Ontario man applying for medically-assisted death as alternative to being homeless
“He describes his quality of life as “awful, non-existent and terrible … I do nothing other than manage pain.” But Farsoud said his quality of life is not the reason he is applying for MAiD. He applied because he is currently in danger of losing his housing and fears being homeless over dying. “It’s not my first choice.” …
Farsoud is not the first person with disabilities to consider MAID due to the lack of resources available to them. CityNews previously spoke to Richard Ewald, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), stage four liver disease, and suffers from chronic pain and depression.”
The reporters spoke with Dr. Kerry Bowman, a bioethicist from the University of Toronto, who said “this is not what MAID was designed for. … “We were unbelievably naive as a nation to think that vulnerability, disability, poverty that we could parcel that off and it wasn’t going to be a problem. It’s a huge problem.”
October 11, 2022 (Common Sense News) Scheduled to Die: The Rise of Canada’s Assisted Suicide Program
This article explores the issues in depth, with lots of disturbing case examples. A quote from Dr. Sonu Gaind sums up the situation: “When we have people who are genuinely suffering, and we don’t provide them options for dignified living, but we provide them with what we label as a painless death, it provides these people with the enticement of a means to escape their suffering, when we could have helped them escape otherwise—by overcoming their problems and moving on and living.” Enticement is exactly what the Supreme Court in the Carter decision meant to protect against.
October 4, 2022 (CBC News) Winnipeg woman who chose to die with medical assistance said struggle for home care help led to decision
“Kovac did not tell the panel of professionals who assessed her application for a medically assisted death that she was driven to seek MAID due to a lack of adequate home care support, fearing that if she shared her full rationale they would deny her.” Her friend and part-time caregiver said, “[she] felt humiliated by the process of asking for, and failing to obtain, adequate home care services.”
September 29, updated October 3, 2022 (CTV NEWS Montreal). ‘I can’t live that way’: Montreal man seeking medically assisted death due to home care conditions
It’s a difficult labour situation right now. Home care workers are in great demand, so they can take or leave employment at will. And services that are underfunded can’t raise pay to stay competitive. So the quality of service goes down. People experience the lack of care as a direct assault on their dignity. And the government saves money. And death is offered as an alternative to care. Is there some other way of reading this?
September 28, 2022 (Western Standard) SLOBODIAN: A mother’s pressure wins stay on son’s assisted suicide.
“The medically assisted suicide of a non-terminally ill 23-year-old man didn’t take place as scheduled Wednesday. But, that’s only because his mother’s fight to save her son’s life — coupled with the outraged publicity it generated — compelled the doctor to change his mind.”
September 26, 2022 (Ottawa Citizen). ‘I am tired of screaming for help’: A local family’s struggle to care for a loved one with ALS at home
This story, about the battle to get the kind of care you need, when and where you need it, is one of thousands. People want to care for their loved ones if they can, but they need support to do so. But a casual reference, way down in the story, jumps out at the reader who is attuned to these things: “… someone in the home-care system suggested the reason there were not more places capable of caring for people like Adam with complex care needs was th at medically assisted death is now legal and not many people get to that point.” She says, “It basically says my husband should have died by now because our health-care system can’t take care of him. That is what it makes me feel like, and I don’t think it is fair. He deserves the best care possible, like anybody else.” We at LIVING WITH DIGNITY CANADA agree completely.
September 20, 2022 (New York Times). Is Choosing Death Too Easy in Canada?
The link will only work if you are a Times subscriber, but I am working on a blog post that addresses the issues it raises. Please visit the blog page!
September 1, 2022 (The Globe and Mail Editorial Board). Medical assistance in dying is a right that needs more limits
“As psychiatrist John Maher put it to the Parliamentary committee, “the rallying cry is autonomy at all costs. But the inescapable cost is people dying who would get better. What number of mistaken guesses is acceptable to you?” For a Quebec government committee studying the issue, the answer is zero. Last December it recommended that provincial law continue to prohibit MAID solely for psychiatric suffering. It’s not too late for Ottawa to do the same.”
