Dystopian vision of euthanasia becomes real

Turner Classic Movies presented the dystopian 1973 movie Soylent Green a few days ago, and I was struck by how much the fictional "thanatorium (top photo)," where the character played by Edward G. Robinson presents himself to be euthanized, resembles the real-life, modern-day "Horizon Space" (bottom photo) standalone MAiD euthanasia room operated by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. I wrote about Horizon Space last year. And then just a week later, I wrote this follow-up story.

Responding to Canada's MAiD crisis

Following are links to resource and some ideas about how opponents of legalized euthanasia in Canada can respond to the country's MAiD crisis.

GET INVOLVED

Support Conservative MP Tamara Jansen’s private member’s bill, C-218, to prevent euthanasia for mental illness, by excluding mental illness from being considered a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” for the purposes of MAiD. (Passage of this bill may no longer be necessary because a parliamentary committee has now recommended the same thing.) Learn more

Support MP Garnett Genuis’s private member’s bill, C-260, to that would ban a government bureaucrat in a position of authority from proposing MAID to a person who is not asking for it, on the grounds that initiating such a discussion is coercive. Learn more

Oppose Health Canada’s “Model Standard Practice for MAiD,” which recommends that, when certain conditions are met, doctors must initiate a discussion about MAiD. Learn more

Support a call for a full review of Canada’s permissive MAiD law. Learn more

Let your member of Parliament know that you oppose allowing advance requests for MAiD. Learn more

Inform elected officials about your opposition to extending MAiD to so-called mature minors. Learn more

Oppose Quebec physicians’ call for legal infanticide. Learn more

Support better programs and funding for the disabled, for whom MAiD is often easier to access than proper support: Learn more

Call for better palliative care in hospitals and hospices, which critics say is being undermined by MAiD. Learn more

Ask your MLA to lift the veil of secrecy over the provincial government MAiD oversight unit. Learn more

Support or help form a community or parish group that works to combat the sick and elderly’s loneliness, which may be a prime reason for wanting MAiD. Learn more

ACCESS RESOURCES

Healing Resources from the Archdiocese of Vancouver: How our Faith reduces or eliminates the fear of death.

The Archdiocese of Edmonton’s “Hope & Dignity: A Catholic Response to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide” resource.

Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishop’s resources on suffering and end of life, including the Horizons of Hope toolkit on palliative care.

Canadian Physicians for Life

Christian Medical and Dental Association of Canada

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Delta Hospice Association

Life Canada

The de Veber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research’s “Echoes: Palliative Care Stories of Canada”

WHAT IS YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH?

Increasingly these days, Catholics are being called to defend their opposition to legalized euthanasia. Because religious responses usually get little traction, the B.C. Catholic asked a variety of commentators to formulate a secular “elevator pitch” that could be used by other Catholics in response to the usual “personal-autonomy” and “solution-to-suffering” reasons cited in support of Medical Assistance in Dying. Here are those responses:

"Death is not the solution to suffering. Quite simply, everybody deserves suicide prevention rather than suicide assistance. There’s nothing that should ever happen to any one of us that would lead to us being met with a look that says, 'Maybe you’re better off dead.' There is always more that we can do in terms of love. And euthanasia and assisted suicide represent a failure to love." – Amanda Achtman, Director of Ethics, Canadian Physicians for Life

"End of life care—including intolerable suffering—is actually well-managed by hospice or palliative care. Furthermore, MAiD offers a short cut which totally ignores the spiritual dimension of life." --Denis Boyd, Coquitlam psychologist

"So, what you’re actually saying is that the person’s life no longer has any meaning." -– Mary O’Neill, president, Talitha Koum Society

"Euthanasia is not actually about autonomy because it involves a doctor or nurse practitioner killing someone by lethal poison. Autonomy is an act that one does by oneself. This is an issue of giving doctors and nurse practitioners the right in law to kill you." --Alex Schadenberg, executive director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

