Health Canada trying to manufacture consent for MAiD expansion, B.C. pro-life leader says

The third of three new stories I've written for the B.C. Catholic:

The head of a new province-wide pro-life organization says Health Canada is attempting to manipulate public opinion to allow expansion of access to Medical Assistance in Dying.

Marian Neels, president of the B.C. Life Network, whose membership comprises 10 pro-life organizations, said in an interview that a Health Canada report released

in late October is clearly a bid to orchestrate approval of advance requests for MAiD, a change that could allow persons with even minor medical ailments to make arrangements to be euthanized if, at some future date, they become incapacitated.

“Their strategy is basically about getting people used to the idea, slowly but steadily getting the word out,” said Neels (pictured, right), who is also the education and community-outreach co-ordinator at Cherish Women’s Resource Centre, a Chilliwack pro-life group.

It’s just one more way in which pro-MAiD activists and government bodies are exerting pressure to expand Canada’s already permissive MAiD regime. For example, Health Canada has published medical-practice guidelines stating that doctors “must” initiate MAiD discussions with qualified patients.

As well, the B.C.-government-directed Vancouver Coastal Health authority stands accused of situating an unidentified euthanasia facility near a dialysis patients to make the availability of MAiD known to patients.

In 2023, Parliament’s Special Joint Committee on MAiD recommended that the Criminal Code of Canada be amended to allow not only advance requests but also for “mature minors” to access MAiD.

Finally, in 2022, the Quebec College of Physicians went so far as to suggest that MAiD eligibility be expanded to severely ill infants, an idea that actually promotes infanticide, given that infants are in no position to give their consent to being killed.

All this comes at a time when Canada already records more euthanasia-related deaths than any other jurisdiction in the world.

This startling fact became clear on November 28, when Health Canada made public its Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying. The report showed that 16,499 persons died by MAiD in Canada last year, an increase of almost seven percent from 2023. The Netherlands, with 9,958 MAiD-type deaths, had 2024’s second-highest total.

At 5.1 percent of all deaths, Canada has the second-highest rate of MAiD deaths in the world, second only to the less-populated Netherlands’ rate of 5.8 percent. “I think our country has become very cold to people who are very vulnerable,” Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said in response to the new figures. “We like to think of ourselves as kind and friendly, but the statistics show the opposite.”

On the issue of advance requests, Neels said Health Canada’s report clearly aims to get people comfortable with the idea so amendments allowing the practice can be passed in law with a minimum of opposition.

“It’s just like anything—when you first hear about it, you have concerns, you might be upset,” she said. “But then after a while you just kind of become desensitized. You start seeing it as a good thing when it’s clearly bad.”

Under current law, qualifying persons can consent to be euthanized only if they have the legal capacity to do so at the time of the procedure. In a typical case, advance requests would allow a person who has been newly diagnosed with dementia, for example, to write a legally binding instruction to be euthanized at an unspecified date in the future when and if certain conditions arise, such as loss of memory or bodily functions.

Advance requests might also allow healthy persons, living only with high blood pressure, for example, to declare that they wish to be euthanized if they suffer a heart attack or stroke that renders them comatose.

The Health Canada report in question is its summary of the “national conversation on advance requests for MAiD” that it launched late last year by way of an online questionnaire and secret roundtable discussions with handpicked participants.

Anti-MAiD critics said at the time that the entire process seemed rigged to obtain support for advance requests.

Health Canada has now reported that more than 46,000 participants completed the online questionnaire, which was available from December 2024 to February 2025. Health Canada also conducted a scientific survey of 1,000 Canadians on the subject.

The agency said 69 percent of respondents to the online questionnaire and 67 percent of Canadians surveyed in the poll supported advance requests for people diagnosed with a serious or incurable condition that will lead to a loss of decision-making capacity.

In a second scenario presented by Health Canada, 76 percent of respondents to the questionnaire and 58 percent of those surveyed supported advance requests for people with a medical condition that could lead to sudden or unexpected loss of capacity to make decisions.

The report made no recommendations, but did note that the province of Quebec is allowing advance requests, even though federal law makes them illegal. (The province has skirted the law by instructing Crown prosecutors not to prosecute advance-requests cases.) In response to an emailed question from The B.C. Catholic about what steps might be taken in response to the “national conversation” report, Health Canada’s media-relations office wrote, in part, “The Government of Canada has not yet made any decisions about expanding eligibility to allow for advance requests. The federal government will continue working with provinces and territories, health care providers and partners on this important matter. Have a great day!”

The B.C. Catholic’s similar question to the office of federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel was answered only with an assurance that “your correspondence is being carefully reviewed.”

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to Michel’s predecessor, Kamal Khera, in March, declaring the bishops’ unequivocal opposition to the legalization of advance requests.

Calgary Bishop William T. McGrattan, who was president of the CCCB at the time, wrote that the Church in Canada is deeply concerned by the rapid expansion of euthanasia, which has led the country to be the world’s fastest-growing assisted-dying jurisdiction and ranked second globally for “MAiD” deaths as a percentage of total deaths.

“We strongly urge and implore the federal government to halt any further expansion of ‘MAiD’ and focus instead on advancing compassionate, life-affirming palliative care,” Bishop McGrattan wrote.

He said advance requests set “a dangerous precedent” by allowing individuals to be euthanized without their immediate consent and enabling third parties to make subjective decisions about when they should die.

As well, advance requests place already vulnerable individuals, particularly those with dementia, “at even greater risk” because, at early stages of the disease, individuals may not fully understand the complexities of future illness and, therefore, may be unable to make informed decisions.

In addition, advance requests could force individuals to evaluate their future quality of life prematurely. “No one can predict with certainty how they may feel at any point in the future,” Bishop McGrattan wrote. “Recent reports indicate that some individuals who requested ‘MAiD’ later changed their minds and withdrew their requests.”

Canada’s leading pro-euthanasia organization, Dying with Dignity Canada, rejects such arguments, countering that prohibition of advance requests is a cruel denial of a patient’s human rights. The organization also supports allowing “mature minors” to access MAiD, and extending the right to MAiD to patients whose sole underlying medical condition is irremediable mental illness, an eligibility extension that is scheduled to become legal in March 2027. Conservative MP Tamara Jansen (Langley City—Cloverdale) has introduced a private-member’s bill to outlaw the mental-illness expansion. It was scheduled for Second Reading debate in the House of Commons on Dec. 5.

Schadenberg said Canada has sunk to a level that was hard to imagine a decade ago. “MAiD boosters say it’s all about personal choice and autonomy,” he said. “No. It’s actually about doctors saying, ‘I agree. Your life is not worth living and I’m willing to kill you.’ And that’s very serious.”

B.C. Life Network’s Neels, who is a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, said her organization intends to focus on issues related to both the beginning and end of life, and will certainly look at what measures it might take to oppose legalization of advance requests.

Action items for the group, which first met in October 2024 and formalized its leadership in February of this year, could include erecting billboards opposing advance requests and holding online workshops to both educate and plan for action.

“One of the best things would be to come up with personal stories,” she said. “The other side works on emotions, too. We have to fight the impression that Christians are so cruel, that we allow somebody to suffer at the end of their life.”

Expert says federal MAiD guideline crosses ethical line, amounts to ‘authoritarian moral partisanship’

Also published online at the BC Catholic newspaper site this week, another of my MAiD stories:

A leading Canadian voice in the international debate on conscience rights in health care is highly critical of a Health Canada document that would compel doctors to raise the subject of euthanasia with some of their patients.