August 26, 2022 (The Tyee) How COVID affected Canadians’ Mental Health. Many people already struggling were pushed to the edge, study finds.
“While their paper could not assess the causes of many of these links, Guerrero and Barnes say their study suggests public health efforts towards preventing and responding to suicide ideation need to prioritize people with multiple diagnoses and challenges.” The “challenges” mentioned include “marginalized, racialized and LGBTQ2SIA+ people, who already face higher levels of mental health issues due to racism and discrimination”. On the margins of the margins live people with visible disabilities, but they don’t mention that.
This study was published by Statistics Canada.
August 24, 2022 (CBC) ‘Horrifying’ that Veterans Affairs worker raised assisted suicide with troubled veteran, group says. More on that August 17 story (below).
Scott Maxwell, executive director of Wounded Warriors Canada, said, “We know at times it could exacerbate someone’s injury further. I mean, this is really complex, real stuff that needs to be treated as such — and as you can see, as we’re talking about today, we still have a long way to go.” Veteran’s Affairs is slowly learning about combat-related PTSD, and gradually making progress with helping veterans to heal.
But did you know that PTSD associated with childhood trauma (Adverse Childhood Experiences) is one of the main factors associated with mental health problems in young and older adults in all populations, but particularly in indigenous communities due to historic injustice? And did you know that as of March 2023, people with a range of mental illnesses are cleared for euthanasia by a medical/psychiatric system that barely understands the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences? Does it worry me? Absolutely! (I feel a blog post coming on. Stay tuned!!)
August 17, 2022 (National Post) Another case of a sick Canadian offered death instead of treatment — this time, a veteran
“Unprompted, a Veterans Affairs Canada service agent then mentioned that the veteran could opt for a medically assisted death. Family members of the veteran contacted by Global News said that he felt betrayed and disgusted by the offer, and that the encounter derailed what had previously been a gradual and positive shift towards recovery.” And another quote: “… amid an unprecedented Canadian health-care shortage leading to increasing instances of emergency rooms shuttered by understaffing, the federal government’s own internal calculations have identified euthanasia as a potential cost saving.”
August 13, 2022 (CTV). More than 10,000 Canadians received a medically-assisted death in 2021: report
“It is rising remarkably fast,” University of Toronto law professor Trudo Lemmens, who was a member of the Council of Canadian Academies Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying, wrote in an email to CTV News. He noted that some regions in the country have quickly matched or surpassed rates in Belgium and the Netherlands, where the practice has been in place for over two decades.
August 12, 2022 (Newstalk 1010) Tim Stainton, director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship at the University of British Columbia, explains to Moore In The Morning how the coming expansion of Canada’s medically assisted death program could be detrimental to the disabled. (8 min 36 sec listen).
August 12, 2022 (Toronto Star). The Ontario government has given Maggie an ultimatum: the disabled teen can lose her funding or her independence
This is not a story about MAID. But it IS a story about the social forces that control — or try to control — the lives of people with disabilities. Some people promote MAID as a “choice” — a readily-available solution to suffering caused not by disease or disability, but by intractable discrimination and bureaucratic inflexibility. In this story, Maggie’s family is privileged to be able to absorb the financial blow of the loss of funding, but many, possibly most families cannot. What choices remain for them?
August 11, 2022 (AP) ‘Disturbing’: Experts troubled by Canada’s euthanasia laws
“Canada prides itself on being liberal and accepting, said David Jones, director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Britain, “but what’s happening with euthanasia suggests there may be a darker side.””
August 1, 2022 (CBC). Ontario residents with disabilities face homelessness or worse, say advocates as some rent subsidies expiring
“To make matters even worse, there’s even people with disabilities signing up for [medical assistance in dying], because the waiting lists are so long for rental subsidies, and for housing and for just basic necessities, period, that people with disabilities are signing up for this just to get out because they cannot live like they’re living anymore.” Bondy said some people with disabilities may also stay with abusive caretakers or be in homes that are unsafe if they cannot support themselves. “We as a disabled community have fought very hard for independence, and it’s like we have to fight for every scrap of independence we can get.”
