MAiD raised with Vancouver priest during hospital care — twice

My latest reporting in the B.C. Catholic newspaper

A Vancouver priest recovering from a hip fracture at Vancouver General Hospital says he was twice offered assisted death by health-care staff who knew he was a priest and opposed to euthanasia — a practice critics say is growing as medical professionals are increasingly encouraged to initiate such conversations.

“There are some things you just don’t talk about to some people,” said Father Larry Holland, who has completed studies in health-care chaplaincy in addition to serving at numerous parishes in the Archdiocese of Vancouver.

He described his reaction when a doctor brought up the option of MAiD should his condition deteriorate. “I think I was very shocked,” he said. “It is such a sensitive subject.”

Father Holland, 79, is currently convalescing at VGH after suffering a hip fracture from a fall in his bathroom on Christmas Day. He spoke to The B.C. Catholic about the offers of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) from two health-care professionals, despite their knowing he was a Catholic priest.

Father Holland said he wasn’t dying then or now and that the doctor’s mention of MAiD left him “kind of silent” for a moment. The doctor then raised the subject again, saying it’s “something they have to discuss with someone who’s been given a terminal diagnosis.”

Father Holland recalled telling the doctor he was morally opposed to euthanasia. The doctor explained that “he just wanted to make sure that, if a [terminal] diagnosis came up or not ... I knew of the different services I had access to.”

Weeks later, a second offer of MAiD came from a nurse who the priest said seemed uncomfortable raising the topic and was likely doing so out of compassion because of the pain he was enduring.

“It’s a false compassion, really,” he said.

A spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health, which operates VGH, told The B.C. Catholic in an email that “staff may consider bringing up MAiD based on their clinical judgment, provided they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to do so.”

Staff are also “responsible for answering questions when patients bring up the topic of MAiD,” the spokesman said.

The two incidents arise as Canada approaches 100,000 assisted dying deaths, a milestone explored in a B.C. Catholic series starting this week. Over the next several weeks, the paper will look at how a decade of legalized killing has reshaped health care, ethics, and attitudes toward life and death in Canada.

Father Larry Lynn, the Archdiocese’s pro-life chaplain, said he was shocked to hear about Father Holland’s case.

“This must surely be among the most appalling examples of Canada’s coercive and insensitive euthanasia regime,” Father Lynn said in an interview.

He said it’s disturbing that a health-care provider suggests euthanasia with any patient, and particularly when the patient is a consecrated religious known to be morally opposed. “It places the medical practitioner into the role of the devil, tempting a vulnerable person into mortal sin.”

He’s equally troubled that Canadian euthanasia providers aren’t ruling out initiating discussions with Roman Catholics about MAiD. In a document titled Bringing up Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) as a clinical care option, the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers recommends against assuming patients oppose MAiD because of their faith.

The document says, “Health care professionals may draw incorrect assumptions about a person’s views on MAiD; e.g., they may assume that a patient objects to MAiD because she is a Roman Catholic nun, and yet Roman Catholic nuns and others dedicated to a faith-based way of life have requested MAiD.” The booklet does not provide a source for the information.

An updated version published in March removes the Catholic reference but gives the same advice regarding people of a “faith community” and even those of “strong faith.”

Father Lynn called it “diabolical” to use a nun as an example for overcoming a patient’s moral objections.

The booklet reflects a recent trend of encouraging health-care personnel to initiate MAiD discussions with patients. In November, The B.C. Catholic reported on a little-known 2023 Health Canada document urging health authorities and professional bodies to adopt “practice standards” requiring doctors and nurse practitioners to raise MAiD with certain patients.

The MAiD assessors and providers document similarly says physicians and nurse practitioners involved in care planning and consent processes “have a professional obligation to initiate a discussion about MAiD if a patient might be eligible for MAiD.” However, Health Canada does not have the authority to require provinces or health authorities to adopt such guidelines and The B.C. Catholic found no evidence of any public agency or professional body in B.C. doing so.

Amanda Achtman, creator of the anti-euthanasia project Dying to Meet You and ethics director of Canadian Physicians for Life, says initiating MAiD discussions in a medical setting is a form of coercion that attacks patients’ deepest convictions when they’re vulnerable. To “torment” someone who has deeply held beliefs with an offer of MAiD is “an attack on their identity,” Achtman said.

Father Holland admitted he was in so much pain that he could “feel the temptation” to accept MAiD. “It’s a human reaction. We always look for the easy way out.”

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis has introduced Bill C-260, An Act to Prevent Coercion of Persons Not Seeking Medical Assistance in Dying, which would prohibit federal employees from proactively offering or recommending MAiD. The bill resulted from incidents of bureaucrats such as veterans counsellors trying to steer vulnerable people toward assisted dying.

The Alberta government introduced legislation in March that would restrict regulated health professionals from providing information about MAiD to their patients unless the patient brings it up. The Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act would also restrict the public display of MAiD information, such as posters, within health-care facilities.

The bill is worth supporting, said Achtman, who lives in Calgary. “Simply being offered euthanasia already kills the person, because it defeats and deflates their sense of self-worth and value.”

