Heart-Wrenching Lessons from Canada's Euthanasia Regime

By Dr Ramona Coelho (pictured here)

Twenty years ago, just out of medical school, I couldn’t have imagined that vulnerable patients might one day feel their suffering was so poorly dealt with that they'd ask their doctor to end their lives. Since our country, Canada, legalised Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in 2016, we have seen over 60,000 MAiD deaths by 2023, with exponential yearly growth rates. Quebec’s recent report reveals that their MAiD annual death rate has surpassed 7%, and they can’t even assess the quality of palliative care provided.

The Canada I grew up in valued dignity and protected the vulnerable. Now, inadequate care and weak safeguards are pushing Canadians with disabilities toward assisted death. A recent report from an Ontario government committee I sit on confirms the warnings of Canadian and United Nations human rights experts: people are choosing death because they lack essential supports and services.

Ontario: At Least 428 Non-compliant Euthanasia Deaths.

By Alex Schadenberg [pictured below],

A research essay by Alexander Raikin that was  published by the New Atlantis on November 11, 2024 uncovers that there have been at least 428 non-compliant euthanasia deaths in the province of Ontario. In his research essay Raikin sets out the tone of his conclusions in his opening paragraph by stating:

For years, there have been clear signals that euthanasia providers in Canada may be breaking the law and getting away with it. That is the finding of the officials who are responsible for monitoring euthanasia deaths to ensure compliance in the province of Ontario. Newly uncovered reports reveal that these authorities have thus far counted over 400 apparent violations — and have kept this information from the public and not pursued a single criminal charge, even against repeat violators and “blatant” offenders.

Ontario's Euthanasia Report: The Poor and Those Who Lack Housing Are Most at Risk

Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Ontario MAiD Death Review report has three parts (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3).

Janet Eastman has written an excellent commentary on the report of the Ontario Chief Coroner concerning the experience with euthanasia in Ontario, Canada's largest province. Eastman's article was published in The Telegraph on October 17, 2024. 

Eastman focuses on the Coroner's report in relation to the upcoming assisted dying debate in the UK. Eastman writes:

Assisted dying is used by patients in Canada because they are poor and lack housing, a major report has found.

The first official report into assisted dying deaths in Ontario, which has been obtained by the Telegraph, found vulnerable people face “potential coercion” or “undue influence” to seek out the practice.

Sixteen experts across medicine, nursing and law identified people whose lives may have been wrongly terminated at the hands of the state, where the action is called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).

Press Release: Disability Rights Coalition Challenges Discriminatory Sections of Canada’s Assisted Dying Law in Court

Krista Carr pictured left and quoted below.  

A coalition of disability rights organizations and two personally affected individuals have filed a Charter challenge with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. They oppose Track 2 of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) law, which provides assisted suicide to people with a disability who are not dying, or whose death is not “reasonably foreseeable.”

The coalition includes national disability organizations Inclusion Canada, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), Indigenous Disability Canada (IDC/BCANDS), and DAWN Canada, as well as two individuals who have been harmed by Track 2 MAiD.

The organizations assert that Track 2 MAiD has resulted in premature deaths and an increase in discrimination and stigma towards people with disabilities across the country. While they are not challenging MAiD Track 1 in this case, they recognize that it too can pose significant problems for people with disabilities. Track 2 MAiD has had a direct negative impact on the lives of people with disabilities.

Canada's Growing Euthanasia Program

By Dr Paul Saba (pictured left).

When Canada legalized assisted dying/suicide/euthanasia in 2016, it was supposed to be for only a “few” terminal illness patients with only days to live. As of December 31, 2023 approximately 60,000 Canadians had their lives ended by physician assisted dying (at the end of 2022 there were 44,958 assisted medical deaths). (Article Link).

Canada is the fastest growth assisted dying/suicide/euthanasia deaths of all countries where it has been legalized. 

Since March of 2021 the law has been further expanded to those with disabilities with decades to live and in 2027 those with only mental illness will be eligible for assisted suicide.

Britain Will Debate Assisted Suicide

By Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition 

Original publication 07/22/24

Keir Starmer, the leader of Britain's Labour Party, has been a long-time promoter of assisted suicide. During the election Starmer promised that he would introduce a bill and allow a free-vote on legalizing assisted suicide in the UK. The July 4 election resulted in the Labour Party winning a massive majority with 411 out of 650 parliamentary seats.

After the election Starmer reiterated his support for assisted suicide and promised a free-vote within the year. BBC news reported:

Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he remains committed to giving MPs a free vote on assisted dying laws at some point.

