Provincial MAiD regime high on errors, lax on enforcement, and reluctant to do anything about it, B.C. Catholic investigation finds

 The following was published in the B.C. Catholic in late July, 2025

By Terry O'Neill

A B.C. government document warns that “overly strict or severe” enforcement of MAiD infractions “might discourage physicians or nurse practitioners from providing MAiD despite high demand.” The document, approved by B.C.’s deputy health minister, was uncovered by The B.C. Catholic through a freedom of information request.

A B.C. Catholic investigation has uncovered systemic failures in the province’s euthanasia program, including thousands of paperwork errors among the 2,767 MAiD (medical assistance in dying) deaths recorded in 2023, a lack of public reporting of violations, and an oversight unit led by the same health official responsible for delivering MAiD in B.C.

Leading critics of Canada’s permissive legalized-euthanasia regime call the findings “staggering” and “stunning,” saying the newly disclosed British Columbia government documents show a lack of 
effective oversight of (MAiD) in the province.

“It’s an actual life-and-death issue,” says Alex Schadenberg, a Catholic and head of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. “And what we’re seeing in B.C. is evidence that the scales have been tipped in favour of death.”

The documents, received July 10 by The B.C. Catholic in response to a freedom-of-information application, reveal the inner workings of the B.C. Ministry of Health’s secretive MAiD Oversight Unit. The unit has not published a public report since it took responsibility for MAiD oversight from the province’s chief coroner in 2018.

The unit is led by social worker Sara Bergen, whose biography states that she also heads the overall administration of MAiD in British Columbia. This dual role is, in itself, cause for concern, says Trudo Lemmens, professor and Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Toronto. Lemmens also serves on Ontario’s independent MAiD-oversight body, which operates under the auspices of the province’s chief coroner.

“Somebody combining the organization of a practice with the oversight of a practice is unhealthy,” Lemmens said in an interview in reference to Bergen’s two jobs.

The Ministry of Health said in an email reply that the province’s MAiD Oversight Unit does not investigate wrongdoing but reviews documentation submitted by practitioners to ensure compliance with federal and provincial safeguards. While the unit may follow up to clarify missing or incomplete information, it does not determine misconduct or impose disciplinary action.

In rare cases, the ministry said, the unit may refer concerns to a health professional’s regulatory college or to law enforcement. Such referrals, it emphasized, “do not represent allegations of misconduct.” Police referrals are reserved for “the most serious compliance issues,” including significant deviations from eligibility or safeguard requirements, or cases where a deliberate breach of statutory obligations is suspected. Practitioners are not notified of referrals to police to protect the integrity of potential investigations.

Professsor Grant

The ministry also confirmed that Sara Bergen, who leads the MAiD Oversight Unit, serves concurrently as the provincial Director of MAiD. In that role, she oversees the strategic direction of MAiD policy and its implementation across the health system, including coordination with regulators, care providers, and service delivery agencies.

Remaining questions about the outcome of past referrals and details of disciplinary action, the ministry said, would need to be submitted as Freedom of Information requests.

Among the problematic information contained in the 28-page FOI release is a “briefing decision note,” written by an unidentified bureaucrat, which argues that the oversight unit should not be overly strict in reporting infractions of MAiD-delivery protocols to professional colleges or the police.

Brown approved the note’s concluding recommendation to establish a new “weighted criteria model” for judging practitioner infractions.

“This is staggering,” said Doctor Christopher Lyon of the UK’s University of York, in an email statement. An environmental social scientist with graduate degrees from Canada, Lyon has written extensively about problems with this country’s MAiD law.

He said the memo essentially gives permission to “Unlawfully kill someone, but we won’t enforce it because it might discourage practitioners from playing loose with the law.”

Lyon said the province should be “very concerned” about what’s driving an apparent high demand for euthanasia rather than working out ways to address it.

Lemmens too was shocked by the bureaucrat’s reasoning that MAiD is too popular to worry about rules. “Indeed, [it’s] stunning to state that so explicitly.”

The FOI document also contains a spreadsheet showing that, in 2023 alone, the oversight unit found 2,833 “reporting issues” and “completion errors” in the paperwork for 2,767 MAiD deaths and for 1,041 cases in which MAiD was applied for but not completed.