The unwanted initiation of MAiD discussions in Canada made international headlines in March after Achtman shared the story of an 84-year-old woman, Miriam Lancaster, who went to VGH last year for severe back pain. She said the first doctor she spoke with in the emergency room raised MAiD before any diagnostic work had been done. Lancaster’s daughter was present and confirmed the incident, adding her mother eventually responded to rehabilitation and rest.

The Catholic chaplain at VGH, Father Ronald Sequeira, said it’s a constant struggle to help suffering patients not lose hope. He tries to offer them “some kind of encouragement and comfort,” but many give up.

“The moment you lose hope, the devil comes in, in different personalities, and says, ‘Do you want MAiD? I don’t want people to suffer.’”

Patients often don’t realize that suffering is redemptive, he said. “

God makes us more pure, more strong, through the suffering when we offer it up,” Father Sequeira said. “So we give hope — help them not to lose hope.”

Father Holland said turning down an offer of death opens one to new experiences. Even enduring pain “can encourage growth,” he said. “It can motivate you, it can open up new worlds, new vistas, new opportunities,” including enriched relationships.

He said he is sharing his story in the hope it will help others. “I went through it; you can go through it too.”

MAiD at 10: how assisted dying is reshaping Canada

My latest in the B.C. Catholic newspaper.

The origin of this special series goes back to last November, when new national data showed Canada now records more euthanasia deaths than any other country, and the second-highest rate internationally. Those figures prompted a question that has only grown more urgent: What has 10 years of medical assistance in dying meant for Canada?

Reporter Terry O’Neill set out to look beyond individual developments and examine their cumulative effect on the law, on health care, and on attitudes toward life and death.

Several of these questions are now being tested in real time — in the courts, in Parliament, and within the health system itself. Together, they point to a country struggling to understand how MAiD is shaping health care, public policy, and the lives of individual Canadians.

The living room of the modest Surrey bungalow felt unusually still, its drawn curtains softening the sunlight and protecting the privacy of those inside.

In a corner stood a nurse practitioner beside a 77-year-old woman, Alice, resting in her favourite reclining chair.

Alice was in the process of being euthanized by the nurse, who had just finished injecting the last of three drugs in the deadly cocktail most commonly used to administer medically assisted dying in Canada. Two doctors had certified that she was suffering from a fatal disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and that she was legally competent.

Alice’s death was typical of many of the nearly 17,000 MAiD deaths recorded in Canada in 2024 — with one notable exception. She had asked to be surrounded by her four grandchildren, ages six to 13, while she was being killed. The family complied.

As related to the B.C. Catholic by an acquaintance who has direct knowledge of the events of Alice’s MAiD death, the grandchildren were traumatized by the experience. The B.C. Catholic agreed to keep the source unnamed and to change details of Alice’s death (including her name) to protect the family’s identity.

“Those poor kids, they cried and cried,” the source said. “It was simply horrible. They didn’t understand why they had to be there.”

He said he believed Alice had not fully considered the impact on her family when making her decision. As well, he could not understand the children’s parents’ decision to agree to Alice’s request.

“That death—it’s going to haunt them forever,” he said. “How can those kids not be scarred by that? What are the long-term consequences going to be?”

It’s an essential question that has implications beyond an individual incident. MAiD, one of the most permissive euthanasia regimes in the world, has had a significant impact on Canada in ways that haven’t been fully considered. In this series, the effects of medically provided death will be examined: what it has done to the nation’s psyche, the social and psychological consequences that we see today, and what might be the consequences in years to come.

Critics say none of these questions were adequately considered 10 years ago when, responding to emotional appeals to shorten end-of-life suffering and invoking personal autonomy, Parliament legalized euthanasia in June 2016.

Proponents of MAiD said at the time that it would be available only for those near death and suffering grievously. But what critics feared, an inevitable slippery slope of ever-more-permissive euthanasia, led to a rapid expansion, especially after the law was amended in 2021 to allow euthanasia for people whose death was not reasonably foreseeable.

The U.S. magazine The Atlantic captured this country’s MAiD crisis in a September 2025 feature story entitled, “Canada is killing itself.” The story described how patients who aren’t dying can now access MAiD, and reported on the looming March 2027 legalization of MAiD for those whose sole affliction is a mental-health disorder.

The Atlantic captured this country’s MAiD crisis in a September 2025 feature story entitled, “Canada is killing itself.” (The Atlantic) Writer Elaina Plott Calabro noted that the Quebec College of Physicians has raised the possibility of legalizing euthanasia for infants born with severe malformations, a practice “currently legal only in the Netherlands, the first country to adopt it since Nazi Germany did so in 1939.”

Statistics Canada figures already paint a grim picture. By the end of 2024, Canada had recorded 76,800 MAiD deaths, including 16,499 in 2024 alone—the highest single-year number of any country in the world. Canada has the second-highest MAiD rate as a percentage of all deaths, at 5.1 per cent, trailing only the Netherlands’ 5.8 per cent.

The report noted that Canada’s caucasian population accounted for a staggering 96 per cent of all MAiD deaths, even though it constitutes only 70 per cent of the population. The federal government has not looked for an explanation, but it has studied the question of why the Indigenous MAiD rate is so low.