"Do you know how MAiD actually kills you? The MAiD cocktail of drugs is this—a pinch of Medazolam to make you sleepy. Then, a powerful injection of Propofol that scorches the lungs and causes them to fill with fluid. Finally, the paralytic Rocuronium, so it all looks so 'beautiful and peaceful.' It would be more accurate to call it Medical Assistance in Drowning. It’s the new standard of so-called compassion, dignity and human rights in Canada." --Angelina Ireland, president, Delta Hospice Society

"Our lives are meant to be an example to family members and friends of how to live a good life. Many family histories are about just that—remembering our ancestors in what they did that was good or even extraordinary. The way in which we face our death can also be a testimony of how a person can virtuously face the end of her life and what is it that she wants to teach the following generations about living that moment. This excludes euthanasia. Of course, this can only be understood if we appreciate the fact that we are bound to others and have duties towards them." –Germain McKenzie, professor, Redeemer Catholic College

"Your life is precious. If you are in pain or suffering or afraid, I want a world in which someone holds out a hand to you in comfort and support; not one where someone says, 'Your life is not worth living, so why don't you just end it.'" --Sister Rhonda Brown, Daughters of Saint Mary of Providence

"Giving the right to people to have themselves killed, because they want to avoid a loss of dignity or some pain, is wrong for several reasons. It diminishes our trust in doctors and nurses if we know that they have the power to kill us. It’s a selfish act that can upset family members—even traumatize them. And, perhaps most important of all, it erodes the respect for life that our society was built on." --John Hof, St. Joseph’s Parish (Langley), veteran pro-life activist

She refused MAiD, then lived to see a miracle

In wrapping up my series of stories, in the B.C. Catholic, marking 10 years of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, I ended with a story emphasizing the good that can happen when MAiD is refused and a natural death is embraced. And there's more. Here is that final story.

Pat Gray rested on her bed at Chilliwack General Hospital, her Bible at her side. She was 67 and dying of lung cancer. As told to the B.C. Catholic by her daughter Bronwyn Gray (shown below in photo with her mother, Pat), Pat was calm during those summer days two years ago as she prepared for what she believed could be her final journey.

Weakened by the disease that was taking her life, she could only speak in a whisper, but she could still read, and it was to her Bible that she turned in she and her family believed were her final days.

On one July morning, Pat’s doctor approached her as usual. This time, however, it wasn’t to ask how she was doing, but to offer to euthanize her by administering medical assistance in dying (MAiD).

Pat’s own account picks up the story:

“I quickly said no,” Pat said in a note she dictated to Bronwyn, “and then showed her my bookmark that said, ‘With God all things are possible.’ She agreed with me and then added that God uses tools to help us and that MAiD was a help for those in great pain.”

Pat said she felt saddened that, instead of offering hope, her doctor seemed to want her “gone.”

Bronwyn said her mother had every reason to be upset by the uninvited offer, and by what she perceived as an attempt to use her faith to justify it.

Pat used the moment to reflect more deeply on her beliefs.

“The doctor didn’t realize that God has such a BIG plan for His children, that one’s life, no matter what, is sacred and precious, that God through Jesus puts hope in our hearts daily to sustain us,” Pat wrote. “And if God wants to use my life longer for even one more miracle, it will be worth it.”

After Bronwyn finished typing the note, Pat initialled it simply: “P.G.”

Pat died naturally and peacefully, more than than three months later, on Oct. 29, and during that time she received the “one more miracle” she had hoped for.

It was not a physical healing, but a reconciliation. In the final weeks of her life, Pat was reunited with her estranged husband, who had left her and their four children more than 30 years earlier. After decades apart, and nearly 20 years after their divorce, the couple remarried.

“It’s almost prophetic, what happened,” Bronwyn said. “My father’s reconciliation with my mom definitely made a difference in my relationship with my dad—a positive one. It was healing for the whole family.”

The healing deepened when her father spoke at Pat’s funeral.

“It was beautiful how he honoured her,” Bronwyn said. “It was amazing.”

Bronwyn later chose to share her mother’s story through a film-based ministry she founded called WorthMore, which promotes the dignity of human life and offers support to those facing end-of-life decisions.

As the 10th anniversary of MAiD’s legalization approaches, stories like Pat Gray’s offer a response to what critics describe as a dominant cultural narrative that frames euthanasia as compassionate and inevitable.