Expert Lyon

Nevertheless, since 2018, the unit has made only 22 referrals to regulatory bodies for possible disciplinary action and just two referrals to law enforcement for potential criminal charges, according to an unattributed declaration appended to the end of the FOI document. The statement concludes by saying the referrals “represent less than 0.2 per cent of the total number of cases of MAiD reviewed by the unit.”

Such limited action in the face of so many infractions concerns Isabel Grant, a law professor at the University of British Columbia. 

“It was alarming to read about the error rate in MAiD assessments in B.C.,” Grant said in an emailed statement. “Looking at only one indicator—errors around the eligibility requirements—we see an error rate of 4.9 per cent. When we are talking about close to 3,000 deaths, that is a very high number.”

The B.C. government’s MAiD reporting is about a year behind when the deaths took place, but if numbers for the first half of 2024 continue, the number of euthanasia deaths for last year is on track to surpass 3,000, up nearly 10 per cent from 2023.

Grant said that when the cost of a mistake is a potential wrongful death, society should not tolerate such a high error rate. “Couple this with the concern raised in the report that we cannot have an ‘overly strict’ referral to law enforcement or professional colleges … [and] we can see the approach of the British Columbia government to MAiD deaths—err on the side of making MAiD accessible, not on the side of compliance with the Criminal Code,” she said. 

The government’s approach is especially troubling, Grant said, considering “we are talking about exemptions from Canada’s murder and aiding-suicide laws.”

Lyon and Lemmens joined with Dr. Scott Y.H. Kim, a bioethicist-physician, in writing a paper for the January 2025 edition of the American Journal of Bioethics in which they called for calling for major reform in MAiD oversight.

Canada’s high rate of MAiD deaths “likely reflects not a broad Canadian consensus but the capture of a

Prof. Lemmens

policy-making and implementation process by a small group of activists and clinicians colonizing medicine to become an ideologically driven vehicle for expanding MAiD access and delivery,” they wrote.

To counter government prioritization of MAiD, they wrote that patient safety, including protection against premature deaths, should be emphasized through a more transparent, relevant, and robust compliance regime.

The B.C. Catholic examined seven years’ worth of public disciplinary records of the College of Pharmacists of B.C., the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C., and the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives and was unable to find any record of disciplinary action related to MAiD. Likewise, there are no public records of any criminal charges related to a professional’s handling of MAiD.

In one case a patient was deemed eligible for MAiD even though the assessment “did not find they met all individual eligibility criteria.” (Michael Swan/The Catholic Register)

Curiously, there is no public record of the lone disciplinary case for which the FOI papers provided any detail. The case is described in a three-page “Ministry of Health Decision Briefing Note” drafted in January 2021. It outlines the case of a B.C. doctor, whose name is not disclosed, who filed a report to the oversight unit that “failed to include a second assessment concluding eligibility, as required under federal law.”

As well, the briefing note reported that the oversight unit “also identified additional issues with the physician’s documentation of this case, which contravene the College of Physicians and Surgeons MAiD Practice Standards.”

“… The absence of a second independent opinion is exacerbated by an apparent disregard of an assessment of ineligibility,” the note states. It concludes by recommending that the oversight unit refer the case to both police and the doctors’ college “for appropriate investigation.” It is not known whether Deputy Minister Brown acted on the recommendation.

Canada’s high rate of MAiD deaths likely reflects “a small group of activists and clinicians colonizing medicine to become an ideologically driven vehicle for expanding MAiD access and delivery,” said an article in the American Journal of Bioethics. (Adobe)

A spokesperson for the doctors’ college said that privacy concerns prevent it from releasing information about any referrals from the MAiD Oversight Unit. 

A spokesperson for the nurses’ college said a B.C. Catholic request for follow-up information on disciplinary matters would be treated as an FOI application and be answered by the end of August.

The package of information received by The B.C. Catholic did not provide any details of the years in which the unit recommended disciplinary action or criminal investigations, or to which college or agency.

However, the B.C. government did make that very information available in 2023 in response to an FOI request by Dr. Deborah Cook, a Member of the Order of Canada inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame last month.