According to Statistics Canada, about 1,400 people died by MAiD every month in Canada in 2024. If that rate continues through 2026, the country will record its 100,000th MAiD death before June 17, the tenth anniversary of the date the Criminal Code amendments permitting euthanasia received Royal Assent.

Catholic observers interviewed for this series agree that MAiD’s legalization has unleashed a cultural shift that has altered the country’s moral imagination.

Effects include: cultural shift toward viewing death as a solution; erosion of the social commitment to care for the sick, elderly, and disabled; undermining of palliative care; marginalization of disabled and vulnerable people; and distortion of the role and identity of medicine. Canada’s permissive MAiD regime has blurred the boundary between legal euthanasia and illegal “mercy killing,” says Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Schadenberg pointed to the February sentencing in Ontario Superior Court of Philippe Hebert, who was sentenced to two years less a day of house arrest following his guilty plea to manslaughter after he used an incontinence pad to suffocate his seriously ill partner of more than 40 years, Richard Rutherford. The Crown had asked for Hebert to serve six years in jail, while the defence had asked for a two-year term.

In passing sentence, Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips Ssaid, “In every respect, this was an assisted-suicide mercy killing.” A more accurate description would have inserted the word “illegal” before “assisted-suicide.”

Under Canadian law, it is illegal to aid or abet a person in ending their life except under the specific conditions set out for MAiD, which allows for either clinician-administered or self-administered death. Hebert’s actions fall outside that legal framework.

Schadenberg now fears it will be “open season” for assisted suicides conducted by persons who are not medical practitioners. In a blog post, he wrote that Canada’s legalization of euthanasia “has eroded the willingness of judges to penalize someone who has murdered a sick friend or relative.”

The impacts of Canada’s growing pro-MAiD culture are also being felt within the Catholic Church, even though it holds that suicide, assisted suicide (when fatal drugs prescribed by a doctor but are then self-administered), and euthanasia (a doctor or nurse practitioner administers the drugs) are gravely wrong.

Pressure from pro-MAiD activists on Catholic health facilities, such as those operated in Vancouver by Providence Health Care, has received significant media attention and led to the provincial government’s imposition of a MAiD clinic abutting St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. That clinic, which is called Shoreline Space, opened in January 2025.

The issue has also been the subject of a B.C. Supreme Court case challenging how MAiD access is handled at St. Paul’s Hospital and other Providence facilities.

Writing in the October 2025 edition of Pulse, published by the U.S.-based Catholic Medical Association, medical ethicist Yuriko Ryan of Vancouver said the presence of Shoreline at St. Paul’s is a form of contamination and coercion of Catholic health care.

“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,” Ryan wrote.

Canada’s permissive MAiD regime has blurred the boundary between legal euthanasia and illegal “mercy killing,” says one critic. (Adobe) She called on CMA members and all who serve in health care to witness to the dignity of life by safeguarding spaces that are theologically rooted and morally grounded. “Let us call our brothers and sisters, regardless of vocation, to build to care, not to coerce,” Ryan wrote.

Catholic leaders are also concerned that a pro-MAiD mentality seems to be infecting some Catholic laity. The B.C. Catholic has been told by priests and laypeople of instances of Catholics choosing to be euthanized. A Fraser Valley woman said she knows of four fellow parishioners who succumbed to the lure of MAiD. “I can’t understand it,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “They were all practising Catholics and then, at the last minute, they threw it all away.”

Hope and Dignity, a guide produced by the Archdiocese of Edmonton and supported by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, offers advice on what to do if a Catholic family member is planning MAiD, how priests should respond pastorally, and whether sacraments can be offered in such circumstances.

The guide offers a prayer “for those tempted by assisted suicide or despair,” indicating the issue is no longer theoretical.

Eoin Connolly, executive director of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute, points a finger of blame at judges and politicians for Canada’s descent into MAiD permissiveness.

“By focussing narrowly on the circumstances of particular individuals, the courts and legislators failed sufficiently to account for the broader social and cultural implications that such legalization would have for Canadian society as a whole,” Connolly said in an interview.

Germain McKenzie, a theologian and sociologist with Catholic Pacific College in Langley, said it is important to look at the moral and societal trends that converged to produce the current MAiD regime.

“It’s the idea of autonomy pushed to the extreme,” McKenzie said. “But it’s not the right way to live. You cannot live like that as a harmonious society.”

McKenzie identified five trends that helped create the conditions that allowed the right to personal autonomy to take precedence over all others and elevate euthanasia to a perceived right in Canada:

· Radicalization of the Enlightenment principle that reason alone should guide one’s life

· Expansion of the Romantic concept of devoting oneself to self-discovery and self-fulfilment

· Growth of mass society and mass media, giving power to “the few” to shape the thoughts and actions of “the many”

· Capitalism’s tendency to devolve moral considerations into utilitarian cost-benefit analyses

· Developments in medical technology, allowing unnatural and immoral practices

Western society was once knitted together by a Christian ethos that has unravelled since the Second World War, McKenzie said. “Basically because of what is called secularization.”

Over the next several issues, The B.C. Catholic will examine how MAiD has affected the country, what the long-term consequences might be, why the Catholic Church’s opposition to MAiD is so firm, and where there is hope for stemming or reversing the expansion of MAiD.

