My thoughts and contributions to the conversation around Track 2 MAID.
Is nothing sacred (if you don’t believe in God)?
“Once you accept that people ought to have autonomy—once you accept that life is not sacred and something that can only be taken by God, a being I don’t believe in—then, if you’re in that work, some of us have to go forward and say, ‘We’ll do it.’ ”Jonathan Reggler, family physician, Vancouver Island. This quote…
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Canada’s New Government
We’ve just had a federal election in Canada. The focus, quite rightly, was on urgent matters of sovereignty threats and trade war practices posed by our vast and powerful southern neighbour. We hope the new government will successfully combat these threats so Canada can continue to be distinct from America, particularly in its championship of…
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Do they think disabled people forgot …??
In a formal and respectful process that took several years (2002-2006), disabled people around the world worked hard on a comprehensive document that would reflect their actual social conditions, expose the stigma, threats and problems they face daily, and illuminate a path forward to full equality as human beings. After years of negotiations and dedication,…
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International Body rules against Track 2 Maid
In a major review of Canada’s compliance with its treaty obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Canada has been found wanting, and among other actions, has been directed to repeal Track 2 MAiD. This is huge news! To learn more about the process of the UN CRPD committee…
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Remembering Audrey King
https://www.aftercare.org/obituaries/audrey-king-4/#!/Obituary Audrey was treasured by family (see the obituary above), but also by the disability community of which she was an active and outspoken member. She was cared for by attendants, but notably, she was a caregiver as well. She worked as a psychologist at Bloorview MacMillan Centre for 30 years, counselling and advising thousands…
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Still here
Hello blog readers. This blog is still here. I am still here. The LWD website is still here. But LWD as a national non-profit organization has passed into non-profit corporate history. I never thought it would be easy trying to start a national non-profit. I knew that trying to be an ally, amplifying the voices…
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“Life After”
Have you ever wondered “Whatever happened to X” — someone who made big news but then faded from view and from public consciousness? Disabled film-maker, Reid Davenport, was reading a book by Paul Longmore* which contained a story about a woman named Elizabeth Bouvia (pronounced Boo-vay). Bouvia was a young disabled woman who, back in…
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They want to have a Conversation about Advance Directives …
Readers of this blog should be aware that the government is conducting a “conversation” — not a consultation — about advance directives for MAID. This exercise opened in mid-December 2024 and will close on February 14th. Sorry for being so late alerting you! You should consider participating — just click on the link below and…
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Loneliness and MAiD: 2023 Statistics You Need to Know
The 2023 MAiD numbers are out, just in time for Christmas, when people are distracted by shopping and partying and decorating, baking and otherwise “getting ready”. 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…
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Families vs. MAID (Part 2)
A new case has arisen (A.Y. vs. N.B.) and prompted me to tackle my promised Part 2. This new case too is about love — about the desire of A.Y. to intervene on behalf of a self-destructive family member, N.B., approved for death at the hands of an enthusiastic proponent of MAID. In this case,…
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An Important event!
I have been “away” from these pages for too long, but now I’m back. I’m back because there is really big news to share with you today. Four national disability rights organizations have joined together to launch a major Court Challenge to Track 2 medically assisted dying/suicide law in Canada. A press conference was held…
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Family Members vs. MAiD
I’d like to write about love, actually. No, not the movie, although it is one of my Christmas favourites, eagerly anticipated every season. No, I’ve been thinking about love in the sense of connection, belonging, attachment, enjoyment of presence, grieving of absence, shared memories of mundane, momentous and tragic events — the stuff of stories…
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An Appointment with Death
“I lost two friends to MAiD last week. Granted both were terminally ill, but it still seemed shockingly fast to me that they died so quickly. My friend was in hospital and found out she had stomach and liver cancer. The MAiD team at the hospital came to see her on Monday morning and arranged…
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Brace Yourselves
Hello readers. First let’s start by thanking the government and the majority of its AMAD committee for actually listening to and learning from a host of witnesses who urged them to delay the implementation of assisted suicide for people whose sole underlying condition is a mental disorder. Particular thanks go to members of the psychiatric profession who…
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When is suicide considered “rational”?
by Policy Options. Originally published on Policy Options by Mary Shariff and Derek RossDecember 6, 2023 It is currently a crime in Canada for a doctor to end the life of a person who no longer wishes to live because of mental illness. This is set to change in March 2024, when amendments to Canada’s medical assistance…
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4th Glossy Nothing-to-see-here Don’t-worry-about-it Annual Report on Medical assistance in Dying 2022
A few months late, the 4th Annual was released to little fanfare. Here are a few thoughts and observations about what you might have missed. We’ll start with their Chart 3.1 which documents the total number of medically assisted deaths in Canada since 2016: The total is 44,958 The smoothly increasing bars [are meant to]…
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say no to MAiD(mdsuc)
In a recent Angus-Reid poll, only a minority of Canadians (about 28%) are in favour of expanding MAiD to people whose sole underlying condition is mental illness (MDSUC). A vast majority of Canadians (82 to 93%) said that the mental health system in Canada needs to be drastically improved BEFORE assisted death is offered to…
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Grieving Matters
September 30, The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, was first observed as a federal holiday in 2021. Springing from Orange Shirt Day this is one day a year set aside to remember injustices visited upon Indigenous communities through the notorious and cruel residential school system. Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their homes and…
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+?+Thinking Positively++??+
With the recent passage of the Canada Disability Benefit Act, are disabled folks in Canada are closer to the goals of “Disability Without Poverty”? Should this victory be celebrated? We know, from questions asked by politicians during hearings on MAiD expansion, that the government feels it will be “off the hook” by passing this important…
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LWD’s first birthday
One year ago, Living With Dignity Canada became a legal entity, launched this website, and published the first instalment of this blog. Happy Birthday to Us! We launched with great expectations, but quickly learned that virtual reality is a crowded space, and attention is hard to get! It’s true for everyone, but perhaps especially true…
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“My Body, My Choice”: Tricky territory
South of the border, half the population lost a constitutional right to privacy in health care when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, which has for over two decades protected a woman’s right to choose whether or not to be pregnant. “My Body, My Choice” was a strong and clear demand that American feminists…
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Does Hate always look Hateful?