A recent analysis by the Cardus think tank suggests public support for MAiD may not be as firmly grounded as often portrayed. Cardus’s Feb. 12 report said many Canadians misunderstand key aspects of the law.

More than a quarter of respondents in one poll confused MAiD with withdrawing treatment, while nearly 40 percent conflated it with palliative sedation.

Only 19.2 percent correctly understood that a person does not need to be terminally ill to qualify for MAiD, and only 20.7 percent knew that a person may refuse effective treatment and still be eligible.

“Canadians’ majority support for MAiD only as a last resort is incongruent with the law,” author Rebecca Vachon wrote.

That disconnect may help explain growing political resistance in some provinces.

On March 18, Alberta introduced the Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act, which would restrict aspects of MAiD within the province.

“I think that we’re failing in our duty to give people hope,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said.

The act would also pre-emptively ban MAiD for mature minors and advance requests, as recommended in February 2023 by Parliament’s Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying.

The legislation would prevent “regulated health professionals” from providing information about MAiD unless the patient raises it, effectively barring doctors from initiating the kind of potentially coercive, uninvited conversations reported in the cases of Pat Gray and, as noted in the April 27 B.C. Catholic, Catholic priest Father Larry Holland.

Some coverage of the legislation has framed it as a restriction on rights. Other voices argue it reflects growing concern about how far the system has expanded.

Patricia Murphy, program director at the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute, said media portrayals play a significant role in shaping public perception.

“People couldn’t imagine this 15 years ago,” she said. “Now they see it regularly portrayed in a positive light.”

Murphy pointed to what St. John Paul II described as the “conditioning power” of media.

“When the dignity and beauty of life—even in suffering—is shown, it shapes how people think,” she said.

She pointed to initiatives such as the Echoes palliative-care storytelling project, which highlights experiences of accompaniment rather than assisted death.

One such story tells of a dying physician who declined MAiD in order to demonstrate that “dying with dignity is dying loved.”

Catholic teaching continues to reject euthanasia while affirming the duty to care for the suffering. Resources such as the Archdiocese of Edmonton’s Hope and Dignity program emphasize that human life remains sacred and that suffering, while difficult, is not without meaning.

Indigenous leaders warned Ottawa on MAiD, but it was expanded anyway

More of my MAiD coverage, marking the 10th anniversary of its legalization, as published in the BC Catholic.

In this third part of our MAiD at 10 series examining the scale and impact of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, reporter Terry O’Neill examines Indigenous concerns surrounding MAiD, including warnings that euthanasia conflicts with traditional beliefs and may be replacing needed health care and supports.

As the Canadian Senate considered expanding MAiD eligibility in 2021, a group of 15 prominent Indigenous leaders complained they had not been properly consulted on the matter and, moreover, that they had “grave concerns” about legalized euthanasia’s adverse impact “on our vulnerable population.”

Parliament pressed ahead with the expansion despite the Indigenous concerns. The federal government then launched a program that focused more on better data collection and “listening” to diverse viewpoints than on protecting vulnerable Indigenous people from MAiD.

For at least one prominent MAiD critic, the federal government appeared more concerned with actively increasing Indigenous peoples’ access to MAiD than with improving the delivery of health services to them. health service delivery for them.

“It’s a sort of reverse discrimination,” Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said in an interview. “It’s horrible, because the Native community was saying, ‘We don’t want this.’”

Indigenous peoples were very clear that euthanasia does not fit with their cultural values, Schadenberg said. “And how does Health Canada respond? By focusing on ways to make it easier for Indigenous people to access MAiD.”

He said the evidence is in Health Canada’s Sixth Annual Report on MAiD, released last November with statistics from 2024. of last year, which focuses on 2024 statistics.

The report noted that Caucasians, who make up about 70 per cent of Canada’s population, accounted for 96 per cent of those receiving MAiD in 2024. Indigenous people, by contrast, represent about five percent of the population but only 0.4 percent of MAiD recipients.

“You’d think Health Canada might at least wonder why so many Caucasians were opting for MAiD, but it doesn’t, said Schadenberg. “But there’s a whole section on the Indigenous numbers, and it seems more concerned about improving data collection and addressing inadequate access to MAiD than about protecting Indigenous life.”