Key dates in MAiD in Canada

February 6, 2015

Supreme Court of Canada’s Carter v. Canada ruling orders legalization of assisted dying.

June 17, 2016

First federal MAiD law (Bill C-14) receives Royal Assent.

September 11, 2019

Quebec Superior Court’s Truchon and Gladu decision strikes down Bill C-14’s restriction limiting MAiD to those whose natural death was reasonably foreseeable.

March 17, 2021

Expansion of MAiD (Bill C-7), removing the “reasonably foreseeable death” requirement and creating two eligibility tracks.

February 15, 2023

Parliament’s Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying recommends allowing MAiD for “mature minors” and permitting advance requests.

March 17, 2027

Planned expansion of MAiD to persons whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness.

MAiD in Canada: what the law allows

What is MAiD?

Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) allows a doctor or nurse practitioner to end a patient’s life, or to prescribe medication for that purpose, under conditions set out in Canadian law.

Two tracks

Track 1: Patients whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable.

Track 2: Patients whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable.

What changed in 2021

Bill C-7 removed the requirement that a person’s death be reasonably foreseeable, expanding eligibility and creating the two-track system.

What is scheduled for 2027

MAiD is set to expand to include individuals whose sole underlying condition is mental illness.

What is being debated now

A private member’s bill introduced by MP Tamara Jansen seeks to prohibit MAiD where mental illness is the sole underlying condition.

MAiD in Canada: by the numbers

Total deaths

76,800 MAiD deaths in Canada by the end of 2024

Annual deaths

16,499 MAiD deaths in 2024

Share of all deaths

5.1% of all deaths in Canada

Monthly rate

About 1,400 MAiD deaths per month

Projection

Canada is expected to reach approximately 100,000 MAiD deaths in 2026

Global comparison

Canada has one of the highest MAiD rates in the world, second only to the Netherlands

Five generations of public service

Some of you may know that, from time to time, I've shared that I was inspired to enter public life, as a two-term Coquitlam City Councillor, by the stories my mother told me about her father, John Caswell Davis, who was a senator representing Manitoba. But that's not all the political service on my late mother's side of the family. In fact, her sister, my aunt Lucille Davis Huot, was a school trustee in St. Boniface, Man. Her maternal grandfather, Edouard Guilbault, was an alderman (councillor) in St. Boniface, and his father (my mom's great grandfather), Victor Mager, was the Reeve (mayor) of St. Vital, Man. So, counting me, that's five consecutive generations of political service on my mom's side of my family. It was only this week that I finally figured this all out! Photos below, top to bottom, are of Mager, Guilbeault, Davis, and Huot. Check out their bios at Memorable Manitobans.

Our crystal ball

Well before DRIPA, the magazine I edited in the 1990s foresaw the impact of recognition of aboriginal title on the province of British Columbia.

Flowers bloom with life for seniors in a culture of loneliness

My latest story for the B.C. Catholic newspaper

The elderly lady was sitting slumped in a wheelchair parked near a window in the common room of her Maple Ridge retirement home when a volunteer from St. Luke’s parish approached.

“Happy Easter!” the volunteer said, handing the woman a potted African violet and a greeting card reading, “You Matter.”

The senior read the card slowly, covered her face with her hands, silently began to weep, choked up with emotion.

The “You Matter” message “really resonated,” said St. Luke’s parishioner Elizabeth Loch, who organized teams of family members and fellow parishioners to visit two seniors’ residences on Holy Saturday as part of the annual Blooms into Rooms Easter-flowers project.

“Like far too many of our seniors, she was probably feeling that she didn’t matter to anyone anymore,” said Loch. “I’m glad we could do something to bring her some comfort.”

Blooms into Rooms volunteers noted similar responses among many seniors on Holy Saturday as they delivered flowering plants and greeting cards to across the Lower Mainland.

This year’s “You Matter” theme was adopted in part because of the high number of seniors being euthanized out of loneliness and isolation.

“It’s clear that the increasing isolation and loneliness of seniors—even when they are living in group residences or retirement homes—is a real problem,” said Wim Vander Zalm, a founder of Blooms into Rooms, which marked its 32nd anniversary this year with 12 teams from Catholic parishes and schools visiting a record 1,700 seniors in 19 locations from Chilliwack to Coquitlam.

“We don’t want to see our grandmothers and grandfathers turning to euthanasia because of isolation, loneliness, or a feeling that their lives don’t have meaning any more,” he said. “That’s simply not right.”

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

Numbers like these are part of a “culture of loneliness” driving up the number of Canadians seeking Medical Assistance in Dying, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition executive director Alex Schadenberg said last year.

The same conclusion is supported by data collected by Health Canada and published in its annual MAiD report.

In the “nature of suffering” section for 2024, Health Canada reported that in 45 per cent of the 732 Canadians who received Track 2 MAiD—when natural death is not reasonably foreseeable—cited “isolation or loneliness” as a reason for wanting to end their lives. For Track 1—when death is reasonably foreseeable—21.9 per cent of 15,767 patients cited isolation and loneliness.

Even higher rates were reported for feelings of being a burden, emotional distress, and loss of dignity.