The prime minister said he would provide parliamentary time for a vote if a backbench MPs proposed changing the law, but stressed the government had other "priorities for the first year or so".

Canadian Man Offered Euthanasia Multiple Times

By Daniel Payne, original publication, 06 23 24  

Amid ongoing efforts to expand euthanasia in Canada under the name of “medical aid in dying” (MAID), one Ottawa man says he has been offered euthanasia “multiple times” as he struggles with lifelong disabilities and chronic pain from a disease called cerebellar ataxia. 

Roger Foley, 49, [pictured right} shared some of his story in a recent video interview with Amanda Achtman of the Dying to Meet You project, which was created to “humanize our conversation on suffering, death, meaning, and hope.” The project seeks to “[restore] our cultural health when it comes to our experiences of death and dying” through speaking engagements and video campaigns. 

Support for Assisted Suicide Is Up, But the Slope It Would Lead to Is Dangerously Slippery.

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist

Updated June 12, 2024, 3:00 a.m.

The most chilling detail in “Better Off Dead?” a new BBC documentary by the English actress and comedian Liz Carr (pictured here), is an automated telephone message: "For assistance in dying, please press 1."

Carr, who has been disabled since childhood and uses a wheelchair, made the film as Parliament debates whether to make it legal for doctors to help end the lives of people who are terminally ill and who say they wish to die. Similar legislation is being pushed in Massachusetts, where a bill permitting doctors to prescribe suicide drugs to patients with less than six months to live is now before the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

The film lasts just 58 minutes but it powerfully refutes the claim that authorizing medical professionals to facilitate the deaths of people with a fatal illness or disability is either enlightened or safe.

Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia Highlights

1.  Alex Shadenberg, Head of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (pictured): "With the legalization of euthanasia throughout Canada, Canadian life spans have dropped for three straight years, from 2019 to 2022." https://www.choiceillusion.org/2024/05/canadas-life-span-drop.html

2.  Margaret Dore, “In Oregon, Other Suicides Have Increased with the Legalization of Assisted Suicide.” The financial cost is “enormous.” https://www.choiceillusion.org/2017/08/in-oregon-other-suicides-have-increased.html

3.  Diane Coleman, “A Short History of Assisted Suicide; Is Canadian Style Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia Coming to California?,” https://www.choiceillusion.org/2024/03/a-short-history-of-assisted-suicide-is.html

Alex Schadenberg Regarding Canada & the United States, including Good News

Dear Friends: ... 

Sylvie Berube (BQ) MP sponsored Bill C-390, a bill that would extend Canada’s law by allowing euthanasia approvals by advanced request. The bill amends the federal euthanasia law by adding to sections of the law the words: “or an applicable provincial framework.” Last year, the Québec government passed Bill 11, which expanded the Québec law by (among other things) allowing euthanasia by advanced request. Bill C-390, if passed, would amend Canada’s euthanasia law by changing the federal law based on amendments to provincial laws. In other words, Québec could legislate federally.

Canada: Deep Convictions and Deep Pockets are Needed to Fight the MAID Lobby

By Gabrielle Peters (article excerpt).

“On the question of religious hospitals, despite being a lesbian couple, Patricia and I would tolerate life-size crucifixes in the treatment room if it meant being safe from MAID.” ~ Catherine Frazee,  (pictured here).* 

Disabled people often talk about being made invisible. This feeling is particularly striking around issues that are specific to us like MAID, "Medical Assistance in Dying." The lobbyists and proponents for Canada’s MAID regime routinely mischaracterize or, more often, omit mention of disabled people or our reasons for opposition entirely.

Canada's Life Span Drop

By Alex Schadenberg

Life expectancy for Canadians has dropped for at least three straight years from 2019 to 2022.

The drop in life expectancy also occurred in the US during Covid, but life expectancy rebounded in the US in 2022, whereas in Canada life expectancy has remained a year lower.

Based on the sheer number of euthanasia deaths in Canada, and the fact that Canadians are not required to be terminally ill in order to be killed by euthanasia, deaths by euthanasia have strongly affected Canada’s death rate resulting in the average Canadian dying one year earlier than in 2019.

California Bill Blows the Eligibility for Assisted Suicide Wide Open

By Diane Coleman, JD, President & CEO.  (pictured here).

This letter is filed on behalf of Not Dead Yet, a national disability organization headquartered in New York with members in California. We oppose the SB 1196 amendments to the California End of Life Option Act for several reasons.