The section entitled “Indigenous people who received MAiD” reports that low euthanasia numbers among Indigenous persons may be due to challenges in accessing MAiD, as well as “distrust of the health care system, based on experiences of anti-Indigenous racism,” potential “discomfort and/or lack of understanding” regarding MAiD, and “potential disconnection between MAiD and Indigenous worldviews.”

Given that three of the four factors suggest Indigenous opposition to MAiD, Schadenberg wonders why more isn’t being done to protect them from euthanasia.

It’s a concern shared by Brendon Moore, national chief of Canada’s Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. As reported in August 2025 in Canada’s National Observer, Moore said MAiD’s availability, especially related to the looming March 2027 expansion of MAiD to those whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness, is especially troubling for communities that already experience high rates of suicide as a result of intergenerational trauma and systemic racism.

“We’re looking for an equitable opportunity to live first,” he said. “If we had culturally safe palliative care and mental health support, some people might choose that path instead of moving toward MAiD.”

Reporter Sonal Gupta summed up the problem by writing, “The nightmare scenario: MAiD could substitute investments in living supports and mental health care if underlying conditions aren’t addressed first.”

Moore did not respond to a request from the B.C. Catholic to comment further on the issue.

upta also reported that, according to a document obtained through an access-to-information request, the federal government invested more than $3.3 million in Indigenous-led MAiD consultations across the country. In fact, just weeks after Health Canada published its latest MAiD statistical report, it published a report on the results of those consultations.

The December 2025 report says Indigenous opinion on MAiD is generally divided into three camps: support without qualification, openness only in certain circumstances, and opposition. The report does not provide percentages for each group.

Among those opposed, some participants feared that MAiD might normalize or even encourage suicide, while others said there is an urgent need for accessible, culturally appropriate health care, mental health care, and life-promotion initiatives.

The report’s summary on Indigenous opposition points to strong moral, spiritual, and religious values as the foundation of that opposition. “They said that an end-of-life decision should not be made by humans and to control it through MAiD was to overstep human boundaries,” the report states. “Death should be left in the hands of a Creator, God or higher power.”

Some opponents also view MAiD as a continuation of colonial policies or a means to control and harm Indigenous peoples. “For them, MAiD is the same as murder, genocide or a sin and the systematic euthanasia of vulnerable people,” the report states.

“Some participants felt that an individual could be coerced into choosing MAiD, with one participant saying that Indigenous peoples may be ‘bullied into a decision.’”

MAiD at 10: how the Me Generation predicted the MAiD de-generation

My latest story in the weekly B.C. Catholic newspaper

Last week’s launch of this series examined the scale and impact of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada. This week, reporter Terry O’Neill focuses on understanding how the country arrived at this point, and what those changes are beginning to reveal.

The 1970s are infamously known as the "Me Decade," a term coined by writer Tom Wolfe, who described a cultural shift toward narcissism, self-fulfilment, and hedonism among the Baby Boomer generation.

Theologian and sociologist Germain McKenzie says a similar self-centred worldview can help explain why legalized euthanasia has proven to be so popular in Canada and threatens to continue expanding in other Western nations.

As Canada approaches the 10th anniversary of the legalization of MAiD on June 17, McKenzie, who teaches at Catholic Pacific College in Langley, said in an interview that pro-life advocates need better strategies to loosen MAiD’s grip on the country. To do that, it’s important to understand how euthanasia has taken such a strong hold.

McKenzie sees five major cultural trends over the past few centuries that have propelled this country to the precipitous place it is now. Primary are the Enlightenment’s emphasis on autonomous reasoning and Romanticism’s celebration of self-fulfillment.

Those ideologies are thriving alongside capitalism’s utilitarian ethos, adverse impact of mass media, and advances in medical technology allowing previously unimaginable procedures such as gender reassignment. Together they have eroded the Christian values on which Western civilization was built, McKenzie said.

The Enlightenment and Romantic ideals alone have “radicalized” our times, he said. Where once a Christian ethos balanced them and “put some limits in place,” all of that crumbled in the turbulent years following the Second World War amid the rapid secularization of society.