LifeCanada, a national pro-life charity, has also responded to these statistics with a program to boost seniors’ sense of self-worth. The program features a 26-page pamphlet entitled “You Are Worth It!” Blooms Into Rooms volunteers took pamphlets to some of the homes and hope to distribute more next year.

“It’s a simple and yet profound resource for seniors and elderly,” said executive director Pat Wiedemer. The goal is “to remind them of the great dignity they possess, inspiring them to know their worth and value.”

Blooms into Rooms, which now operates under the umbrella of Life Compass, a north-of-Fraser life-education non-profit, also distributed 14 of the LifeCanada pamphlets to retirement homes on Holy Saturday. The group plans to distribute more next year with the assistance of the Archdiocese of Vancouver.

Wiedemer hopes the pamphlet’s “charming” comic-style artistry and clear writing about universal lessons of a life well-lived will bring joy and life to the elderly.

“It is a life-abundant antidote to the culture of death as offered in MAiD,” she said.

Vander Zalm said it’s hard to measure Blooms into Rooms’ positive impact, but anecdotal evidence suggests it certainly raised spirits among seniors.

A team of St. Luke’s parishioners visiting the Wesbrooke retirement home in Pitt Meadows reported an overwhelmingly positive response. “It is truly amazing what something as simple as a small pot of flowers can do for an entire home,” said volunteer Martha Bonnett said.

Bonnett heard how meaningful the visit was, especially for those who feel deeply alone. “Many still hold Easter close to their hearts, even when their own families have forgotten not only the significance of this sacred season, but sometimes even their own loved ones.”

At Eagle Ridge Manor in Port Moody, St. Joseph’s volunteers were greeted by an activities coordinator who presented them with a giant thank-you card signed by two dozen staff and residents.

“We could see the gratitude in the sparkle of their [residents’] eyes and the width of their smiles,” said a volunteer. “There was a lot of love in the room.”

At one Maple Ridge home, a woman was nearly brought to tears because the colour of the violets were her favourite, said Loch. Another senior was uplifted by the seniors’ interactions with the many children taking part.

Blooms into Rooms now operates under Life Compass, a north-of-Fraser non-profit, and was funded this year through a grant from the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Burnaby Lakes Nurseries provided the African violets at cost, and Art’s Nursery in Surrey provided logistical support.

B.C. Catholic contributor Terry O’Neill is co-founder and lead organizer of Blooms into Rooms.

Six decades on, Columbus Homes keeps growing with new Cloverdale project

My latest work, for the B.C. Catholic newspaper.

It took a lot more than the “luck of the Irish” to make possible the St. Patrick’s Day opening in Cloverdale of Zappone Manor, the newest housing project from the Knights of Columbus.

The March 17 ribbon-cutting for the $40-million, 89-unit affordable-rental seniors’ building was the result of 10 years of resolute fundraising, broad-based partnership-building, and countless planning meetings by Columbus Homes, the charitable arm of Knights councils in B.C.

“Today, we celebrate a massive achievement,” Herb Yang, Supreme Director of the Knights of Columbus, told an audience of 250 at a reception following the ribbon cutting.

Yang said years of complex work surrounding financing and planning went into the South Surrey project. “Today, that persistence has turned into reality,” he said.

Columbus Homes president Mike Garisto said his society could not have completed the project alone, saying it “took a community to accomplish. Among the partners were the B.C. Elks Association, the Royal Canadian Legion, the Lions Club, and Knights councils. Columbus Homes vice president and treasurer Theo Vanden Hoven, MP Tamara Jansen, and Columbus Homes president Mike Garisto at the Zappone Manor ribbon cutting.

Conservative Member of Parliament Tamara Jansen (Cloverdale—Langley City) praised the groups for the dedication the effort took, saying “I think anybody involved in this project should get an honorary degree in patience.”

Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke said the project would never have been completed without the leadership of Columbus Homes. “It takes people with the kind of dogged determination” shown by Garisto, she said. “We know we have a critical need for below-market housing, especially for seniors ... Senior citizens deserve to be treated well in our community.” Talking from a stage bedecked with green St. Patrick’s Day decorations and wearing an Irish top hat himself, Garisto said March 17 was chosen as the opening date for Zappone Manor in recognition of the fact that Columbus Homes’ early fundraising efforts involved the selling of shamrocks, similar to the Royal Canadian Legion’s poppies.

But it took much more than shamrock sales to raise the money needed to complete Zappone Manor. Garisto said the Senior Citizens Housing of South Surrey Society contributed land with a 99-year-lease worth about $10.5 million.

The nearly $30-million project was supported by about $19 million in loans from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation – $1.3 million of it forgivable – along with a $9.7-million contribution from the Columbus Charities Association that included a $6.2-million provincial grant.

The City of Surrey, Metro Vancouver, and TransLink waived $985,226 in development cost charges.

With the opening of Zappone Manor, Columbus Homes now operates 10 seniors residences with 550 units throughout the province. The residence is named after Cloverdale community activist Bruno Zappone, who served on the board of the Senior Citizens Housing of South Surrey Society for 50 years. He died in 2021 at the age of 95.

The independent-living facility features 67 studio and one-bedroom suites, and 19 accessible suites, with rates priced 30 to 40 percent below market, Garisto said.