Does hate always look hateful? Or can hate adopt a kind face and the language of compassion? Or can it disguise itself as bureaucratic rectitude, fully versed in what the regulations do and do not allow? Is there hot hate and cold hate? When you look up “emotion faces” there is no effort to depict…
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Ambivalence Saves Lives
Human beings are complex creatures, to say the least. Rarely can we point to a single source of happiness, distress, rage, fear, or sleeplessness. We have a lot on our minds, and we carry a lot in our bodies. We are not always good at making decisions, whether we’re choosing something from a restaurant menu,…
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About those Recommendations
Hello readers. Because I have not yet been able to bring myself to the task of explicating the AMAD Committee final report’s 23 Recommendations, this week’s blog post is the work of another writer, the incredible Amy Hasbrouck who heads up Toujours vivant/NOT DEAD YET in Quebec. Complete with footnotes and specifics, this report goes…
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Gaslit!
What I intended to write about this week was the report. By that I mean the final report of the joint committee whose hearings were intended, at least in part, to gather input from the people affected by the change in Canadian law that allows doctor-assisted death for disabled people who are not dying. But…
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Thoughts on a Slippery Road
I recently dug up this old post from my travel blog, written in May, 2016 — about a year after the Carter decision, before the Feds passed Bill C-14. Someone else was driving and the road was not actually slippery. I was sitting in the back seat, alone with my laptop, my cats and my…
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One Action you can Take
Hello readers, and Happy New Year 2023! It seems that the issues raised by MAID have finally reached the mainstream media and for that we are grateful. CBC’s Fifth Estate episode, The Mess that is MAID, for example, aired this past week, exposing some highly questionable and worrisome cases and trends. Most of these we…
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A Hopeful Sign
This week, Justice Minister Lametti announced that his party will apply for an extension on the deadline for inclusion of mental illness in the MAID regime. Let’s just take a moment to say H U R R A H !!!!!!! It is a win, of sorts, so do whatever you do to celebrate this kind…
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They’re Finished Listening …
The “Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying” wound up its “Statutory Review of the Provisions of the Criminal Code Relating to Medical Assistance in Dying and their Application” last Friday. Now they will deliberate on … on what exactly? They are not empowered to consider repealing the law that expanded the original law,…
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ACEs AND MAID
What are ACEs, you ask? I’m so glad you did. Keep reading! (There’s a really helpful video coming up …) Last time around, I wrote about the need for research into many different areas, mostly with regard to how the legalization of doctor-assisted death has changed and continues to change Canadian culture. We need to…
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Research!
I recently asked a disabled friend of mine, how can LWD actually help? What does your community need? Her answer was swift and sure: RESEARCH!! I must admit, I was a bit surprised. Not street demos? Not catchier hashtags or logos? Not stacks of money and other material resources? Well yes, we need all of…
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We Raised our Voices. Will You?
LWD’s submission presented online to the Special Joint Committee in late August is copied below. We are sharing it here with our readers in hopes that each of you will find a way to make your voices heard by the Committee when it resumes hearings this month. The clerks who handle submissions to the committee…
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System Failures
The Third Annual Federal MAID report offers some statistics about last year’s Track 1 deaths — i.e. the “reasonably foreseeable natural deaths” [RFND’s] for which MAID was originally legalized — right down to which organ failed in what percentage of patients. And which disease caused that organ to fail. Track 2 deaths are a…
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Helen Long Says you don’t exist — But we see you!
Dying with Dignity CEO, Helen Long, recently published a long article in McLeans Magazine (May 31/22), detailing the results of DWD’s most recent survey. On the basis of that survey, she and her organization declared that a huge percentage of Canadians are not only very much in favour of medically administered death for people who…
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Canada’s NRA?
It was May 24, 2022 — one year ago, just after LWD was launched. I was watching an American news channel reporting on yet another “worst” school shooting, this time in Texas. 19 little primary school children dead, two teachers and the shooter. And before the actual body count was known, a well-known senator was…
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We’re Here!
“Somebody ought to START AN ORGANIZATION!” I moaned in a Facebook post on April 30th, after I read in the paper that yet another person with a disability had chosen MAiD because she couldn’t find suitable housing that she could afford, after years of trying hard and living in unsafe conditions. “I’m so sick of…
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