Sean Murphy, the Powell River-based administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project, wrote in a detailed analysis of Health Canada’s Model Standard Practice for MAiD that the document attempts to erase the controversy over euthanasia “by an authoritarian exercise of moral partisanship.”

Murphy zeroes in on a key part of the document that says doctors who conclude their patients might be eligible for MAiD must then ascertain whether they have a moral objection to the practice. If not, doctors must then suggest euthanasia or assisted suicide, which Murphy abbreviates as EAS, as an option.

“The Standard trades on principles of informed consent to force practitioners to suggest EAS to patients who have expressed no interest in it simply because the patient might be ‘eligible’ for it,” Murphy wrote in the analysis in July 2023, four months after Health Canada published the little-publicized Model Standard Practice.

He said the ploy is most evident in the requirement that practitioners explore patients’ views about euthanasia and assisted suicide in order to determine whether or not to present them as potential treatment options.

“The exploration itself would effectively present the procedures as options, just as a practitioner’s exploration of a patient’s views about having a sexual relationship with him could hardly fail to be understood as the presentation of an option,” Murphy wrote.

The B.C. Catholic reported last month that several Canadian doctors who oppose euthanasia were sounding the alarm about the Health Canada standard on similar grounds.

Health Canada has no authority to direct provinces or health authorities to adopt the guidelines, and a limited review by The B.C. Catholic found no evidence that any public agency or professional body in B.C. had done so.

Nevertheless, the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers believes medical practitioners should initiate MAiD discussions. In fact, a document on its website asserts that clinicians “have a professional duty” to do so.

This might help explain why there have been so many news reports of doctors initiating MAiD discussions, even to the point of patients saying they felt pestered about euthanasia.

Murphy also alleged that, while the Standard Model Practice acknowledges ethical norms espoused by the Canadian Medical Association and other professional groups, “its demand for effective referral contradicts the longstanding position of the CMA and its current policy on EAS.”

Murphy’s analysis also says the standard does not make it clear that inidividuals cannot be be compelled under any circumstances to assist in providing MAiD.

“The absence of such a statement indicates that Canada’s national government supports coercion of unwilling health care workers to force them to assist in killing their patients,” he wrote. “Provincial governments and professional regulators should clearly reject this position by prohibiting coerced participation in EAS.”

Murphy, a member of Church of the Assumption Parish in Powell River, is an associate of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and a former director of the Catholic Civil Rights League.

Dialysis one way, MAiD the other? Critics sound alarm about Vancouver clinics offering life or death

My latest, as published in the B.C. Catholic weekly newspaper:

The head of one of Canada’s leading anti-euthanasia organizations is accusing the B.C. government of deliberately placing a non-descript MAiD facility beside a Vancouver dialysis clinic as a quiet reminder to patients that ending their lives is an available option.

“I don’t think I’m being too extreme about it,” Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said in an interview. “I think putting [the MAiD clinic] beside a dialysis clinic is intentional.”

The Vancouver Coast Health Authority won’t say what the facility is. Insiders say it’s a euthanasia clinic, conveniently situated beside a dialysis clinic.

Both Schadenberg and The B.C. Catholic received a tip about the existence of a standalone MAiD clinic at a building that houses a dialysis clinic and offices of the provincial-government-directed Vancouver Coastal Health authority.

What the location of a euthanasia facility so close to a dialysis clinic would mean, Schadenberg said, is that “if you’re very down” about the thrice-weekly routine of undergoing dialysis, “here’s another option.”

He said the apparent opening of a MAiD clinic that is not associated with a hospital or hospice setting is consistent with the B.C. government’s record of strong support for medical assistance in dying.

“Unlike in Ontario, for example, the government in B.C. is leading the way,” Schadenberg said. “This clinic shows they are intentionally in the business of killing people, not just providing a legally mandated service. It’s a big concern. The government is directly involved in promoting death.”

The B.C. Catholic emailed and phoned Vancouver Coastal, which operates 120 facilities serving 1.25 million people, in an attempt to confirm the existence of the facility, but the health authority did not provide answers to questions about the purported clinic’s origins, cost, or even whether it actually existed.

However, a B.C. Catholic visit to the location at 520 West 6th Ave. in Vancouver found evidence to support the tip.

The building is a five-storey structure primarily housing offices and facilities of Vancouver Coastal. The main entrance opens into a lobby area. To the right is a dialysis clinic operated by Providence Health Care. To the left is a clinic-like area behind frosted glass.

That clinic’s entrance door is labelled “Vancouver Coastal Health, Horizon Space.” No one answered a reporter’s repeated knocking at the locked door.

The building directory shows a dialysis clinic but no mention of Horizon Space.

Vancouver Coastal does not have any record of Horizon Space on its website. The building’s directory, next to its elevators, does not list the space.

In response to B.C. Catholic questions about Horizon and other locations at which Vancouver Coastal offers MAiD, a spokesman for Vancouver Coastal provided only a vague answer.

“There is no designated location for patients requesting MAiD,” he said in part. “Patients will have their requests addressed, assessments performed and, if eligible, receive an assisted death in the care location consistent with their care needs and wishes.”

After he failed to answer follow-up questions about Horizon Space, The B.C. Catholic filed a freedom-of-information application with Vancouver Coastal seeking confirmation of Horizon’s existence and intended use.

Schadenberg said Vancouver Coastal’s silence on Horizon’s existence serves only to confirm the insider’s tip that the government had opened a secret MAiD facility.

If so, Vancouver family doctor Will Johnston, a member of Physicians for Life, said in an interview that such a clinic might have its uses.

Johnston, who also heads the Euthanasia Resistance Coalition of B.C., said that any move to take euthanasia out of medical settings such as palliative care wards and hospices “shows that this shameful behaviour can be separated from the hospital system.”

A “death space” does not need to be part of actual health care, Dr. Johnston said. “And, in fact, it doesn’t even have to be staffed by doctors and nurses. It’s really simple to kill people.”

He said anyone can be trained to administer the drug cocktail used to kill euthanasia patients.

“I’m just saying that, as a long-term, aspirational project, having this free-standing facility separate from the health-care system, per se, means that maybe we can work towards making sure the staff are separate from the health-care system as well,” he said.

The B.C. government reported that the province recorded exactly 3,000 MAiD deaths in 2024, 633 (21.1 per cent) of which were in the Vancouver Coastal region.

According to government data, the most common location for MAiD to be performed in B.C. was in a private residence (40.2 per cent), followed by hospital, excluding palliative care beds (26.9 per cent), hospice (12.9 per cent), and palliative care facility (8.9 per cent). Other locations included community care facility, residential care facility, and medical clinic or ambulatory setting.

Doctors alarmed by Health Canada’s push for MAiD talks with patients

My latest BC Catholic story, generated by information I found in my ongoing investigation into MAiD

Canadian doctors who oppose euthanasia are sounding the alarm about governmental pressure on health professionals to initiate MAiD discussions with their ailing patients.

The doctors are reacting to a little-known 2023 Health Canada document urging health authorities and professional bodies to adopt a set of “practice standards” that would mandate doctors and nurse practitioners to raise the issue of medical assistance in dying with certain patients.

Vancouver family physician Will Johnston, head of B.C.’s Euthanasia Resistance Coalition, said implementing Health Canada’s Model Practice Standard for MAiD would “coerce” medical professionals and lead to a troubling rise in euthanasia deaths.

Johnston is one of several Canadian doctors who are publicly opposing any move, in Canada or abroad, to mandate initiation of MAiD discussions.