Zappone Manor welcomed its first tenants in late March. The initial 50 occupants are moving from an aged apartment building nearby. Information on tenancy can be obtained by calling 604-250-6444.

That older building will be demolished, and Columbus Homes has longe-range plans to put a second apartment building on a portion of the property. Columbus Homes was founded in 1965 by 13 members of the Knights of Columbus, receiving its charter on July 29 of that year.

The organization was created to provide stable, affordable housing for seniors, with an emphasis on community and dignity.

Its early projects established a foundation in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, with residences built in Vancouver, Delta, and Chilliwack, including Columbus Towers in Vancouver, Columbus Lodge in Delta, and Columbus Manor in Chilliwack.

In recent years, Columbus Homes has expanded through acquisitions. In 2019, it took on two Prince Rupert properties, Kaien Place and Wayne Place. That was followed in 2020 and 2021 by the acquisition of two Maple Ridge seniors’ residences, Fraser View Manor and Legion Manor, through an agreement with the Legion. In 2023, the organization added a Chilliwack residence, The Waverly, previously operated by Optima Living.

In Surrey, Columbus Homes also manages Hoffman Manor and Southdale I and II, maintains the. John Paul II Pastoral Centre and manages the pastoral centre’s St. Joseph's Residence for priests.

Looking ahead, Columbus Homes is exploring additional projects, including a proposed 56-suite development in Vernon, a 53-suite project in the Lower Mainland, and three developments with a combined value of more than $200 million. Plans are also underway for a second phase next to Zappone Manor.

‘Stop being bashful’ and stand for life: ex-abortion doctor at Coquitlam talk

My latest for the BC Catholic weekly newspaper

Christians of all denominations need “to stop being bashful” and instead act boldly to turn the tide on abortion, a leading U.S.-based pro-life advocate told a Coquitlam audience last week.

Dr. Haywood Robinson, a spokesman for the Texas-based 40 Days for Life campaign, spoke to nearly 200 people at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Feb. 23, calling abortion “the greatest genocide in history.”

With Canada accounting for over 100,000 abortions a year and 200,000 lives lost every day, he said “The whole abortion holocaust offends God more than it does us.”

Formerly a physician who performed abortions in California and Texas, Robinson said he believed he was simply providing a medical service and making easy money in the process. But as the years passed and his faith deepened, he could no longer ignore the human reality before him. That awakening changed his medical practice and ignited his Christian faith.

With his wife Daphne Robinson listening, he told his audience that pro‑lifers are not the radical activists of the abortion debate, as their opponents argue. “We are the ones standing up for 2,000 years of Christian history,” he said.

Although being anti-abortion may place the audience in the minority, he offered them a message of hope from Deuteronomy 32:30: “How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?” God, he said, does not need large numbers to accomplish great things, he only needs faithfulness.

Likewise, he said, God’s work can be seen in the hundreds of 40-Days for Life vigils launched worldwide last week, including near the B.C. Women’s Hospital and Health Centre. That physical presence is a key part of the campaign and something God builds on.

“When you guys are out there, they know you’re out there,” he said. “We are telling them, ‘We aren’t going anywhere until you go. We aren’t going anywhere because we serve the risen King.’”

Robinson spent time with attendees afterward, including Kimberly Bromley, executive director of the Pregnancy Concerns crisis-pregnancy centre in Coquitlam. She told him that with financial assistance from the Knights of Columbus, the centre will soon purchase an ultrasound machine — a tool proven to help mothers choose life. 40 Days organizer Heather Thompson said Robinson’s speech could not have come at a better moment. “It was a night of conviction, courage, and renewed resolve,” said the St. Clare of Assisi parishioner. “It felt like the beginning of something bigger.”

Vancouver 40 Days for Life organizers were pleased by the large and enthusiastic audience, having only had a week to organize and publicize the event.

“On very short notice, 175 to 200 people came to listen to this talk tonight,” said Father Larry Lynn, Our Lady of Lourdes pastor and pro-life chaplain for the Archdiocese of Vancouver. “It was inspirational and galvanizing. People want to step in, to do their best to stop the killing. And it’s growing."

Feds have made 'no decisions' about advance request for MAiD

On Nov. 28 of last year, I wrote an email to the federal minister of health, asking what the minister intended to do in response to Health Canada's report on the extensive public consultation it did into possible legalization of advance requests for Medical Assistance in Dying. (My story on that report is below.) At the same time, I also wrote to Health Canada itself asking what its next steps would be. Health Canada responded quickly, saying essentially it would continue studying the issue. The minister's office did not respond until this afternoon, almost three months later! Like the response from Health Canada, the minister's response--which actually came from the "Care Continuum, Aging and Equity Directorate, Health Policy Branch, Health Canada"--is that the government is "carefully considering" the issue and that "no decisions" have been made about allowing advance requests for MAiD. Here is the complete response I received today:

Thank you for your correspondence of November 28, 2025, regarding medical assistance in dying (MAID), addressed to the Honourable Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health, on whose behalf we are responding. We apologize for the delay in our response.

Please know that we appreciate you taking the time to share your views with us on the issue of advance requests for MAID.