July 29, 2022 (Government of Canada) Third annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2021
It’s a long, statistics-heavy report. Specific information on Track 2 (i.e. non-RFND) cases are reported at Section 4.5 of the report. The total number of MAID deaths was 9,950. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assistance-dying/annual-report-2021.html
July 26, 2022 (The Tyee) Medically Assisted Death ‘needs to be a Good Choice, Not a Choice of Last Resort’
“Gwen says recent eligibility expansions make it easier for those with chronic conditions to die instead of live.”
July 20, 2022 (National Post) Fewer than half of Canadians support assisted death for mental disorders: poll
The pollster interprets for readers: “If I’m a policy maker looking at this data, I would interpret it as, ‘OK, it’s possible that we could create some rules that would enable a seriously mentally ill individual to access MAID. But we must put in some framework, we have to put in some criteria, in order for the public to feel more comfortable with this kind of policy.’” Another option would be to apply the brakes and bring this dangerous train to a stop.
July 12th 2022. Death shouldn’t always be the sentence for suffering Canadians
Dr. Sonu Gaind writes: As our Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) laws expand, even supporters of MAiD have become alarmed at how widely the net is being cast. Introduced in 2016 only for when death was foreseeable, expanded in 2021 to the non-dying disabled and slated to expand to those with mental illness by 2023, expansionists are pushing for even further expansion of assisted suicide to children. … “We have not witnessed a slippery slope in Canada, we have fallen off a cliff.” Click the headline to read the whole article.
July 11/2022. CTV News: Ontario woman enduring effects of long COVID begins process for MAID
“After 26 months of lost income since the onset of symptoms, no foreseeable ability to work and an absence of support, Thompson said she expects to run out of money in about 5 months.” There’s so much to say about this situation! This is not a woman who comes from poverty — 26 months of no income and she is still managing. She faces a long period of recovery or perhaps permanent disability. She needs support — a LOT of support, but is feeling hopeless about getting her needs met. Would connection to a strong and vibrant disability-rights community get her through? Death is NOT the right answer in this situation!!
June 15/2022. How COVID Broke Canadian Society, in the Tyee, by Crawford Kilian. The excellent article reviews a book by Jon Parsons, which details the nihilism, passive and active, that has infected the Canadian social body along with the COVID-19 virus. “Ethical subjects” (that’s us) are left to deal with the shreds of society that we have left. “The more difficult to deal with for many,” says Parsons, “is the harsh realization that those around them — society as a whole — did not value their existence…. The realization that anyone could simply be cast on the trash pile cannot help but damage social relations and cohesion in a society like ours, that claims to hold compassion and humanitarianism as core values.” And yet the authors both fail to identify MAID and C-7 expansion as the festering symptoms that they are.
June 3/2022. The Canada Disability Benefit is back on the agenda, but this older article is still highly relevant:
There are many questions to be answered before the Canada Disability Benefit becomes a reality.
The government … said [the Canada Disability Benefit] … would be stacked on top of the existing benefits people with disabilities currently receive. But… Three important questions are:
- What will be the amount of the monthly benefit?
- Who will be eligible?
- How can we prevent clawback of existing benefits that disabled people currently receive?
Expect some intense activist activity around these three questions in the near future.
Jun 2, 2022 (The Castanet) Kelowna man exasperated as elderly friend struggles to receive healthcare at home
… there was a time when Obenauer’s care providers were talking about signing him up for palliative care and B.C.’s medical assistance in dying program. “They asked me if I thought Randy would consider the MAiD program and I said, well, no, he doesn’t want to die any sooner than he’s to die. I was kind of shocked by that,” said Campbell.
June 2, 2022 (Canadian Dimension) Filibustering death-dealing ableism
An excellent interview with Catherine Frazee and Gabrielle Peters on the Disability Filibuster and Bill C-7.
“… Disability Filibuster has returned for 2022 to oppose further expansion and continue building a “virtual hub for the expression, preservation and promotion of activist disability culture.””
May 31, 2022 (McLean’s Magazine) Most Canadians Support Medical Assistance in Dying. So why is it considered controversial?
Helen Long, CEO of Dying with Dignity, holds forth on MAID, and the non-existence of controversial cases.