Health Canada’s model practice standard states that medical practitioners “must not” assume every patient knows about MAiD’s availability.

The model further states that, upon forming reasonable grounds to believe a person may be eligible, doctors and nurse practitioners — the only medical personnel legally permitted to perform MAiD — “must determine whether MAiD is consistent with the person’s values and goals of care.” If it is, they must then “advise the person of the potential for MAiD,” or, if they have a moral objection, transfer the patient’s care to another practitioner.

Those instructions alarm Johnston. “Whoever is in charge of ‘Death Canada,’ as I’ll call them, seems to have forgotten the promises that were made to the medical community when euthanasia was first proposed — that no one would be forced to become complicit in it,” Johnston said in an interview. “And now they’re simply reneging. They’re violating that promise by insisting on compelled speech.”

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said that despite Health Canada’s model not being law, he knows that many doctors commonly initiate MAiD discussions because they perceive euthanasia to be a medical treatment for the chronically ill and elderly.

“In fact,” he said, “because the intention of MAiD is to kill the patient, it is the very opposite of medical treatment.”

Schadenberg is also concerned a government-supported suggestion in Canada may become a government-mandated law in Australia. That country’s state of Victoria is planning an expansion of euthanasia eligibility that would let doctors initiate discussions about assisted death.

Schadenberg has produced a video highlighting the concerns of three Canadian doctors — Johnston, David D’Souza of Toronto, and Catherine Ferrier of Montreal — who describe problems associated with initiating MAiD discussions in Canada.

D’Souza said that if a physician suggests euthanasia as an option for a patient’s pain or suffering, “a patient is more likely to take this option given that a health professional has suggested it.”

Health Canada media relations officer Karine LeBlanc said in an email to The B.C. Catholic that the Model Practice Standard for MAiD was developed by a task group convened in September 2022. Members were chosen for their expertise in MAiD practice and professional regulation.

Health Canada cannot compel provinces or health authorities to adopt the guidelines, and a limited review by The B.C. Catholic found no evidence that any public agency or professional body in B.C. has done so.

Vancouver’s Catholic health authority, Providence Health Care, explicitly prohibits its employees from initiating a discussion about MAiD. “We don’t proactively mention MAiD as an option to consider,” Providence spokesman Shaf Hussain said in an email earlier this year. “We never initiate an offer of MAiD.”

On the other hand, there are widespread anecdotal reports from the public system that doctors and nurses do initiate such discussions.

After Canada legalized MAiD in 2016, and then expanded eligibility in 2020 to include people not dying but suffering from incurable diseases, numerous reports surfaced of patients being pressured about euthanasia options. The B.C. Catholic first exposed the problem in a 2021 investigation.

Not only is initiation of MAiD discussions ethically and practically problematic, but it also may be illegal, said Luke Chen, an associate professor of medicine at the University of B.C. In an interview, Chen said the Health Canada recommendation appears to contravene Section 241(a) of the Criminal Code of Canada, which makes it illegal to counsel a suicide.

The Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers rejects that notion, saying in a policy document that “so long as they do not have the aim of inducing, persuading, or convincing the patient to request MAiD, any health-care professional can legally provide information ... about MAiD.”

It may be legal, but initiating a MAiD discussion sends a powerfully negative message, says Deacon Tim Kostamo, a surgeon who is a member of Christ the Redeemer Parish in West Vancouver. “Fundamentally the problem with it is that as soon as you offer MAiD to someone — or, as it really is, ‘medical killing’ — the message you are telling them is that you think their life is not worth living,” he said in an interview.

Deacon Kostamo said the Health Canada document is yet another indication that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the medical system in Canada. As a surgeon, he sees patients wait up to three years for needed hip replacement surgery. On the other hand, “two clicks [on your computer] and you’re connected to someone who will coordinate your death,” he said.

Johnston said he is troubled by the fact the model even exists. “The very process of a doctor notifyi

ng ... potentially suggestible people of suicide-by-doctor validates it and is an inducement to consider it,” he said, calling the practice an “outrage against decency.” Schadenberg said he is “saddened, shocked, and angered” by Health Canada’s guidelines, which he has known about since their publication.

He believes every major hospital in Canada now has a MAiD team tasked with informing patients about euthanasia’s availability. “That’s why I’m getting so many phone calls from patients complaining they are being ‘pestered and pestered’ to succumb to MAiD.

“Some of the MAiD teams are very sales-oriented,” Schadenberg said. “They can’t understand why you don’t want it.”

The issue is serious enough to warrant legislation making it an offence for any medical practitioner to initiate a discussion of MAiD, he said.

“We’re simply seeing too many people who feel pressured and coerced to agree to MAiD.”

Sacred music is good for the brain as well as the soul, neuroscientist says

My story, published recently in the BC Catholic

Sixteen hundred years ago, St. Augustine is credited with saying, “He who sings, prays twice.”

Today, scientific research shows that he who sings, performs, or listens to music also enriches and strengthens his brain, says Catholic neuroscientist Kathlyn Gan.

Not only that, but sacred music may produce even more beneficial effects.

Gan, who leads a research laboratory at the University of Toronto, delivered the uplifting news to about 50 people at an Oct. 30 talk at St. Francis de Sales in Burnaby.

In her hour-long presentation The Neuroscience of Sacred Music, Gan, a former choir director and accompanist at St. Joseph’s Parish in Port Moody, described how research showing that music can be part of a healthy lifestyle that helps counter the mental decline that accompanies aging.

Music can also help prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, which, in up to 95 per cent of cases, can be driven by non-genetic factors, including obesity, high blood pressure, smoking, deafness, brain injury, and social isolation.

Not only does music stimulate the brain in special ways, it also fosters healthy social connections when performed in a group setting, said Gan, currently a liturgical musician in the Archdiocese of Toronto.

Speaking with The B.C. Catholic, she said music is encoded and integrated by multiple brain regions, stimulating neural pathways that regulate memory, movement, reward, emotion, and empathy.

“Based on those effects, music can help us keep our minds active and foster social connections, which in turn can help us mitigate the risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” she said.

Gan, who earned her doctorate at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby and did postdoctoral studies at Stanford University in California, said music therapy is widely used as part of a holistic treatment approach to improve behavioural issues and encourage social connections during mid- to late-stage Alzheimer’s.

Gan noted that the CBC recently reported that doctors in Montreal have partnered with the city’s symphony orchestra to prescribe music as medicine.

“Physicians will get prescriptions that they will give to patients,” said Mélanie La Couture, CEO of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. “The patients will call us, and we will give each patient that calls us two tickets for free.”

Even more benefits could conceivably come from listening to or singing sacred music, which Gan defines as any music — from chant and classical to jazz and gospel — that contributes to the solemnity and beauty of the Mass, promotes deeper reflection on the scriptural readings and homily, and glorifies God.

Music activates different parts of the brain, strengthening pathways for memory, movement, emotion, and empathy, said Kathlyn Gan at St. Francis de Sales. That said, it will be challenging for scientists to prove sacred music’s special benefits because of listeners’ or musicians’ subjective perceptions of music and their varying depth of spiritual formation and understanding, Gan said.

At the very least, however, listening to or performing sacred music helps a person grow in faith and to love God, she said in her presentation.

Along with the three degrees she earned at SFU, Gan also holds an associate diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music and is an accomplished classical pianist who shares her talent and faith in churches and the wider community. These outings include performances with her piano students at retirement homes and long-term care facilities, as well as playing piano in music-therapy and spiritual-care programs.