In Canada, provinces and territories are responsible for the organization, management and delivery of health care services, including MAID, as part of end-of-life or complex care. The federal legal framework for MAID is set out in the Criminal Code and includes stringent eligibility criteria and safeguards for the safe and appropriate provision of MAID in Canada.

The provision of MAID based on an advance request is not allowed in Canada. That is because the Criminal Code requires a practitioner to obtain a person’s express consent immediately prior to administering MAID, with a narrow exception for persons whose death is reasonably foreseeable and who have already been found eligible for MAID (known as a “waiver of final consent” – more information about this can be found here:

We recognize that the issue of advance requests is sensitive and complex. That is why, from late November 2024 to February 2025, the Government undertook a national conversation to hear views from the public, provincial and territorial officials, patients, health care providers, Indigenous representatives, experts and stakeholders. Over 47,000 people across Canada participated in this consultation through an online public questionnaire, regional and national virtual roundtables, and public opinion research.

As you know, in October 2025, Health Canada published a “What We Heard Report” summarizing the key themes from that consultation. It reflects the range of perspectives expressed during the national conversation but does not include recommendations or commitments. ...

The Government is carefully considering the findings from the national conversation. No decisions have been made about expanding eligibility to allow for advance requests.

The Government of Canada remains committed to ensuring that the federal legal framework for MAID reflects the needs of people in Canada, protects those who may be vulnerable, and supports autonomy and freedom of choice.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to write to us.

Threads of Compassion Stretch from Port Moody to the World

I'm happy to report that Freshet News has just published this story that I wrote. Enjoy!

When Chris and Val McKinnon sit at the dining room table of their Port Moody condominium, it’s more often to share their passion, for helping girls in developing areas of the world, than to share a meal.

That’s because the table is home to two sewing machines that the couple employ to sew reusable sanitary kits for underprivileged girls around the globe.

Chris, 72, and Val, 69, volunteer under the umbrella of the Days for Girls program, an international non-profit that provides reusable menstrual‑health kits and education to help eliminate barriers associated with menstruation in many developing countries.

The retired teachers report that the Port Moody chapter they now lead produced 1,300 such kits in 2025 alone—exceeding the 1,000-kits-a-year target they set five years ago.

Both Val and Chris, who have been married for 51 years, smile with obvious satisfaction about that output, and enthusiastically thank not only the volunteers who are part of their chapter, but also a group of women they lead on Monday evenings at Talitha Koum’s Society’s Starr House in Coquitlam—a residential, addiction-recovery facility for women.

Their relationship with Talitha Koum began in 2017 when Chris’s sister, society president Mary O’Neill, suggested they collaborate with TK’s clients to not only teach them new skills but also to show them a way of giving back to society.

The McKinnons arrive at Starr House with an hour’s worth of sewing, ironing, or serging tasks. The evening starts with a prayer written by one of the women and then the instruction and sewing begin amidst a gentle of whirring sewing machines and friendly chatter.

Over time, the sewing circle has become a place not only of peace and purpose, but also of celebration. For the past several Decembers, Val and Chris have led the women in a Christmas pageant that includes traditional carols and a narrative first written and staged by Chris’ broader McKinnon family 40 years ago.

“Every Monday when we come home, we say, ‘Wasn’t that a great night,’” Chris, who taught middle school students in Coquitlam before retiring, said. “It’s been really special. A lot of the women say the work makes them feel good, gives them a sense of peace.”

“I remember the very first night,” said Val, who taught at Coquitlam’s Queen of All Saints elementary school. “I didn’t know anything about the world these women came from. I’d lived a protected life. And then you meet them — they are so sweet and so polite. I’ve seen tears running down their cheeks when they watch the Days for Girls video. It’s been a huge eye‑opener.”

Today, she’s thankful that she had the opportunity to bring the project to the women. “Marrying the two charities has warmed my heart,” Val said. Their commitment to the project is laced into the fabric of their faith. “Our hope, as Catholics, is that the pillars of our faith are interwoven into our actions,” the couple said. “The call to help one another has been our guiding light.”

They are confident that putting those words into action through Days for Girls is having a positive impact. “Whenever women thrive, it has been found that the entire community is raised up,” they said.

The McKinnons first learned of Days for Girls 10 years ago when they stumbled upon a group sewing the sanitary kits in the common room of their Newport Village condominium building. That team was led by Vida Peterson, a Port Moody Rotary member and the driving force behind establishing the chapter and helping Days for Girls become a registered Canadian charity.

“We just happened to wander in,” Chris recalls. “And there she was.”

The chapter had been operating for three years when the McKinnons joined, and by the time the COVID-19 pandemic hit, they had taken over leadership. Today, with Chris as the formal head, their chapter includes about two dozen local volunteers, plus a group on Mayne Island, where the McKinnons have a vacation cabin, and the Talitha Koum women’s group.

Val laughs when she describes the scale of their operation: “We pretty well do it every day of the week,” she said.

She’s not complaining, though. “As a retired teacher, I do like to keep busy,” said Val, who has enjoyed sewing since she was a child. “I wake up every morning, surrounded by piles of fabric, and it does put me in my happy place.”