Individuals now try to shape their own moral universe, as though society has reverted to an immature stage. “It’s like being a teenager,” he said.

The result is legalized medical killing, something unthinkable a generation ago outside of dystopian movies like Soylent Green (1973) and Logan’s Run (1976).

While few think Canada will become the 23rd-century society of Logan’s Run where individuals live in pleasure and comfort, but only until age 30, it’s hard to predict just what future shocks will rock a society that has lost one of its core values—valuing the lives of the sick and the elderly. Medical deaths of willing patients have become commonplace to what St. Pope John Paul II called the culture of death.

Life “has been devalued,” said Mathew Schmalz, professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Mass. “We need as a society to rethink our attitude to life,” being sensitive to “all its complexities,” joy as well as pain. Canada recorded 16,499 euthanasia deaths in 2024, thousands more than the Netherlands, which has the world’s second-highest annual total. More than five percent of all Canadian deaths are now delivered by doctors and nurse practitioners, according to Health Canada’s Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying, released last November.

An especially troubling aspect of Canada’s high MAiD numbers is that individuals with access to resources, care, and support nonetheless seem to perceive their lives as no longer worth living, says Eoin Connolly, executive director of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute.

“This suggests a deeper cultural shift in how human dignity, suffering, and dependency are understood,” Connolly told The B.C. Catholic. The trend may reveal a culture that equates dependency with loss of worth. It’s “essential” that Canada address that issue to understand why people are lining up for MAiD and to understand “the collective moral consequences of choosing MAiD as a therapeutic solution.”

Health Canada’s latest report says 4.4 per cent of MAiD deaths in 2024 were Track 2, which allows euthanasia even when death is not reasonably foreseeable. Connolly says many doctors report patients are opting for MAiD not only for suffering from illness but also the unavailability of specialized treatments and adequate community support.

“Individuals are making end-of-life decisions within a context of unmet needs and systemic neglect,” he said. What emerges is “a picture of social injustice—one in which society has failed to adequately care for its most vulnerable members, thereby contributing to decisions in favour of assisted suicide.”

Ten years after Parliament legalized euthanasia, pro-death ideology has so permeated the Canadian health-care system that doctors and nurses routinely offer assisted death to patients in hospitals, and not just in palliative-care wards.

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis has proposed a partial solution, introducing a private-member’s bill that would ban government bureaucrats from proposing MAID to someone who isn’t asking for it.

The bill, however, would not prevent doctors and nurses from initiating MAiD discussions, something MAiD opponents say can pressure the patient to accept a premature death.

Vancouver’s Providence Health Care explicitly prohibits employees from initiating discussions on MAiD, as well as prohibiting euthanasia at any of its facilities.

Denis Boyd, a Catholic psychologist based in Coquitlam, said several of his clients say they or a loved one have been approached directly and offered euthanasia. At hospitals across the Lower Mainland, MAiD is being presented “as one of the treatment modalities,” despite patients not indicating they wanted it, Boyd told The B.C. Catholic.

Equally devasting are the painful aftershocks that hit those who opposed a loved one’s decision to access MAiD, feeling it’s “disloyal” to grieve someone who died the way they wanted, said Boyd.

When someone dies a natural death after a long period of suffering, loved ones often feel relief at the end of suffering, and guilt for having such thoughts.

In the case of a MAiD death, “to admit there is immense sadness and anger and disappointment might seem contradictory to the decision of the loved one,” Boyd said.

MAiD can also ignite family turmoil. Boyd told of a man who decided on a MAiD death, “and his family, to a person, disagreed.”

As related by the hospital chaplain, the family made their wishes known to hospital staff. When the MAiD death proceeded, “family members became quite upset and angry, which in turn traumatized the staff."

To make matters worse, accounts of unrequested offers of MAiD, once considered shocking when The B.C. Catholic first made them public five years ago, now have become unremarkable.

The situation has reached the point where Patricia Murphy, of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute in Toronto, fears that the option to have a MAiD death will become a duty.