She views her music ministry as a form of prayer that challenges her not only to recognize scriptural themes and imagery but also to communicate them “in a manner that honours the historical context of the hymns and shares my own spirituality and lived experience.”

Her studies and ministry have not only deepened her appreciation for the human mind’s complexity and capacity for mirroring Christ’s humility, compassion, forgiveness, and love, but they’ve also “encouraged my spiritual growth and enriched my faith.”

‘Coercion wearing a polite face’: Anti-euthanasia voices warn against MAiD expansion for mental illness

I contributed to this BC Catholic story with my coverage of MP Jansen's community meeting.

Combat veteran Kelsi Sheren told an Ottawa news conference she joined the Canadian Armed Forces at 18 knowing she might die for her country, but she never imagined her own government would one day offer to help her do it.

“Behind closed doors, in quiet conversations, veterans are being offered medical assistance in dying not therapy, not recovery, not support, but death,” Sheren said. “When somebody’s drowning in trauma and desperation, that’s not a choice. That’s coercion wearing a polite face.”

The former artillery gunner and mental-health advocate spoke at a Euthanasia Prevention Coalition news conference with other anti-euthanasia voices calling on MPs to support legislation blocking the expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to people suffering solely from mental illness.

Bill C-218 is a private member’s bill introduced in June by Conservative MP Tamara Jansen (Cloverdale–Langley City). The bill would permanently exclude mental illness as a sole qualifying condition for MAiD.

Sheren, who served in Afghanistan and lives with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, and major depressive disorder, pointed out several incidents of veterans seeking help instead being “offered medical assistance in dying not therapy, not recovery, not support, but death.”

MP Tamara Jansen at her Langley constituency office for a roundtable about her private member’s bill to exclude expanding MAiD for mental illness. (Terry O’Neill photo) “This isn’t compassion,” she said. “It’s a moral rot disguised as mercy. Veterans are being told their lives cost too much money. That’s not health care, it’s surrender.” Gordon Friesen, EPC’s president, said the coalition’s message was simple: “No euthanasia for mental illness.”

The government plans to expand MAiD to make it available to individuals whose only medical condition is a mental disorder. Friesen said that would violate the original safeguards promised when Parliament legalized assisted dying in 2016.

“MAiD was only to be for people who are dying, only for adults, and only for people able to truly choose,” Friesen said. “Unfortunately, all of those promises have been broken.”

Friesen warned that allowing MAiD for people with psychiatric disorders “destroys all notion of MAiD as an authentic patient choice,” since mental illness can directly impair judgment and decision-making. He cautioned that “once the door is opened,” other vulnerable groups such as children or people with dementia could follow. EPC executive director Alex Schadenberg said the coming change “should never even be considered.”

He said Bill C-7, passed in 2021, removed the requirement that a person’s death be “reasonably foreseeable” and laid the groundwork for extending MAiD eligibility to non-terminal illnesses. Although Parliament has twice delayed the mental-illness provision, now set to take effect in March 2027, the expansion remains law.

“This undermines the whole concept of whether someone can properly consent,” Schadenberg said. “Whether they are truly consenting, whether they are of their right mind, whether there are alternatives for them.”

Schadenberg shared a letter from a woman named Andrea, who had attempted suicide multiple times and might have qualified for MAiD under the pending criteria. If MAiD had been available, “she would have wanted it and she would have been dead,” Schadenberg said. “Today she’s married, expecting her first child, and well. That’s why we can’t allow this.”

Montreal family physician Dr. Paul Saba, who has long opposed euthanasia, said people requesting MAiD because of mental illness “cannot make a free and informed consent.” “The desire to die, in most cases, is a symptom of a mental illness such as depression,” he said. “This is not compassion; it’s a failure of care.” Dr. Saba called on MPs “who truly value life” to support Bill C-218 and reject any future expansions. According to the federal government’s 2023 MAiD annual report, 15,343 Canadians died through MAiD that year, up nearly 16 per cent from 2022, accounting for 4.7 per cent of all deaths nationwide. Federal data and academic reviews show that loneliness or social isolation were cited as contributing factors in nearly half of all non-terminal MAiD requests.

Schadenberg said those figures reflect a deeper problem. “When we start offering death instead of care, we stop being a compassionate country,” he said. The Ottawa news conference followed a local roundtable Oct. 18 at Jansen’s Langley, B.C., constituency office, where about 50 people, including pastors, priests, and lay leaders from Orthodox, Catholic, Mennonite, Baptist, and Calvinist churches, as well as a Sikh representative, met to discuss the bill. One participant called it a show of unity across faith traditions.

“This is about loving our neighbour,” Jansen told the gathering. “Our neighbour is at risk.” She called the pending expansion of MAiD for mental illness “a freight train coming,” and urged churches to circulate petitions and write letters to MPs. “The bigger the support, the better.”

Jansen also rejected claims that mental illness is irremediable. “You can flourish with the right treatment,” she said. Among clergy present were Rev. Dr. Yuriy Sakvuk, chancellor of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of New Westminster, and Deacon Steve Potusek of St. Matthew’s Parish in Surrey.

Father Augustine Obiwumma, pastor of Star of the Sea Parish in Surrey, said afterward the meeting was valuable. “It was good to see Christians and pastors of all denominations speak with one clear voice about the dignity of every human being,” he said. “As Christians, we are called to be agents of truth, compassion, love, and hope not agents of death. The sick, the suffering, the terminally ill, and the dying need our love and support.”

In a follow-up email to attendees, Jansen thanked participants for their leadership and support of the bill, attaching background materials and a petition for signatures. She said endorsement letters from faith and community leaders “will play an important role in showing other Members of Parliament ... that this issue unites people across many backgrounds.”

From hostility to hope: what I saw from the sidewalk at Life Chain

My column in Oct. 12 Edition of the BC Catholic.

The roar of the black car’s gunned engine did not drown out its male driver’s angry, shouted words as he sped past our Life Chain on the Moody Street sidewalk in front of St. Joseph’s church in Port Moody.

“Garbage,” he screamed. “Absolute f---ing garbage.”

It wasn’t the first such verbal assault we heard that afternoon in response to our pro-life placards, and it wasn’t the last, either.

But it was the one that got me thinking about how vulnerable we were as we stood there, protected only by our flimsy cardboard signs and our prayers.

Thoughts of April’s Lapu-Lapu Day massacre in Vancouver sprung to mind, followed closely by memories of vehicle-driving madmen mowing down pedestrians in countless terrorist attacks throughout the world.

It could happen here, I thought. And so, as our parish’s Life Chain organizer, I decided to pay closer attention to all incoming traffic. I was briefly concerned about one motorists who pulled a U-turn in the middle of the block, and was relieved to see he was simply looking for a parking space.

I also shifted the focus of my prayers from ones responding to the culture of death to ones about the safety of the three dozen men, women, and children standing alongside me.

As well, I prayed for the mental and spiritual welfare of the angry men and women who spewed hatred at us as they drove by.

It occurred to me that every one of the epithet-hurlers was opening a dialogue. I was proud that our contingent’s response in each instance was a silent, peaceful, and prayerful one. It must have frustrated the haters. Or maybe it gave them pause to reflect.

I’m no psychologist, but I know enough from introspection and from raising children that angry outbursts can be manifestations of guilt or unresolved issues. Maybe our non-confrontational, peaceful responses got them thinking about life issues in ways they didn’t anticipate. Let’s hope so.