The government response lists two B.C. referrals to law enforcement—one in 2019 and the other in 2021—related to breaches of Section 241.2 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which sets out the eligibility criteria and safeguards for medical assistance for MAiD. The document does not say which professions were involved in the criminal referrals.

In addition, the single-page document to Cook listed three referrals to the pharmacists’ college, two to the nurses’ college in 2019, and 15 to the doctors’ college from 2019 to November of 2023. The unit found that in four of the doctors’ cases and in the two nurses’ cases, the medical assessor had concluded that a patient was eligible for MAiD even though the assessment “did not find they met all individual eligibility criteria.”

Schadenberg said the apparent lack of disciplinary action or criminal charges is further evidence that B.C.’s MAiD oversight is ineffectual, despite the Supreme Court of Canada’s Carter decision, which led to the 2016 legalization of MAiD, carrying a requirement for stringent oversight. 

Schadenberg remarked that prosecuting such crimes will always be frustratingly difficult because “any witness on the other side is dead.”

Indeed, “it’s like the perfect crime,” he said. “You don’t get into trouble, and anybody who could effectively complain about it is dead.”

Review MAiD before death, not after

Writing last year in the digital publication Policy Options, B.C. policy analyst Daniel Zekveld called for more effective oversight of MAiD to protect patients “against doctors who interpret the rules liberally or play loose with safeguards.”

Zekveld, who is with the Association for Reformed Political Action (Canada), noted that the B.C. coroner’s office referred 44 MAiD deaths to the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons between 2016 and 2018, before the MAiD Oversight Unit assumed responsibility for reviews. “None of them resulted in a formal disciplinary hearing,” he wrote.

There could be two explanations, he wrote. “This could be an indication that procedures were properly followed, or it could signal a lack of real oversight and clarity,” Zekveld wrote.

He stressed that since MAiD is unique as a legal medical method for ending a life, “its implementation demands not only appropriate legislation but also clear safeguards and review systems to protect all parties.”

He also called for a new system to review eligibility and safeguard procedures prior to euthanasia, not after. “All cases of non-compliance with the law must be held to full accountability, with strong safeguards fully applied,” he wrote.

No just society with MAiD — Pope Leo XIV

Before and during his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has clearly enunciated both his and Church opposition to the moral evil that is euthanasia.

In 2016, Pope Leo shared a Catholic News Agency article critical of Canada’s then-looming legalization of euthanasia, pointing to Belgium’s experience with legalization and warning that assisted suicide “threatens the most vulnerable in society.”

“‘Don’t go there’ — Belgians plead with Canada not to pass euthanasia law #Prolife,” he tweeted.

In 2023, he linked euthanasia to abortion, saying both procedures deny the dignity of life. “We cannot build a just society if we discard the weakest—whether the child in the womb or the elderly in their frailty—for they are both gifts from God,” Newsweek quoted him as saying.

More recently, Pope Leo reacted to the proposed legalization of “assisted dying” in France by ending his June 4 audience at St. Peter’s Square with a defence of the intrinsic dignity of every person.

As reported on the Catholic news website Aleteia, Pope Leo said, “Our world struggles to find value in human life, even in its final hour.”

'Co-operation with evil in Canada'

An eminent American Catholic bio-ethicist associated with the National Catholic Bioethics Center in the U.S. has written an analysis of the Medical-Assistance-in-Dying situation at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver. It is my understanding that he wrote this analysis in response to facts that I published on this blog some weeks ago. My publication of the analysis here does not imply either support or disagreement with his analysis. Rather, as a reporter, I feel his voice should be heard.

There are many shocking aspects to the euphemistically termed Medical Assistance in Dying or MAiD euthanasia law in Canada. One is how government forces are coercing Catholic health care in Canada to collaborate with the evil of killing sick and vulnerable people. Church teaching is abundantly clear that euthanasia is a grave violation of the moral law and can never be seen as a form of health care. 

What has come to light recently is coercion by the government of British Columbia to make euthanasia available to patients cared for at a Vancouver Catholic hospital. The arrangement called for the province to take land at the St. Paul's campus on which to create a "clinical space" for MAiD to be performed. The space would be staffed by Vancouver Coastal healthcare professionals and was to be connected by a corridor to St. Paul's Hospital. 