Chris, on the other hand, faced a steep learning curve. His passion was sports, and he had never sewn until Val taught him when he was 63. Moreover, even though he grew up alongside four sisters and three brothers, he admits he had complete ignorance of women’s menstrual issues.

All that changed after he viewed a Days for Girls’ educational video that explained how, in poverty-stricken parts of the world, girls often have to miss a week’s worth of schooling every month because of their periods. They also face discrimination and, far too often, pressure for sexual favours to allow them to return to class.

“They suffer terrible abuse,” Chris said.

Their chapter receives strong support from the Catholic Women’s League, All Saints, St. Nicholas, St. Anne and Joachim Catholic parishes, and the St. Vincent de Paul Society at All Saints. The chapter also received a grant from the R.R. Smith Memorial Fund Foundation last year.

It all supports an important cause, the McKinnons say. Indeed, it seems clear that in the quiet hum of their sewing machines, dignity is stitched, community is built, and hope travels farther than either of them ever imagined.

Like a dentist’s office for dying: Vancouver Coastal Health confirms MAiD clinic beside dialysis

My latest investigative story for the B.C. Catholic.

Vancouver's public health-care provider has confirmed that it is operating a secret euthanasia clinic on the ground floor of an office building, directly across the lobby from a dialysis clinic.

In response to a B.C. Catholic freedom-of-information application, the Vancouver Coastal Health authority confirmed on Dec. 9 what its public-affairs office had refused to verify for more than two months—that an office-type area called Horizon Space is, indeed, an area where patients are euthanized. (The room where euthanasia is performed is shown in the Vancouver Coastal Health photo to the right.)

The B.C. Catholic reported in its Dec. 7 edition that it had received tips earlier this year that a Medical Assistance in Dying facility was operating in the five-floor building, located at 520 West 6th Avenue.

Our on-site investigation revealed that an area bearing a sign reading “Horizon Space” is located across the building's ground-floor lobby from a dialysis clinic operated under contract by Providence Health Care, Vancouver's Catholic health-care provider.

Vancouver Coastal made no public announcement of Horizon Space's opening, and no record of its existence can be found on any Vancouver Coastal website. In fact, there is not even a listing for Horizon Space in the building's lobby directory.

The authority's public-affairs office responded to requests for information about Horizon Space with a vague email explaining it has no designated locations for patients requesting MAiD.

"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," Vancouver Coastal stated in an Oct. 16 email.

In response, the B.C. Catholic filed an FOI application on Oct. 22, requesting "reports, records, memoranda, emails, contracts and any other pertinent records regarding the planning, construction, and operation of Horizon Space." The newspaper paid a standard $10 fee upon filing.

However, the authority's FOI office responded five days later with a notice that supplying all the requested material would cost an estimated $570—and it could be even more.

Mindful of the expense, the B.C. Catholic narrowed its request on Oct. 30 to one asking for "a single record, memo, email, report, or document that explains what Horizon Space is used for."

And that's exactly what we received—a single, four-page document designed to be distributed to incoming patients, explaining what Horizon Space is, how to find it, and where to park and enter the building (details of which were redacted in the copy given to the B.C. Catholic).

"This guide will provide you and your loved ones with important information about the VCH Horizon Space," the document reads.

A hint about how long the clandestine facility has operated can be found in text at the top right corner of the document's first page, which reads, "Vancouver Coastal Health, Assisted Dying Program, October 2024."

That first page also includes a striking colour image of a spacious room that is apparently the area where family and friends can watch their loved ones die.

With its sleek, striped sofas, muted colours, and seaside-themed ambiance, the area could be mistaken for the waiting room of a spa were it not for its central feature, a multi-function reclining armchair that would not look out of place in a dentist's office.

Overall, the decor is soothing but also unambiguously utilitarian, allowing for rapid cleanup following the central act for which the room is intended.

The guide explains, "There is a reclining chair in the space for your comfort, and room for approximately 20 of your loved ones to be with you if you wish. There are couches and chairs for approximately 16 people."

Interestingly, the guide also states, "Ceremonies requiring an open flame or smoke, such as smudging [a First Nations practice], can be performed," but a following section, perhaps referring to limitations to this allowance, is redacted.

Vancouver Coastal has not explained why it kept Horizon Space secret.

Euthanasia has been legal in Canada since 2016, and the B.C. government's Ministry of Health, which directly funds $5 billion of the health authority's $6-billion annual budget, has been an enthusiastic supporter of the procedure, going so far as to order MAiD to be allowed in all publicly funded facilities, including hospices.

The B.C. Catholic could find no record of any of B.C.'s five regional health authorities announcing a standalone MAiD clinic such as Horizon Space. But a private charity, called MAiDHouse, says it has opened two such facilities, one in Toronto and one in Victoria.

Health Canada reported Nov. 28 that there were 2,997 MAiD "provisions" in British Columbia in 2024, about 18 per cent of the country's 16,499 total.

Addendum not in BC Catholic story but for this blog only: I found it interesting that Vancoiuver Coastal Health would call this euthanasia facility "Horizon Space" in light of the fact that the health authority has called the MAiD clinic that was imposed on the campus of St. Paul's Hospital "Shoreline Space." They are similar names, both evoking feelings of tranquility, I suppose.

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.”