As our hour neared its end, a serious-looking elderly gentleman on a personal-mobility scooter came zipping up the sidewalk towards us. I braced myself for a confrontation.

“What’s all this about?” he said. After I explained, his face brightened, and he told me that he was raised Baptist but certainly supported Catholics in our opposition to abortion and euthanasia.

In fact, he said, if abortion had been legal in England when his mother was pregnant, he would surely not be here today. “I’m glad I’m alive,” he said. “Thank-you for what you’re doing.”

We chatted for a few more minutes about how grateful he was to live in a nearby subsidized seniors’ residence, and I invited him to reach out to us if he ever needed anything.

As he turned and scooted away, I realized that the end of our exchange coincided with the conclusion our Life Chain hour. It was a good note to end on. As our group wrapped up, I thanked everyone for their participation and congratulated them for having the courage of their convictions.

We may never know what impact our demonstration had, I said, but we should be confident that it will be a positive one. When we put our faith into action, good must surely flourish.

Secret euthanasia house raises alarm in Victoria

My latest story, published in the BC Catholic newspaper, Oct.27, 2025

By Terry O'Neill

The furtive establishment of a standalone, private euthanasia house in Victoria has sparked criticism from pro-lifers and exposed yet another way in which medical assistance in dying is spreading throughout the country.

A Toronto-based non-profit called MAiDHouse opened the euthanasia facility at an undisclosed location in the provincial capital in February. It launched a Toronto MAiD house in 2021.

Euthanasia opponents are troubled by the under-the-radar expansion of MAiD facilities, especially since the unidentified houses may be in residential neighbourhoods. The MAiD houses appear to have the full backing of the federal government. Not only has the Canada Revenue Agency granted MAiDHouse, also known as Assisted-Dying Resource Centres Canada, full charity status, but Health Canada lists it as one of 10 national “resources.”

“I can’t figure out how an organization that kills people can be a charity,” said Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. “Every time you think Canada’s MAiD pandemic can’t get worse, you learn that it’s reached a new low.”

Schadenberg said MAiDHouse portrays its facilities as comforting and friendly, “but it’s actually pretty insane if you think about it because they exist solely to kill people.”

MAiDHouse did not respond to repeated B.C. Catholic requests for comment about the Victoria facility’s location, whether it received permits or zoning approval from the city, or whether nearby residents are aware of its operation.

According to information published by MAiDHouse, “those eligible for MAiD, along with their supporters, come to MAiDHouse only on the day of their provision. Individuals meeting a potential MAiD provider for an assessment attend only on the day of that meeting, and may re-book the space for their provision if found eligible. Anyone considering booking MAiDHouse is also welcome to schedule a tour of the space in advance.”

The B.C. Catholic reached out to the City of Victoria for comment but received no reply. An online search did not show any Victoria business licences for 2025 in the name of MAiDHouse, Assisted-Dying Resource Centres Canada, or any employees or board members.

The secrecy and the silence are disconcerting, says Christian McCay, spokesman for Choose Life Victoria. “I am deeply disturbed that MAiDHouse has been quietly operating a standalone euthanasia house in Victoria,” McCay said in an emailed statement. “Finding out that it has been here for half a year without the public being told is in itself deeply wrong, to say the least.”

He noted that Victoria has long been seen as the euthanasia capital of the world, and MAiDHouse’s operating “only makes it worse.”

A spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Victoria referred questions about MAiDHouse’s existence in the city to Bishop Gary Gordon’s 2022 pastoral letter on MAiD. In that letter, Bishop Gordon wrote, “The ideology of euthanasia (MAID) is understandable on many levels in contemporary society, as the experience of loss and abandonment is a powerful force of fear and anxiety.” He said Catholics cannot judge the level of such fear and anguish in a person who chooses euthanasia.

“However,” Bishop Gordon continued, “we can say unequivocally to the faithful Catholic people of God that choosing euthanasia (MAID) is never a choice that is the will of the Creator, as revealed in the sacred texts of divine revelation, the Word of God, and the constant teaching of the Catholic and Apostolic faith.”

In that letter, Bishop Gordon pointed to the parable of the Good Samaritan as a model for Christian response to suffering.

He noted that the Samaritan “did not offer to alleviate the suffering of the nearly-dead robbed person with euthanasia.” The commandment is clear, he said: “‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Our faith continues to clearly and unequivocally reject euthanasia and assisted suicide as a response to pain and suffering of body, mind, and soul.”

At the same time, Bishop Gordon acknowledged the fear and anguish that can drive a person toward MAiD. “The ideology of euthanasia is understandable on many levels in contemporary society, as the experience of loss and abandonment is a powerful force of fear and anxiety,” he wrote.

“But leaving a person abandoned by the side of the road of existence when robbed of health and strength is never the choice of a good neighbour or a just and caring civil society. Choosing euthanasia is never a choice that is the will of the Creator.”

Victoria pro-life advocate Marie Peeters-Ney, a member of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, was saddened by the news of MAiDHouse’s arrival in her community, but called it predictable.

“Once you start killing, there’s like a feeding frenzy, and it just gets bigger and bigger,” said Peeters-Ney, whose husband, prominent pro-life child and family psychiatrist Dr. Philip Ney, died in January. She said Canadians need to clear their heads of the “virtual reality” that allows them to condemn killing when it comes to the death penalty or genocide, while ignoring realities like MAiDHouse. “We are paying people to kill our loved ones.”

Vancouver podcaster Kelsi Sheren, a critic of Canada’s MAiD regime, devoted her July 15 show to MAiDHouse, saying its business model “thrives on nothing but despair.” Sheren, a Canadian Forces combat veteran, said MAiDHouse operators are morally bankrupt and are “predators at best” who practise “death care,” not health care. Christian McCay, the new leader of the Christian Heritage Party of B.C., in a YouTube interview with former leader Rod Taylor. (YouTube screen image) McCay, who was elected leader of the Christian Heritage Party of B.C. on Oct. 18, called for the provincial government to provide better care for the sick and the dying, including MAiD-free public hospices.

“True quality palliative care and medical care is being denied,” he said. “Instead, patients are being coerced, abandoned, and pressured to see death as their only option. That is not dignity, that is despair.”

According to the most recent Health Canada report, B.C. recorded 2,759 MAiD deaths in 2023, 18 per cent of Canada’s 15,343 total. The report also stated that, at 37.8 per cent, private residences were the most frequent location for MAiD deaths, followed by hospitals at 32.7 per cent.

Built to Coerce: Canada’s Living Laboratory of Euthanasia and the Call to Catholic Witness

The following article appeared in the Oct 14 edition of The Pulse, a publication of the Catholic Medical Association. In it, bioethicist Yuriko Ryan of Vancouver considers the ethical implications of the BC government's imposition on St. Paul's Hospital of "Shoreline Space," a MAiD facility. My story of earlir this year (below) was the first to identify the name and location of this euthanasia facility.

By Yuriko Ryan, DBe, MA, HEC-C

One summer morning my husband and I stepped into a Catholic hospital through a main entrance we both knew well. It was where he was born, where he practiced almost daily as a family physician for 35 years, where we returned to countless specialist visits, outpatient appointments, palliative care meetings with dear friends, and the joy of welcoming babies in the maternity ward. For us, the hospital was a constant holy presence, an unwavering witness to the dignity of life.