"Patients from St. Paul's Hospital accessing MAiD will be discharged by Providence Health and transferred to the care of Vancouver Coastal Health in this new clinical space," the release said. This is not the first time such “compromise” ideas like this have been proposed. In the USA the main issue was direct surgical sterilization, and some hospitals wanted to create independent entities that were financially and legally separated from the Catholic corporation but nevertheless perform sterilizations on their medical campuses. 

The sixth edition of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops specifically excluded collaborative agreements where other entities are established to “oversee, manage, or perform immoral procedures.” It is a fixed principle of Catholic moral teaching that both formal and immediate material cooperation with intrinsic evils such as abortion, euthanasia, direct sterilization, etc., are never permissible. 

In formal cooperation one approves or agrees with the evil that is being done. Immediate material cooperation happens when one disapproves of the evil act but nevertheless cooperates with it in such a close way as to ensure that it occurs. An example of this is agreeing to give a person the money they need to pay for an abortion. Euthanasia activists in Canada have used lawsuits to argue that it is “cruel and unusual” for Catholic hospitals to refuse to kill patients who request euthanasia and thus violate their “constitutional right” to MAiD. They obtained an “arrangement” whereby patients in Catholic hospitals would be discharged and transferred to a secular entity and euthanized in a space just down a hallway from the St. Paul hospital-operated hospice rooms. 

It is true that competent patients should not be kept in a health care facility against their will, but one must be very careful not to engage in immoral cooperation. Catholic hospitals rightly agree to discharge patients rather than carrying out unethical procedures on them, but it is not morally acceptable to facilitate this to the point of simply moving them down the hall in order to be killed. A very strong ethical line is violated by such practice. 

 This is also a cautionary tale. When health care entities are completely dependent on government funds to survive in a single payer system like the one that exists in Canada, the secular authorities can cynically use this leverage to impose their will. Even hospitals in the USA are heavily reliant on reimbursement for patients covered by the Medicare and Medicaid government programs. Unethical mandates from states or the US federal government, with the threat of losing funding if health care institutions refuse to cooperate, therefore can be quite coercive. 

It remains true, however, that everything must be done to resist attempts to force immediate material cooperation with evil. If legal challenges fail, it may ultimately be necessary for hospitals to close rather than allow the terrible actions to take place with their cooperation. This requires immense courage and moral conviction on the part of the Church and administrators. Here one sees how fundamental it is to have religious liberty and institutional conscience rights respected. One bright side of the picture in the US is that trials to preserve religious liberty have with great consistency been won at the Supreme Court level.

 I do not believe the picture is nearly as positive in Canada. Also, institutional conscience is frequently recognized in US legislation, even though academics and activists hostile to conscience rights have tried in recent years to call into question this right. Although it is true that institutions do not have consciences in the same way that individuals do, they are founded and guided by principles and codes of conduct that represent institutional values and beliefs. Catholic health care could not carry out its mission if institutional conscience rights were not acknowledged and protected. This appears to be a big part of the problem facing Canadian Catholic health care.

 Joseph Meaney, PhD, KM

Providence answers MAiD onslaught with authentic medical care

 
As I reported earlier this month, the B.C. government and its operatives at Vancouver Coastal Health have relentlessly forced euthanasia facilities into or near several Catholic spaces in the Metro Vancouver area.

 Given the Catholic facilities’ pro-life beliefs, this can only be seen as a grave incursion. It’s certainly one that has profoundly upset many of the faithful.

 But what are the consequences within those facilities? How deeply has this fatal infection reached? And how rigorously has Providence Health Care, the Catholic medical-care agency, been able to maintain its pro-life principles?

 The answers I recently received to these questions give me some hope, and I will share them below. First, though, a quick review.

 My original story found that a Vancouver-Coastal-operated Medical Assistance in Dying facility on the campus of the Providence-operated St. Paul’s Hospital has been operating since January 6 of this year. It’s called the “Shoreline Space” and is attached, with no intervening corridor, to a wall of the hospital. (See photo below, right.)

 To my eyes, it’s a carbuncle—a death chamber facilitating homicide and, in doing so, performing a function that is exactly the opposite of the medical care to which St. Paul’s is dedicated.