May 18, 2022 Prevalence of suicidal ideation among adults in Canada: Results of the second Survey on COVID-19 and mental health
The government seems not to be taking into account the fact that they introduced MAID for non-dying people at the very time that their mental health was already under considerable strain due to the pandemic. A giant but unacknowledged “inducement” towards suicidal ideation, if not actual suicide.
May 13, 2022. The Experts report on including Mental Illness.
This is a long “EXPERT” report mandated by the earlier C-7 legislation passed in March, 2021. The academics present all of the issues and arguments for and against including mental illness as a “qualifying” ground for MAID. However, are those arguments weighed properly? An excellent article by SEPHORA TANG AND DYLAN MCGUINTY in the Hill Times on MAY 23, 2022 argues that the bias of the Committee’s original assignment to the Expert Panel, and the bias of the Expert Panel itself, are both revealed upon examination. That article lives behind a paywall, which we must respect in order to not violate copyright laws.
May, 2022. Press conference with MPs Cooper and Barrett https://www.facebook.com/michaelcooper4stalbertedmonton/videos/2322128927927477. The MP’s present 4 witnesses whose stories are being ignored by the Parliamentary Committee on the expansion of MAID. Notice the complete lack of media interest in these compelling stories as well. This Facebook article will only be visible to Facebook subscribers.
May 10/2022 – The Canadian Human Rights Commission statement on MAID. “Social and economic rights – the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to adequate housing, the right to healthcare and the right to accessible services – are fundamental human rights. They are essential to living a life of dignity. Without access to social and economic rights, our other rights have little meaning. Canada has an obligation to ensure that everyone can live with full enjoyment of these rights. Social and economic rights – fundamental human rights – should be enshrined in law.”
May 10/2022 (National Observer) Canadians Are Being Eaten by Poverty
“Politicians can start by showing me they care, but right now, they aren’t doing that. Maybe they need to live in our shoes until they know what it’s like to go hungry.”
May 9/2022. Assisted dying must not be confused for palliative care “While access to MAID is guaranteed in Canada, access to palliative care and other supports, including home and disability services, are not – and worse, MAID is being provided at the expense of already limited palliative care resources.”
May 5/2022. Disabled Senator Chantal Petitclerc is troubled by the idea that MAID might be substituted for adequate care. This one is behind the Hill Times firewall so I will attempt to summarize it in an upcoming blog post.
https://www.hilltimes.com/2022/05/05/senate-maid-sponsor-very-troubled-by-reported-use-as-alternative-to-inadequate-social-services/360161
May 4/2022 -(National Post) Euthanasia is a Runaway Train … Time to hit the brakes.
“It’s one thing to legalize euthanasia. It’s another thing to coerce people to get on board with it or get out of health care. This totalitarian approach which assumes that every citizen supports euthanasia is unbecoming of a free and democratic society that features a range of views on this topic. And if there is any sector of society where freedom of conscience should be robust, health care is it. The interests at stake — life, death, human dignity — demand nothing less.”
May 2, 2022 Sabrina Maddeaux: Euthanizing the mentally ill without providing proper supports is reprehensible
“For a nation that takes so much pride in our so-called universal health-care system, it’s ironic that we’ll soon be closer to offering universal death care than passable medicare.”
April 30, 2022 (CTV News) Woman with disabilities nears medically assisted death after futile bid for affordable housing
“She desperately wants to move to an apartment that’s wheelchair accessible and has cleaner air. But her only income is from Ontario’s Disability Support Program (ODSP). She receives a total of $1,169 a month plus $50 for a special diet. “I’ve applied for MAiD essentially…because of abject poverty,” she said.”
April 29/2022. Cracks in Canada’s assisted-dying law begin to show.
“”The government sees me as expendable trash, a complainer, useless,” said Sophia in a heartbreaking recording made eight days prior to her MAiD-facilitated death. But no Canadian, lest of all our most vulnerable countrymen, should be left to fend for themselves in the face of disability and illness. The use of the new more permissive MAiD regime to substitute for government supports that would allow people to live with dignity is enraging to disability-rights activists. It should be to everyone.”