But this visit brought something unexpected into view. On the left wall, a new mural of muted mountains and shoreline scenes quietly caught our attention. There were no familiar reminders – no mission statement and no donor plaques. The absence felt unsettling and eerie. Beside the mural was a locked door, labeled not with Providence or St. Paul’s Hospital but with the name of the regional health authority and Shoreline Space. Outside it, elderly patients unsuspectingly sat in wheelchairs, on walkers, or on chairs, waiting for their ride in a handicapped-accessible van. This was the wall and the door to the euthanasia clinic, conjoined to our Catholic hospital. The mural and the doorway together became more than décor – they became a map of contested moral space.

Canada – Laboratory of Euthanasia

Canada has transformed into a real-world testing ground for euthanasia – what the law calls medical assistance in dying (MAiD). Initially permitted only in cases of suffering with terminal illness, [i] MAiD has rapidly expanded through court challenges framed as rights. Law makers and healthcare systems have responded with unexpected enthusiasm by widening eligibility to include patients with chronic conditions, disabilities, mental illness, frailty, and various perceived sufferings.

By the end of 2024, around 90,000 Canadians had died by MAiD since it became legal in 2016.[ii] In 2023, MAiD deaths accounted for 4.7% of all Canadian deaths,[iii] making it the fifth leading cause of death nationwide. The pace of growth is nearly the same proportion the Netherlands reached after twenty years.[iv] Today, MAiD requests are rarely denied. [v]

Spatial Ethics

Spatial ethics, despite their significance to environmental and behavioral psychology,[vi] [vii] [viii] [ix] and moral theology, including principles such as cooperation with evil,[x] have received scant attention. Yet the arrangement of care spaces profoundly shapes our moral imagination and our moral discourse. Hospitals and hospices are not the only ones facing spatial ethics issues. Risks to patients or individuals residing in long-term care homes and other congregate housing settings may be elevated due to the shared use of common areas and, frequently, rooms among clients. They may not be able to express their concerns adequately due to their cognitive decline, serious chronic illness and comorbidities, lack of care advocates, language barriers, and loneliness and isolation. For patients with disabilities, frequently, the limited access to home care, disability support and services in their own communities result in unwanted hospitalization. And MAiD assessments are more readily available in hospitals. These care spaces may implicitly communicate to vulnerable populations that their lives are burdensome.

Built To Coerce

When my poster Built to Coerce: Ethics of Imposed Euthanasia (MAiD) Provision in a Catholic Hospital Space received recognition at the Catholic Medical Association conference, the moment was bittersweet. The award affirmed the urgency of examining how legal and healthcare structures can pressure Catholic and other mission-driven organizations, medical professionals, and patients toward euthanasia through spatial arrangements. Yet the recognition could not erase the grief that such coercion exists, nor the weight of knowing that euthanasia clinics are being embedded in contested care settings across the country, reshaping not only the geography of care but the very meaning of healthcare itself.

Meanings of Healthcare Space

Traditionally, healthcare spaces served as operational, missional, and moral actors. The euthanasia clinic I described is located immediately inside a main entrance of our Catholic hospital. Its placement – on the main floor, adjacent to high-volume outpatient specialty clinics and diagnostic labs and visible along corridor sightlines – functions as an operational and missional signal for the regional health authority and the government. It implicitly states who matters and who is deemed peripheral. Despite a pre-existing agreement signed two decades earlier, denominational healthcare organizations now face human-rights legal challenges and mounting pressure to provide euthanasia onsite in exchange for a license to operate and receive public funding. This forced presence demands collective moral reflection and renewed missional rigor – not only for Catholic healthcare organizations but for any organization striving to remain a witness to the dignity of life.

On the Ground

British Columbia – our province – has the second-highest per capita rate of MAiD deaths across the country.[xi] By 2023, MAiD deaths had already surpassed deaths from illicit drug overdoses.[xii]In 2024, MAiD accounted for 6.7% of all deaths in BC.[xiii] [xiv] Of the 3,000 MAiD deaths in 2024, nearly 90 % were seniors aged 65 and over. 35% died by MAiD for “Other Conditions” – not cancer or cardiovascular diseases –, with frailty being the leading cause under the “Other” category. MAiD has become a solution to old age. In 2024, approximately 40% of all MAiD deaths in BC occurred in private residences.[xv] Their last breaths in the air of family spaces risk shared memories being tainted. Spatial ethics issues surrounding MAiD now touch every care and housing setting.[xvi]

It is not difficult to imagine how frail seniors reach such decisions, surrounded by cues embedded in care spaces. In hospitals, they overhear conversations about MAiD in multi-occupancy rooms or find pamphlets left at their bedside. In hospices, if MAiD is openly celebrated next door, the space begins to speak to the minds of the dying. Standalone MAiD suites are also appearing in business complexes, without clear signage, mission statements, or donor plaques – eerily similar to Shoreline Space. One is built in direct view of a community dialysis clinic, remains unmarked with smoky windows, passed daily by unsuspecting patients and office workers.

A Warning to the World

Canada is a warning to the world as an experimental laboratory of euthanasia. When healing and killing share a wall, corridor, and a roof, they become each other’s gatekeepers, and the very meaning of healthcare space is at stake. An unsuspecting patient walking past a MAiD clinic is not only a Canadian story. It is a parable of what hospitals, hospices, and nursing homes elsewhere may soon confront. Built to Coerce was not only the title of a poster; it is the reality inscribed in our healthcare architecture. The question is not whether pressures will come – they already exist. The question is where we will find the courage to preserve spaces where life is reverenced before the geography of care is irresistibly altered.

Build to Care, Not to Coerce

If Catholic healthcare is to remain a witness to the dignity of life, then MAiD-free zones cannot be left to chance, convenience, or the whim of those who promote euthanasia. Catholic Medical Association members and all who serve in healthcare are called to remain a constant presence and an unwavering witness to the dignity of life, safeguarding spaces that are theoretically sound, theologically rooted, and morally grounded. Let us call our brothers and sisters, regardless of vocation, to build to care, not to coerce.

Dr. Yuriko Ryan is a bioethicist and gerontologist based in Vancouver, Canada. She serves on the Catholic Medical Association’s Ethics Committee and the International Ad-hoc Committee. Her writing explores the moral contours of artificial intelligence, aging, and end-of-life care, appearing in Momento, her weekly bioethics newsletter, and feature articles for AI and Faith. Through her lectures, publications, and committee work, she advocates for human dignity across all stages of life, guided by a Catholic lens.

For footnotes, please see Ryan's original article in The Pulse.

Music of the light: Duo bring sacred and secular repertoire to parishes around the Archdiocese

An inspring story that I wrote for the B.C. Catholic:

The providential way that soprano Tami Comuzzi and pianist Shelley Field-Halliday first met seems fitting considering the musical partnership and ministry that resulted. Comuzzi recalls sitting at Mass at Our Lady of Fatima in Coquitlam when she first noticed Field-Halliday. “God told me she will be my best friend,” she said.

For her part, Field-Halliday remembers hearing Comuzzi sing, and being struck by a voice so beautiful it seemed “almost supernatural.”

Two decades later, the graced nature of their meeting has grown into a well-known partnership that brings liturgical music to parishes around the Archdiocese of Vancouver. In one late-summer week alone, they were scheduled for four funerals and one wedding.

In the same period, they performed two benefit concerts, one in the gardens of St. Francis of Assisi parish in Vancouver, the other in the parking lot of their home parish in Coquitlam. “We are trying to create a European feeling—an André-Rieu-type experience—beautiful and outside,” Field-Halliday said. The “Tami and Friends” concerts, the first of which took place in 2019, raised funds for parish purposes and for a Knights of Columbus drive to purchase an ultrasound machine for Pregnancy Concerns, a Coquitlam crisis-pregnancy non-profit.