 My story also disclosed how I had discovered, through a freedom-of-information application, that Vancouver Coastal is planning to impose a 2,800-square-foot MAiD facility on the new St. Paul’s, which is scheduled to open in 2027. No agency—not the B.C. government, Vancouver Coastal, Providence, or the Archdiocese of Vancouver (which oversees Providence)—has ever announced this.

 And finally, my story reported that Vancouver Coastal has established MAiD rooms in the same buildings as two Providence-operated hospices. Providence does not own those buildings.

 The story has now received international coverage. Alex Schadenberg, of the London, Ont.-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, featured it on his blog. The Canadian Catholic News website carried my story, as did the U.S.-based Catholic News Agency and OSV News. Campaign Life Coalition carried the news on its Facebook page (see photo at left). The Catholic World Report published it.  As well, four pro-life websites, lifenews.com and liveaction.org, nwcatholic.org (serving the Archdiocese of Seattle), and cathnews.com reported on it or republished my story. And, finally, anti-MAiD firebrand Kelsi Sheren wrote about on her Substack space.

 My reporting on MAiD was sparked five years ago by acquaintances who told me that, while in hospital, they had been pestered by hospital staff about accepting MAiD, even though they weren’t dying.

 I was shocked and launched an investigation into what the MAiD-delivery policy was at one large, public health agency, Fraser Health. My freedom-of-information request found that its policy was that MAiD is supposed to be a patient-led process.

 But, clearly, if hospital staff were pestering patients about MAiD, such a policy isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

 Moreover, I discovered that at Fraser Health hospices, staff are instructed to inform every incoming patient that, among the services they were entitled to, was a cocktail of deadly drugs. The policy led to the resignation of at least one doctor.

 I also learned that at least one Australian health agency maintains a policy prohibiting staff to initiate any discussion about euthanasia. This, I believe, should be the policy everywhere.

 Hospital patients are in a vulnerable state. They’re sick, often elderly, and sometimes harbouring feelings that they are being a burden on their families.

 Suggesting MAiD to such patients can be misinterpreted as recommending it. And when the question is asked over and over again, day after day, patients will undoubtedly feel pressured.

 With all this in mind – the imposition of MAiD at Providence and the must-mention MAiD policy of Fraser Health – I asked Providence how exactly it handled requests for MAiD and whether it had a policy about initiating discussions about MAiD.

 I am happy to report now that a Providence spokesperson, Shaf Hussain, very promptly sent me a detailed policy statement on how staff should respond to a request for MAiD.

 But, I responded, does Providence allow its staff to actually initiate a discussion about MAiD?

 “To clarify, no, we don’t proactively mention MAiD as an option to consider,” Hussain wrote. “We never initiate an offer of MAiD. If a patient enquires about it, we contact the VCH MAiD team. From PHC’s perspective, we ensure the patient is provided information about all [non-MAiD] end-of-life options, so the patient can make an informed decision.”

 Hussain then quoted from a policy document that further explained the policy:

 “A person can ask a member of their care team about MAiD if it is something they want to explore.” The document states. “Assessments for MAiD eligibility will be conducted by two doctors and/or nurse practitioners. A health authority MAiD care coordination service, like the [Vancouver Coastal] Assisted Dying Program, leads arrangements for assessment.

 “To assist with making an informed decision, both the care team at PHC and the MAiD assessors will discuss the person’s medical condition with them. They will also discuss services and treatments that are available to relieve suffering.

 “Services and treatments may include adjusting a current treatment plan, engaging palliative care services, community support services or other options. A person does not have to accept any of these services, but it is legally required for a person requesting MAiD to be offered care options to address the person’s suffering.”

 All this is good to know—good that Providence is adhering to authentic, pro-life medical care in the midst of a very difficult situation.

Let's pray that Providence is able to sustain and grow its admirable pro-life policies and practices. After all, it's a matter of life and death. 

MAiD unit, forced onto St. Paul’s campus, now operational. And second is planned at new hospital

A B.C.-government-ordered euthanasia facility on the downtown Vancouver campus of the Catholic-operated St. Paul’s Hospital is now fully operational.