April 13/2022 – Woman with chemical sensitivities chose medically-assisted death after failed bid to get better housing.
One of the cases that finally started to pique the interest of Canadian media and then the public.
April 13/2022 – What happened to the Canada Disability Benefit?
[The Canada Disability Benefit] was hyped by the Liberal government as a way to end disability poverty in Canada, providing supplemental income to ease the growing financial strain on disabled Canadians.
February 22nd 2022. Public services, not private donations, are the solution to disabled poverty.
People living with disabilities were neglected long before the pandemic and continue to face barriers to full social and economic participation. … It is time for Canada to shift from social assistance to social infrastructure.
January, 2022. (CBC) Years after medical assistance in dying became legal, the debate rages on. Some want to see MAID expanded, while others are concerned about existing laws.
2021
August 12, 2021 (ArtsEverywhere) MAID in Canada: A radical response to changes in medically assisted dying. Written by Aislinn Thomas, Poetry by Jane Shi
Although Canada as a state has recently been forced to reckon with a curve in public consciousness around its violent settler-colonial legacy, an understanding of the deeply entrenched prejudice towards people living with disabilities within Canadian legislation has received scant media attention. This neglect itself is an expression and extension of colonial and capitalist ideology which privileges typically-abled bodies that are seen as productive for the system. Artist and advocate Aislinn Thomas argues that while the Canadian government denies disabled people the things they need to thrive and flourish, it meanwhile offers a fast-track to medically assisted dying. In this piece, Thomas investigates the development of Bill C-7, its sinister implications, and the disabled community’s response to the bill in Canada. American justice educator and disability activist Mia Mingus says that “access done in the service of love, justice, connection and community” can be liberatory and transformative. Thomas argues that the type of access Bill C-7 provides—access borne of a system that values efficiency, productivity, and convenience—doesn’t value disabled lives in the first place. Instead, they call for a type of access and care, punctuated by love, that embraces disabled lives as a welcome disruption.
July 5, 2021 (TORONTO STAR) ‘I Shouldn’t Have to Beg for My Life’
“The silence and stigma around disability and chronic illness is exactly what Madeline and two Vancouver journalists want to challenge in a new collaborative podcast taking listeners through the centuries of ableism, misogyny and medical reluctance that leave Madeline and others with post-viral syndromes without recognition or relief.
‘With post-viral conditions, there is a really critical window where we can course correct and save people from worsening health if it’s caught early,’ said Madeline. ‘I could have been even more stable instead of at my current level of deterioration if my treatments were funded 10 years ago.’”
Feb. 11, 2021 (Toronto Star) If medically assisted death becomes more accessible for Canadians, we have a moral obligation to make living well — through housing, mental health supports — accessible too.
“Without investments to end the structures that create these situations [i.e. homelessness, poverty, marginalization), MAID may not be a fair choice for everyone.”
Dr. Naheed Dosani is a palliative care physician and health justice advocate who serves as a lecturer at the University of Toronto and an assistant clinical professor at McMaster University. Follow him on Twitter@NaheedD.
February 3, 2021 (CP, CTV News) Doctors offer duelling views of what it’s like to receive an assisted death.
Senators have been presented with two starkly different descriptions of what it’s like to receive medical assistance in dying in Canada: a beautiful, peaceful death or a painful end akin to drowning. The duelling descriptions came from two doctors during testimony Tuesday night at the Senate’s legal and constitutional affairs committee, which is scrutinizing Bill C-7. The bill would expand Canada’s five-year-old regime for medical assistance in dying (MAID) to include people who are suffering intolerably but not near the end of their natural lives.
2020
December 14, 2020 (Policy Options) Bill C-7, Assisted dying and “lives not worth living” — Legalizing MAiD for people not foreseeably dying risks stigmatizing vulnerable citizens. It’s a narrow medical solution to larger social problems. – By Jonas Sébastien Beaudry
“The problem is not so much that people cannot reasonably judge, at an individual level, that their lives are not worth living. The problem is a political and social one: Bill C-7 opens a normative space in which various social actors, including medical experts and the state itself, can discuss the topic of “lives not worth living.” This medico-legal space facilitates the cultural emergence of categories of human beings whose lives can be legally and morally disposed of. Since our society and our courts are barely aware of how ageist and ableist our culture is, this is a dangerous door to open.” This is an excellent article which is well worth the few minutes it takes to read it.