The concerts feature sacred and secular music, from Offenbach’s Barcarolle—a duet Comuzzi performs with Gina Oh, a teacher at St. Pius X school in North Vancouver—to a medley of ABBA hits. They also showcase supporting singers from a choir Comuzzi leads at her parish.

Comuzzi, a lyric soprano, has sung since childhood. As an adult with a Master’s degree in music, she found herself at a crossroads: pursue a professional career of great promise or focus on faith, marriage, and family. She chose the latter and, with husband David, was blessed with five children. “The Lord made it very clear to me that he wanted me to sing for him,” she said. “I put him first and he has blessed me.” Looking back, she says singing on the world’s stages would have been “an empty bucket.”

Field-Halliday, who with husband Sean also has five children, has played piano since she was young. She once won a music competition not because she was the best technically, but because of the passion with which she played. “I was told I have a gift that can move people to tears,” she said, “which I know is a gift of the Holy Spirit which can bring people to God.”

Each praises the other’s gift. Field-Halliday calls Comuzzi “a world-class talent,” while Comuzzi describes her friend’s accompaniment as so sensitive it is “like two people breathing with the same rhythm.”

Their friendship quickly became collaboration, and in time, ministry. They provided music for live-streamed Masses during the pandemic and recorded a series of hymns and classical songs, which Comuzzi said were meant to give viewers “peace and comfort” during that difficult time. (The recordings are still available on YouTube).

Their funeral-music ministry grew organically, allowing the pair to expand their service and also support their families. At times the demand can feel overwhelming, Comuzzi admitted. “We’ll say, Lord, it’s too much.” But then, she added, some sign of reassurance will come—“And this is how we know we are doing what we are supposed to be doing.”

“At times like this we realize the veil between the natural and supernatural is very thin,” Field-Halliday said.

Father Larry Lynn, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Coquitlam, said he is both impressed and touched by the holiness the two bring to funeral Masses. “After Mass, they always go to a painting or statue of the Holy Mother and sing Immaculate Mary. It’s quite moving,” Father Lynn said.

Field-Halliday said they save every funeral program and pray each morning for all the men and women whose funerals they have helped celebrate.

“I think, through our music, we are fishers of men,” Comuzzi said. “We bring people to God, whether through funerals, weddings, Masses, or concerts.”

Field-Halliday agreed: “We are His instrument, and we have so much joy. It’s a ministry of happiness. And God is our agent.”

Vulnerable patients need stronger MAiD protection: B.C. health critic

My latest story on the continuing MAiD crisis, as published in the BC Catholic:

Vulnerable British Columbians need stronger euthanasia safeguards, says Opposition health critic Dr. Anna Kindy following a B.C. Catholic report on systemic failures in provincial government oversight of medical assistance in dying (MAiD).

Kindy (pictured) said the government needs to make major changes in how MAiD is administered. “Health care needs to be transparent and accountable in every aspect,” she said in an interview.

Kindy, a physician in Campbell River and the B.C. Conservative MLA for North Island, spoke with The B.C. Catholic following its recent report on systemic failures in the province’s MAiD program.

A B.C. Catholic freedom of information application revealed the B.C. Ministry of Health’s MAiD Oversight Unit has not issued a public report since assuming responsibility for MAiD oversight in 2018.

The newspaper also found the Oversight Unit is overseen by the same bureaucrat responsible for MAiD’s administration in B.C., and that the unit rarely reports to professional bodies any of the hundreds of administrative and paperwork errors it discovers each year.

Asked which of the findings troubled Kindy most, she answered, “all of the above.”

She said MAiD concerns are one part of a larger medical crisis in which British Columbians can’t access health care, leading many sick and elderly to chose euthanasia. “And I don’t think that’s what B.C. people want … to actually not take care of our vulnerable people.”

The lack of oversight puts vulnerable people at risk, said Kindy, who has heard directly from patients who said they were pestered to accept MAiD. “Rubberstamping oversight is not oversight,” Kindy said. “We need transparency, accountability, oversight, and also discipline.”

The B.C. Catholic contacted Health Minister Josie Osborne for a response to Kindy’s remarks and to the original revelations but has not heard back from her. Meantime, the three professional colleges that received 22 Oversight Unit referrals for investigation have now responded to B.C. Catholic queries about what became of the files.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. said privacy laws prevent it from answering and that any information it can share is already on its website. No MAiD-related disciplinary action is apparent on the site.

The B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives said it has conducted 10 MAiD-related investigations since 2018. “None of these investigations resulted in hearings or disciplinary actions,” said communications coordinator Courtney Osborne.

Lesley Chang, a public information officer with the College of Pharmacists of B.C., said the college investigated three cases, two of which were “disposed of” under of a section of the Health Professions Act that allows a college to take “no further action if the inquiry committee is of the view that the matter is trivial, frivolous, vexatious or made in bad faith or that the conduct or competence to which the matter relates is satisfactory.”

The third case resulted in the pharmacist receiving a letter “advising them to always maintain appropriate documentation ... and abide by and comply with the legislative requirements and practice standards in all future practice.”

Toronto academic Trudo Lemmens, who serves on Ontario’s independent MAiD review body, agrees MAiD oversight lacks transparency and accountability in B.C. “At least in Ontario we have some willingness to open a report on challenging cases ... and that doesn’t exist in B.C.,” said Lemmens, a professor and Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Toronto. “And that’s why I’m particularly troubled about the lack of transparency.”

He said “serious controversies” in B.C. about MAiD eligibility make the matter urgent. He pointed to news reports last December about a wrongful death claim filed by the family of a man who was euthanized in a Vancouver clinic while on a day pass from a hospital psychiatric ward.

Lemmens, who was born in Belgium, said he began warning the Canadian public in 2016 about the escalating dangers of legalized euthanasia. At the time, he pointed to his homeland and the Netherlands to warn about what was coming.

“Now I don’t talk about [them] anymore because Canada has bypassed everything possible,” he said. “One of the ways ... is the way it is so aggressively pushed as a therapy even when people don’t ask for it.”

Doctors 'getting rich' by euthanizing patients

As euthanasia deaths soar in B.C., so does British Columbian taxpayers’ medical assistance in dying bill. B.C. Catholic contributing writer Terry O’Neill analyzes the hidden figures behind the cost of MAiD and finds they’re much higher than the $283.85 The B.C. Catholic found last year. O’Neill also recently reported on a B.C. government document that said overly-strict enforcement of MAiD infractions might discourage MAiD when it’s in high demand.

ANALYSIS

It takes deep digging to find out what Canada’s permissive euthanasia regime is costing B.C. taxpayers, but the figures are there, buried in the 514-page Medical Services Commission Payment Schedule.

Pages 118-120 of the 2025 document detail how much doctors are paid, every step of the way toward killing their patients. Curiously, there’s no mention of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in the index of the 10-page listing, and the rate tables are not itemized. Instead, the MAiD fee schedule has been slipped into the index’s “family medicine” section under a subsection called “miscellaneous visits.”

What the numbers show is that British Columbia’s health system pays doctors much more to euthanize a patient than the $327.48 listed in its public fee schedule. The cost of the “MAiD event preparation and procedure”—10 to 15 minutes for the intravenous lethal injection—is $327.48. That amount has increased 64 per cent from the $200 paid in 2017, when the government established its first permanent fee structure for medical assistance in dying.