My half-year-long investigation into the impact of the NDP government’s MAiD-imposition edict has also uncovered the fact that planning is underway for another euthanasia facility, also to be operated by the provincial government’s Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, to be forced onto the site of the new St. Paul’s on False Creek Flats, currently being built three kilometres east of the existing hospital.

MAiD facility at St. Paul's: Operating since January 6.

As well, I have learned that Vancouver Coastal is now operating MAiD rooms in the same buildings that house two Catholic-run hospices in Vancouver, and that the hospices were powerless to block them.

All those Catholic facilities are operated by Providence Health Care, which is controlled by the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Providence has long maintained pro-life policies which prohibit abortions and euthanasia from being performed on its premises.

The imposition of MAiD units alongside pro-life Catholic facilities has left Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, with deep concerns.

“This is incredibly sad news,” Schadenberg said in an interview. “It’s sad that the unit is now operational. And I’m also incredibly saddened by the fact that the new St. Paul’s will also have a euthanasia clinic attached to it.”

The provincial government forced the euthanasia facility onto the current St. Paul’s site in November 2023 in response to relentless death-on-demand activism and mainstream media pressure.

The utilitarian-looking structure, which Vancouver Coastal built at an undisclosed cost, is sited in an interior courtyard of St. Paul’s, which was founded 131 years ago by the Sisters of Providence.

The laneway-home-sized structure opened on January 6 of this year, a Vancouver Coastal spokesperson said in an email dated April 17. “The new space provides patients with options for specialized end-of-life care in a way that supports and respects them, their loved ones, and health-care providers,” he said.

Called the “Shoreline Space,” the MAiD facility is attached directly to courtyard-facing exterior wall of the western section of the hospital’s Providence Building. Public access to the facility from the courtyard is blocked by a locked gate and a two-metre-high, black chain-link fence.

Pedestrians using the nearby Thurlow Street entrance to the hospital are given no hint of what the green-metal-clad facility is used for, although the fence, multiple security cameras, and floodlight fixtures suggest something needing high security.

Inside the hospital, patients and families walking through a ground-floor corridor would have no idea of what is behind a locked door with a sign reading: “Shoreline Space. Vancouver Coastal Health.” 

MAiD 'Space': Entrance directly from St. Paul's corridor.

The current St. Paul’s will close in a few years, but MAiD will apparently continue on the campus of the new hospital.

Vancouver Coastal emails, which I obtained through a freedom-of-information application, show that the health authority has now launched a planning process to insert a euthanasia facility at the new St. Paul’s, which is currently undergoing finishing work in advance of its planned opening in 2027.

No agency—the B.C. government, the Ministry of Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, Providence Health, or the Archdiocese of Vancouver—has announced that the new St. Paul’s is being forced to accommodate a MAiD facility.

Yet, the text of a Nov. 15, 2024, email from Laurel Plewes, operations director of Vancouver Coastal Health’s “Assisted Dying Program,” to Jennifer Chan of Providence Health Care (PHC) shows that such planning is taking place.

Under the subject heading, “Preliminary VCH requirement for MAiD space at the new SPH [St. Paul’s Hospital],” Plewes wrote: “Here is a list of preliminary requirements, subject to refinement and additions.”

That list, in bullet form, reads as follows:

• Internal 2800 sq feet

• We suspect PHC requirement will still remain, and VCH agrees, that the pathway must allow for patients to remain in their PHC bed

• 5 min or less travel time from pharmacy located in SPH

• Ramp or ground-level entry—ramp is not included in square footage above

• Require connections for sewage, water, electricity, and IT connections similar to what is listed in previous partial agreement

• At least two parking spots for staff, easy access for transfer van

• Physical address to support emergency services knowing where to go

Heavily redacted email in response to my FOI request.

Most emails I received in response to my FOI request were almost completed redacted, but one, entitled “Future Planning: MAiD spaces,” was sent by Vancouver Coastal’s Nina Dhaliwal, a “senior project manager,” to four of her colleagues on Nov. 27, 2024.

It describes the need to connect all the parties to ensure that “future planning for MAiD spaces” is being done efficiently. Dhaliwal also asks whether “the MAiD team” had an “SOA” (presumably meaning Service-Oriented Architecture) and a “Functional Program.”