November 24, 2020 (The Toronto Star). Assisted-death bill sends wrong message to Indigenous people, advocates say.
“Indigenous elders work hard to tell young people that suicide should not be an option, and the medical assistance in dying (MAID) bill says the opposite,” said Tyler White, chief executive officer of Siksika Health Services, which provides health services to Indigenous communities in Alberta. “Extraordinary efforts have been made in suicide prevention in our communities,” he said. “The expansion of MAID sends a contradictory message to our peoples that some individuals should receive suicide prevention, while others suicide assistance.”
November 19, 2020 (CTV News). Facing another retirement home lockdown, 90-year-old chooses medically assisted death
She didn’t have COVID. She wasn’t dying. And yet, she died by MAiD to avoid another long winter of lock-downs in her retirement home. What a difficult and complicated time!
November 12, 2020 (Macleans Magazine) Dying for the right to live
Gabrielle Peters spelled out the danger of MAID in the context of COVID-19 and poverty, before others started paying attention to this pressing problem.
July27, 2020 (City News) Vancouver woman with disabilities living in pain, forced into debt seeks medically assisted dying
Madeline’s case hit the news. “After 25 years of living with pain, fatigue and a complex disability, a Vancouver woman says she’s run her debt as far as it will go. She says she’s facing a painful deterioration or even an untimely death, so she’s seeking medically assisted dying. Madeline — a pseudonym for the protection of her privacy — says she doesn’t want to die but her monthly income, even with temporary COVID-19-era increases, is not enough to keep her in a pain threshold that’s bearable.”
January 18, 2020 (De Standaard – Original publication in Dutch). Being diagnosed with Autism saved my life, Janis Schaerlaeken, Primary Care Physician
This article, translated by Trudo Lemmens and featured on his excellent blog page on January 19, 2020, was written by a physician who had been diagnosed as an adult with autism. For her, the diagnosis explained a lot and enabled her to find and learn new coping skills. But she wrote the article when a case hit the press regarding 3 Flemish doctors who had euthanized an adult woman recently diagnosed with autism, before she had a chance to adjust to her new diagnosis and acquire those essential skills. The author raises important questions, as does Professor Lemmens in his introductory notes.
2019
2018
June 18, 2018. (Social Science Resource Network), Author, Jonas-Sebastien Beaudry The Way Forward for Medical Aid in Dying: Protecting Deliberative Autonomy is Not Enough
Mainstream public and legal debates, decisions, and norms about medical aid in dying (MAiD) have focused primarily on the deliberative facets of autonomy and have paid far less attention to its social components. As a result, safeguards may fail to properly protect the autonomy of vulnerable persons.
After introducing the factual and theoretical background of this problem (Section I), I will explain the distinction between deliberative and social dimensions of autonomy, and why a right to autonomy might entail not only protecting an agent’s decisional capacities, but also certain conditions enabling the realization of such capacities (Section II). In Section III, I will explain that legal and bioethical discourses about autonomy have traditionally focused on its deliberative dimensions. This explains, in part, why one should not be surprised that the judicial interpretation of the right to liberty in the Carter decision focused on deliberative capacities (Section IV) and that the legal and regulatory MAiD frameworks set up by our federal and provincial governments similarly focus on deliberative autonomy (Section V). Section VI outlines an alternative interpretation of the right to autonomy that recognizes the necessity of social resources and proposes a principled way of constraining that right. Section VII maps the kinds of social determinants of autonomy in the context of MAiD that our government should monitor and analyze in order to enact proper safeguards to protect socially vulnerable people in the future.