But the total cost of euthanizing a single patient can be as much as eight times greater—about $2,600 per patient, including assessment for and prescribing MAiD, a mandatory second assessment, euthanasia drugs, explanation of the MAiD waiver form, and day-of “preparation and procedure.”

All told, it means the B.C. government could spend up to $8.6 million enabling the estimated 3,300 MAiD deaths the province is on track to record this year. The cost could also rise a further $600 per patient for rarer and more complex “MAiD Track 2” cases, in which the patient’s death is not reasonably foreseeable. “These figures aren’t trivial,” said Dr. Will Johnston, a Vancouver family physician who heads the Euthanasia Resistance Coalition in B.C..

“Some doctors are being really well paid to do this. They are very well paid to just ask people if they want to die, and then to kill them.” The province’s taxpayer-funded Medical Services Plan pays doctors for 100 per cent of all MAiD-related “medical” services, and B.C.’s taxpayer-funded Pharmacare plan pays all the costs of the three drugs most commonly used to take a patient’s life. Cost breakdown B.C. doctors’ fees are found in the Ministry of Health’s “Medical Services Commision [sic] Payment Schedule,” dated April 30, 2025.

For a Track 1 patient whose death is reasonably foreseeable, a doctor who makes the original MAiD assessment and prescription can bill up to $453.15 for nine 15-minute “units” worth $50.35 each. For a Track 2 patient they can get up to $906.30 for 18 units.

A mandatory second assessment by another doctor can cost up to $352.45 (seven units) for Track 1 and $503.50 (10 units) for Track 2. A doctor can receive up to $174 for explaining and reviewing the optional “Waiver of Final Consent” signed in advance by some patients who fear they won’t be able to give the legally required final consent immediately before their MAiD death. Finally, the “MAiD event preparation and procedure”—10 to 15 minutes for the intravenous lethal injection—is worth $327.48 for both tracks.

All told, that’s about $1,300 paid to doctors for a single MAiD death. This figure is similar to the $1,225 paid to doctors for each MAiD death in Quebec in 2022—a figure that was unearthed by pro-life blogger Patricia Maloney in 2023. (Maloney reported that documents she obtained showed that Quebec doctors billed $5.88 million for MAiD-related services in 2022, a year in which Statistics Canada cited MAiD as the cause of death for 4,801 persons in that province.) Three drugs commonly used in euthanasia: midazolam, a sedative that causes sleep; propofol, which causes a deep coma; and rocuronium, which paralyzes the patient, causing death by suffocation.

The B.C. government does not publish the prices it pays for the drugs. (Adobe) The government does not publish the price of the three drugs commonly used in euthanasia: midazolam, a sedative that causes sleep; propofol, which causes a deep coma; and rocuronium, which paralyzes the patient, causing death by suffocation.

However, the federal government’s Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated in a 2020 report that the cost of drugs for a single MAiD case would be $1,324—$662 for the drugs used and $662 for a “backup kit” of drugs. The B.C. Catholic based its $2,600 MAiD total-cost estimate on figures for

two assessments for Track 1 (the most common MAiD track), a waiver consultation, the preparation and procedure, and the drugs. The estimate is remarkably close to the parliamentary report’s conclusion that a “completed case” of MAiD would cost $2,337.32. The B.C. government’s most recent annual report on MAiD shows that 2,767 persons died of MAiD in 2023, a 10 per cent increase from the previous year. Projecting a similar increase this year, the province would record 3,300 euthanasia deaths in 2025. The B.C. MAiD report does not distinguish between Track 1 and Track 2 cases. However, the federal government’s 2023 report said about 76 per cent o

f patients nationwide received MAiD under Track 1 and 24 per cent under Track 2. At 40.2 per cent, the most common place for B.C. patients to be euthanized in 2023 was in their own home. Doctors performed 82.4 per cent of MAiD procedures. The rest were administered by nurse practitioners, who are paid under a different system than doctors, one which may see them perform all their duties for a set salary.

The B.C. Catholic’s estimated MAiD costs assume that a nurse practitioner is paid the same as a doctor for delivering MAiD. B.C.’s payment schedule for MAiD also contains provisions for extra payments of $146.18 for physicians who pick up MAiD drugs from off-site pharmacies, something more likely to happen if a doctor is euthanizing a patient at home. MAiD providers were unhappy with the low rate of pay they received when euthanasia was legalized in 2016. They now receive 64 per cent more per death. (Adobe) The B.C. Catholic filed a freedom-of-information request last year for any Ministry of Health documents comparing the cost of administering MAiD with any savings to the health system from MAiD-facilitated deaths. The government’s Nov. 2, 2024, response did not include any cost-benefit analysis but did contain several documents dated between 2017 and 2021 that dealt with fee schedules.

The documents showed that MAiD providers were unhappy with the low rate of pay they were receiving after euthanasia was legalized in 2016. One document, appended to a briefing note to an unnamed bureaucrat or politician, stated that “restricting billing” had led to some MAiD providers quitting “because they did not feel they were adequately compensated.” The document said there was “a very limited number of MAiD providers” in B.C. and any reduction in numbers would “put an additional strain on already overworked professionals.”

The document’s recommendations have been redacted, but the FOI package contained a copy of a Globe and Mail story from May 2018 reporting that B.C. had “effectively doubled the compensation” for MAiD doctors in response to their complaints.

Johnston said in an interview that a small number of enthusiastic doctors are responsible for the majority of MAiD procedures in B.C. He did not mention any doctors by name, but news outlets have reported that Dr. Ellen Wiebe of Vancouver has overseen more than 400 MAiD procedures, and Dr. Stephanie Green of Victoria is responsible for more than 300 euthanasia deaths. MAiD saves ‘billions’ Johnston said it is ironic that MAiD doctors receive such high pay.

“To kill people requires no particular medical expertise. Anyone straight off the street could be trained in half an hour.”

MAiD 'could save billions'

The cost of euthanasia pales in comparison to how much money it saves the Canadian medical system, a fact that may be driving the movement to further liberalize euthanasia.

Thanks to a report published by the Parliamentary Budget Officer in 2020, Canadians already know that in 2021 alone, the country’s medical system saved an estimated $149 million because of MAiD’s widespread availability.

Now, a recent study by two Western University academics shows that further liberalization of euthanasia could save the medical system “on the order of billions of dollars per year,” with “total savings of $1.273 trillion by 2047.” Professors Uzair Jamil and Joshua Pearce said in a paper published in the February 2025 edition of OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying that extending MAiD to vulnerable groups such as the mentally ill, the homeless, the elderly, and Indigenous persons would produce massive savings.

They did not recommend implementing the changes but rather cited many of the ethical considerations opposing such liberalization. “Policymakers must carefully consider these implications before moving forward with any further expansion of MAiD,” they wrote. Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said he was not particularly alarmed by the study because it seemed to be an academic exercise more than a call to action.

He also noted that at least one leading pro-euthanasia activist, Thaddeus Pope, a U.S. law professor, thought the paper might actually have been designed to portray a “worst-case scenario” to warn against further liberalization of MAiD law. Authors Jamil and Pearce cite two academic papers that present MAiD as a way of cutting health-care costs, writing that “several advocates of expanding MAiD have argued, if MAiD is expanded to many marginalized populations within Canada, the government would save money.”

Schadenberg said regardless of the motivation, MAiD is a stain on society and any argument that it benefits society by cutting medical costs is even more reprehensible. “Obviously,” he said, “I consider all this disgusting.”

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.”