Although the email does not specifically mention the new St. Paul’s, Vancouver Coastal released it to me in response to a request for the texts of communications regarding the possible construction of a MAiD unit at the new hospital.

Neither Vancouver Coastal nor Providence Health has commented in response to questions about MAiD facilities at the new and old St. Paul’s.

Providence Health’s service contract with the provincial government guarantees that it can prevent abortions and euthanasia from taking place within Providence facilities. Instead, patients seeking such procedures are discharged from Providence and transferred to a Vancouver Coastal facility.

Pro-euthanasia groups criticized the arrangement as soon as MAiD was legalized in 2016, and then ramped up pressure when, as revealed in a May 2022 B.C. Catholic story, the B.C. branch of Dying with Dignity Canada launched a multi-platform public-relations campaign aimed at forcing the B.C. government to amend the service agreement in order to compel Providence to allow MAiD.

Dying With Dignity called the “forced” transfer of patients to MAiD-allowing facilities “cruel and unusual.”

The pressure peaked the following year when news media seized on the case of a Vancouver woman, Sam O’Neill, whose family complained that she was forced to transfer from St. Paul’s to access MAiD. In response, the B.C. government announced what observers called a “workaround” or “end-run” solution in November 2023.

The arrangement called for the province to take land at the St. Paul’s campus to create a “clinical space” for MAiD to be performed. The space would be staffed by Vancouver Coastal’s health-care professionals and was to be connected by a corridor to St. Paul’s Hospital.

“Patients from St. Paul’s Hospital accessing MAiD will be discharged by Providence Health and transferred to the care of Vancouver Coastal Health in this new clinical space,” the release said. The MAiD chamber was originally scheduled to open in August 2024.

Archbishop J. Michael Miller was quoted at the time as saying the directive “respects and preserves Providence’s policy of not allowing MAiD inside a Catholic health-care facility,” and the new patient-discharge and -transfer protocols would be consistent with existing arrangements for transferring patients at other Providence facilities.

But that did not end the matter. In June 2024, Ms. O’Neill’s mother, Dying with Dignity Canada, and a doctor launched a lawsuit against Providence, Vancouver Coastal, and the provincial government, alleging that they had denied Ms. O’Neill her a constitutional right to access MAiD. 

They seek to have MAiD conducted within all provincially funded facilities, such as those of Providence Health Care, which relies on provincial funding for its operating costs. Providence owns the hospitals.

 In its formal response to the claim, Providence not only described the St. Paul’s arrangement, but also disclosed that, at the May’s Place and St. John hospices that it operates, “patients who choose to receive MAiD are provided with MAiD by a VCH healthcare provider in a space operated by VCH which is located down the hall from the Providence operated hospice rooms in the same building that houses the hospice.”

But that does not mean MAiD is actually being performed within a Catholic facility, said Shaf Hussain, a communications officer with Providence.

Hussain said in a May 30 email to me that both St. John Hospice and May's Place Hospice are in buildings and on lands that are not owned by Providence.

“Rearding St. John Hospice ... the land is owned by [the University of B.C], and the whole building is leased by VCH,” Hussain said.

“Since September 2013, Providence has been operating a 14-bed hospice in the building and continues to do so. In 2021, VCH took some space in the building for its Vancouver Community palliative programming. A room in that space is used for MAiD.”

As for May's Place, “Providence doesn't own the building; we lease the space on one of the floors from its owner and operate a six-bed hospice in that space,” he said. “VCH also leases space in that building from the owner; this space, which they use for MAiD, is separate and away from our hospice operations.”

On the issue of MAiD being performed adjacent to Catholic facilities, Schadenberg said the situation

Schadenberg at Grafenick: 'Very upsetting.'

reminds him of the Nazis’ conversion of a Lutheran-run care home at Grafenick, Germany, into a euthanasia facility for physically and mentally disabled Germans.

“Sadly, it appears history is repeating itself,” Schadenberg said. “I know it’s not an exact parallel, but I find it very upsetting.”

Vancouver’s Dr. Will Johnston, who heads the Euthanasia Resistance Coalition of B.C., said he believes that the B.C. government’s decision to force MAiD into previously life-affirming, medically positive spaces is a form of totalitarianism.

