MAiD is changing our health system to one designed to bury us at the lowest possible cost Decriminalizing “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAiD) in 2016 apparently confirmed a powerful social bias in favour of personal freedom. Presented as a free choice – affecting no one else – euthanasia seemed acceptable to most Canadians. However, this…
Parliamentary Committee recommends further MAiD expansion despite unresolved problems In 2021, Parliament set up a special committee of MPs and Senators to study the issue of “medical assistance in dying” (or MAiD) and to make recommendations to Parliament. The Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying released its “Choices for Canadians” report on February…
Assisted death has gone from a last resort to an earth-friendly way to reduce the world’s population Liberalism used to mean live and let live. If your neighbour painted his house Day-Glo green, liberals shrugged and said, “so be it”. Now? You must not only heap fulsome public praise on his paint preference but you…
Why the headlong rush into expansion while so many questions remain?
Just six years after legalization, the availability of assisted suicide in Canada is about to expand again. But members of Parliaments and senators who’ll tackle these life-and-death questions don’t have enough time to consider all the weighty matters before them. Much less have they taken stock of how assisted suicide has affected the entire health-care…
A single year to legalize such a wholesale change about the ending of human life signals a country moving away from its past
For two evenings recently, my Cardus colleagues and a panel of expert guests have engaged in an in-depth discussion on YouTube on Canada’s post-COVID future. They covered an impressive range of issues from education to the bifurcation of society as the pandemic exposed real, and really troubling, differences in how cohorts of Canadian society were…
And is accelerating the process with disturbing speed
Although euthanasia was illegal in Canada until five years ago, our country is on the verge of having the most liberal euthanasia laws in the world. Canada has shifted gears from a culture of life to one of death and is putting its foot to the pedal to accelerate the process with disturbing speed. How…
Ableism - discrimination in favour of able-bodied people - is a poisonous rot that eats away at the roots of care and life-giving supports for the disabled
In my work with Christian Horizons, I regularly provide grief training and debriefing in times of significant loss for people close to those with disabilities. In these profound moments of remembrance and mourning, it is evident that the human passing from life to death should be one of the most social and interconnected experiences of…
Former Mountie Sean Murphy is calling for a Criminal Code amendment to protect conscientious objections to MAiD
Sean Murphy has what he considers a clear way through the tangle between the House of Commons and Senate over Liberal government legislation to expand Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). The former veteran Mountie and coroner says the bill’s status would be clarified if all Canadians understood that MAiD means homicide. A logical outcome he…
The use of euphemisms such as "assisted dying" rather than “euthanasia” or “assisted suicide” is putting our most vulnerable at risk
By Andre Schutten and Anna Nienhuis ARPA Canada Action inspires action. This is often positive, as people’s activities motivate others to engage in positive service too. But there are times when action inspires deadly action. As the Senate continues its review of Bill C-7’s dramatic expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAiD), possibly proposing amendments…
‘This is about the B.C. government destroying a sanctuary for dying patients who want the choice to stay in a facility where MAID is not offered’
You might think the middle of a global pandemic is less than an ideal time to disrupt the operations of a hospice where palliative care patients receive comfort as they approach death. If so, you would not share the apparent thinking of the B.C. government or its local Fraser Health Authority, which is forcing layoffs…