Beaudry, Jonas-Sébastien, The Way Forward for Medical Aid in Dying: Protecting Deliberative Autonomy is Not Enough (June 30, 2018). © Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry. First published in the Supreme Court Law Review, Second Series, Vol. 85., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3189417
2017
May 30, 2017 (The Hastings Centre) Has Physician-Assisted Death Become the “Good Death?”, by Franklin G. Miller (Bioethics Forum Essay)
““Death with dignity” for the past 40 years has meant, for many people, avoiding unwanted medical technology and dying in a hospital. A “natural” death at home or in a hospice facility has been the goal. During the last 20 years, physician-assisted suicide has been legalized for terminally ill patients in several states of the United States, and recently “medical assistance in dying,” which also includes active euthanasia, has become legal in Canada. How should we think about what constitutes a good death now?”
The author concludes with this statement: Letting death happen, with the aid of palliative care, is no less good than making it happen. We should beware of prescribing a particular form of “death with dignity” as a model for the end of life and not acknowledging other perspectives.
2016
2015 (The year of Carter)
June 30, 2015 (The Atlantic) Why Disability-Rights Advocates Are Fighting Doctor-Assisted Suicide in California. Oops! This article requires a subscription to read the whole thing. However, if you read the top bit, you will find the name Marilyn Golden, who wrote copiously on the topic for DREDF (Disability Rights Education and Defence Fund).
February 23, 2015 by (Graeme MacKay – Hamilton Spectator) Liberals push for draft doctor-assisted death law
“The Liberal motion, to be put to a vote Tuesday or Wednesday, follows a landmark ruling earlier this month by the Supreme Court of Canada, which struck down the ban on physician-assisted suicide. The top court gave Parliament 12 months to draft new legislation that recognizes the right of clearly consenting adults who are enduring intolerable physical or mental suffering to seek medical help to end their lives. The Harper government appears to be in no rush; Justice Minister Peter MacKay has said the government will take its time to thoroughly study the details of the court ruling and look at how other jurisdictions, including Quebec, have dealt with the issue.”
In retrospect — writing this in 2024 — an election was called. The Harper government did appoint a study panel, but the Liberal government was elected before they finished their work. Their report, urging that the government proceed with great caution and strict safeguards, was presumed to be partisan, and placed on a dusty shelf. An alternative report by a Provincial/Territorial group, filed simultaneously, urging rapid implementation, was given priority.
Pre-Carter
Readers: If you have a personal archive of clips, especially of Latimer and Rodrigues, or any other relevant material, please consider scanning and submitting it here. Just send to admin@living-with-dignity.ca
October 14, 2014 – (Ottawa Citizen) Catherine Frazee: There can be dignity in all states of life. I don’t believe that anyone should take a position on medically assisted dying without first understanding what dignity is, and what it is not.
“At the heart of this debate, we must choose between competing visions of our social fabric. Shall we uncritically submit to the voracious demands of individual liberty no matter what the social cost? Or shall we agree that there are limits to individual freedom, limits that serve all of us when we are vulnerable and in decline?”
October 10, 2013 – (CBC) Doctor-assisted suicide ban upheld in B.C.
Gloria Taylor’s case was decided, upholding the law against assisted suicide at the B.C. Court of Appeals in a split 2-1 decision. “The Supreme Court of Canada ruled against physician-assisted suicide two decades ago in a landmark case involving another B.C. resident, Sue Rodriguez. The judge in Taylor’s case reconsidered that decision, concluding that the prohibition on physician-assisted suicide violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for reasons not contemplated in the Rodriguez case.
“But the federal government appealed, saying the law protects vulnerable people. In furthering its stance, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association had argued that the evidence since Rodriguez “shows that appropriate and carefully tailored safeguards can be created to protect vulnerable individuals.”
December 2012 (CBC) Right-to-die legal appeal interveners named
“Appeal of Gloria Taylor’s assisted-suicide ruling to be heard in March 2013”
“In June, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the Criminal Code sections that prohibit physician-assisted suicide violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court concluded the law discriminates against people with disabilities and is too broad.”
September 30, 1993 – (CBC) Rodriguez Supreme Court Verdict (YouTube)
Pamela Wallin and Peter Mansbridge report on the decision of Canada’s Supreme Court to keep the prohibition against assisted suicide in the Criminal Code to protect disabled people and others who are vulnerable.