“This is another example of zealots who won’t allow the population any freedom from euthanasia,” Johnston said. “They obviously control the provincial government ... I think it’s totalitarianism, and it shows none of their claimed virtues of inclusion and diversity.”

My journey with Jimmy

Originally published in the BC Catholic 

 With his eyes closed and head slumped forward, Jimmy seemed to be asleep as he sat in his wheelchair in the common room of his New Westminster long-term care home.

 The three dozen or so other seniors in the room appeared to be in exactly the same state—a melancholy tableau amid the Christmas decorations and the bustling, cheery staff. 

As I bent down and greeted my old friend, he immediately perked up and, his eyes remaining closed, smiled and whispered hello. I noticed that a part of his breakfast remained on his face—porridge, I thought. 

I found a tissue and wiped his face, recalling that I had done much the same for my children and grandchildren when they were infants.

 I had started visiting Jimmy about six months earlier while he was in hospital being treated for a chronic heart condition. His prospects for recovery didn’t look good.

 At age 87, Jimmy was fading fast, and the once-star soccer player, globe-trotting coach, dynamic salesman, and founding member of our parish’s Knights of Columbus chapter was now but a shadow of his former robust self.

 His mind had started fading as well, and with that decline he experienced sadness and troubling thoughts about his limited future. In response to a request from his wife (who, herself, was in and out of hospital at the time), I had made it my mission to help dispel his growing gloom by visiting him. 

And so, on this December morning, I leaned in and started singing one of his favourite songs for him. His smile broadened and he moved his lips in an attempt to sing along. 

Today, increasing numbers of seniors find themselves in situations like Jimmy’s, but without family or friends to accompany them through their final days.

 A report by Canada’s National Institute of Ageing, released in December 2023, found that 41 per cent of Canadians aged 50 years and older are at risk of social isolation and up to 58 per cent have experienced loneliness. 

News coverage of the report focused on how loneliness can adversely affect both mental and physical health. But there’s an even graver, deadlier impact: increased likelihood of desiring to access Canada’s permissive euthanasia regime. 

Indeed, Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, says most people who request Medical Assistance in Dying do so not because they are in excruciating pain but for emotional and psychological reasons that are being fuelled by a “culture of loneliness.”

This is why he believes that, after having lost the legal and political battles to prevent the legalization of MAiD, Catholics and other anti-euthanasia advocates should turn to “caring and compassion” to prevent the growing tide of requests for MAiD. 

“We need to focus on visiting and being with others and being a caring part of this culture,” Schadenberg said in a presentation to Catholics in Langley two years ago. “There is nothing easy about this situation, but the answer to this evil of killing is to love each other.” 

That’s certainly what our parish’s Blooms into Rooms initiative has been attempting to do for 30 years. Now part of Life Compass’s ministry, Blooms into Rooms sees dozens of volunteers from 10 parishes and schools visiting hundreds of seniors on Holy Saturday, giving them a flowering plant, a homemade greeting card, and some precious company. 

 Last Easter, we visited 1,500 seniors at care homes, long-term care facilities, group residences, and hospices. We have no way of knowing for sure how many lives we’ve touched or, perhaps, even saved from premature death. But we can certainly count the smiles, and they now number in the tens of thousands. 

My last visit with Jimmy was on Dec. 21. On leaving, I gave him a hug and wished him a Merry Christmas. He replied with a faint smile and a whispered “goodbye.” 

 Jimmy passed away in his sleep during the early hours of Jan. 1. Our parish celebrated his funeral Mass on Jan. 9.

 His widow, son, daughter-in-law, and their three grown children all thanked me for the time I spent with Jimmy. 

They told me that my visits and singing always cheered him up. I shared with them his joy when I sang Danny Boy because his grandfather used to sing it to him while they snuck off on pub crawls every Sunday—his increasingly tipsy grandfather having a pint of Guiness at each stop and young Jimmy a glass of lemonade.

 The family hadn’t heard that story and said they would treasure it. 

What’s clear to me now is that, as much as I may have given Jimmy during his final days, I received at least as much in return. 

All the more reason for us to reach out to those who need it most, including the thousands of Canadians who end their lives every year for lack of companionship. ok