ELIGIBILITY: First and most importantly, the proposed amendments provide for a greatly expanded eligibility for receiving a lethal prescription, removing the current provision based on a “terminal” diagnosis expected to lead to a natural death within six months. The SB 1196 amendment makes millions more people eligible, people with chronic conditions and disabilities who are nowhere near the “end of life” except for their proposed eligibility for assisted suicide.

Jersey [Not New Jersey] Proposes Canadian Style Euthanasia Law

By Alex Schadenberg, 

Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On March 22, 2024 a proposal for legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide in Jersey was released in preparation for a debate on the issue on May 21, 2024. 

The proposal claims to be limited to people in certain circumstances but upon further examination, the proposal is not limited to terminally ill people and the definitions within the proposal would open the door to a Canadian style euthanasia law.

Surge in Medically Assisted Deaths Under Canada’s MAID Program Outpaces Every Other Country

By Masih Khalatbari, Investigative Journalism  Bureau and Robert Cribb, Staff Reporter. Original publication, Saturday, January  27, 2024

Dr. Sonu Gaind, [pictured right] head of the psychiatry department at Sunnybrook Hospital, said he is concerned about what the surge in medically assisted deaths & [what it] "says about our society.”

The number of Canadians ending their lives through medically assisted death has grown at a speed that outpaces every other nation in the world.

As Canada is poised to expand eligibility criteria under medical assistance in dying (MAID) legislation, data from all 11 countries where the controversial end-of-life treatment exists shows Canada is the fastest-growing adopter in history, an analysis by the Investigative Journalism Bureau and the Toronto Star has found.

Jurisdictions That Legalize Euthanasia or Assisted Suicide Will Regret it. Just Look at Canada.

By Alex Schadenberg 

Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I am just returning from a speaking tour which included meetings with elected representatives in Scotland and the Isle of Man. Both jurisdictions are debating the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. While in Scotland, a news story was published concerning Keir Starmer, the leader of the UK Labour party, who promised that if elected he would bring forth a bill to legalize assisted dying.

At the same time the French President, Emmanuel Macron, announced that an "assisted dying" bill would be introduced on May 27. As horrific as Canada's experience with euthanasia has been, the terrible euthanasia stories out of Canada is creating a hesitancy in other countries when they debate legalizing poisoning by doctors.

Canadian Doctors Admit Covid ‘Booster’ Shot Paralyzed Woman, Offer to Euthanize Her to ‘Make Up for It’

Canadian doctors have admitted that a Covid “booster” shot from Moderna is responsible for a young Ontario woman now being paralyzed for the rest of her life.

37-year-old mother Kayla Pollock is now paralyzed from the neck down after receiving the mRNA injection and says her life has become a “living hell.”

According to a report from The Liberty Daily, however, doctors have offered to “make up for it” by euthanizing the young mom.

Washington Post Exposes the Expansion of Canada's Euthanasia Law

 By Lisa Blumberg

The broadening of eligibility under the Canada’s euthanasia law to include people who are deemed to suffer from “untreatable mental illnesses” has been delayed once again. The expansion had been scheduled to take effect in March. According to the New York Times, the postponement occurred because a parliamentary committee concluded that there are not enough doctors, particularly psychiatrists, in the country to assess patients with mental illnesses who want to end their lives and to help them do so. The Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland stated that “the system is not ready, and we need more time.” He did not give any new effective date for the expansion, although a committee member expressed the hope that the delay would be indefinite.

Canadian Bill C-62 Regarding Mental Illness

Federal Bill C-62 seeks to amend Canada's Criminal Code, to provide that persons are not eligible, until March 17, 2027, to receive medical assistance in dying “if their sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness” continues its legislative journey.*

The adoption of a motion this week allowed this Bill to be expedited. Note that there was a failed attempt by the Bloc Québécois to add the issue of advance requests to C-62.

We thank psychiatrists Pierre Gagnon and Sonu Gaind who spent  Valentine's evening participating in the only meeting of the Standing Committee on Health studying the Bill.

This Is Where the Right to Die Leads Us

By Alex Schadenberg*

Spiked published an in-depth article by Lauren Smith on January 15, 2024 titled: "Canada has revealed the horror of assisted dying." Smith tells the stories of the many people who have felt forced into  considering death by euthanasia.

Smith sets the stage for her article by calling Canada's euthanasia law a gruesome, state-sanctioned industry. Smith states:

There is nothing remotely civilized about Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) programme. Assisted dying in Canada was initially considered a last resort for terminally ill patients suffering from incurable pain. But in the space of just a few years, euthanasia has been made available to pretty much anyone who is struggling with an illness or a disability. Even Canadians facing homelessness and poverty are feeling compelled to end their lives, rather than ‘burden’ the authorities.