Schmalz, who is the founding editor of the Journal of Global Catholicism, agrees that dying by MAiD could become a moral obligation. “It can be a slippery slope when as a society we affirm the right to die and expand its context and justifications.”

Murphy says MAiD poses a profound moral threat by sending a message, subtle or not, “that some lives are expendable.” That sustained message may have an increasing influence on the decision making of marginalized individuals.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, identifies other shifts and shocks to the country’s underlying moral foundation. “Too often, death is being presented as a solution, an escape from suffering,” Schadenberg said. “The very idea of life being so precious has been lost.”

Couple that with an erosion of the social commitment to care, especially for the sick and aged. Schadenberg said when major hospitals across the country have medical personnel who are initiating MAiD discussions, palliative care becomes marginalized.

Langley pro-life veteran John Hof said euthanasia, like abortion, has corrupted the character of medicine. “Look it up in the dictionary,” Hof said. “Nowhere will you find the definition of medicine having anything to do with killing. It’s supposed to be about care and healing.”

MAiD mentality tells disabled they’re better off dead, UBC law professor says

Euthanasia has been so “sanitized and romanticized” by mainstream media that ending the lives of people with disabilities is falsely portrayed as compassionate and caring, says UBC law professor Isabel Grant. Media portrayals of MAiD as peaceful and just “going to sleep” might sound attractive to someone who has lived with significant hardship, Grant said.

“I am concerned that the expansion of MAiD has changed the experience of living in Canada for people with disabilities,” Grant told The B.C. Catholic. “Government has made into law the ableist notion that some people with disabilities are better off dead.”

Health-care professionals with a pro-MAiD mentality are essentially asking the disabled, “Are you sure you want to stay alive despite your condition?” Such an approach, she said, “fundamentally changes” how people with disabilities interact with the medical profession and with others.

“Imagine going to a doctor’s office and disclosing that you are struggling, not able to make ends meet, not able to access necessary supports,” she said. “Your doctor raises the possibility of Track 2 MAiD [available to those whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable].”

The doctor’s message can be perceived as, “I’ve given up hope for you,” which can easily evolve into “there is no hope for you.” In the face of unavailable health-care services, death becomes the one “so-called treatment” that is always readily on offer, even by house call. Health Canada’s most recent MAiD report said more than 40 per cent of MAiD deaths in 2024 took place in a private residence.

“People are choosing MAiD because they perceive themselves to be a burden on caregivers,” Grant said. “This quietly transforms MAiD into ‘the unselfish option’ that truly demonstrates love and concern for one's family.”

The very existence of MAiD is “coercive for people with disabilities,” she said, a conclusion also reached by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

In April 2025, committee chair Rosemary Kayess went so far as to ask whether Canada’s euthanasia regime had become a de facto eugenics program aimed at the disabled. A subsequent United Nations report repeated concerns that Canada’s expanding MAiD framework may rest on assumptions that devalue the lives of people with disabilities.

Disability advocates say Ottawa has yet to publicly respond to those findings or signal meaningful changes, even as they raise questions about poverty, inadequate supports, and unequal access to care.

Grant said she also fears that the normalization of MAiD can change an average person’s relationship to the world.

“Individuals are watching their acquaintances, their friends, and strangers who have the same condition as them, dying at the hands of the state,” she said. “What message does that send about the value of their lives—about whether suicide prevention would be there for them if they needed it?”

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

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.

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.

Michael Moriarty at the Coquitlam Grill

A very familiar man walked into the Coquitlam Grill just before noon today. It took me but a second to recognize him as Tony-Award-winning actor Michael Moriarty, former star of stage, screen and television, the latter medium providing him his most enduring success in the role of District Attorney Ben Stone in the original cast of Law and Order.
Here is the text of a story I wrote about him for the Western Standard several years ago: 

Actor Moriarty

Michael Moriarty’s reputation precedes him as he shuffles through a standing-room-only audience at a Vancouver nightclub. Moriarty, who appeared in such films as Bang the Drum Slowly and The Last Detail before rocketing to fame in the early 1990s as assistant district attorney Ben Stone in the Law and Order television series, is today more famous for his turbulent personal life than for his once-considerable dramatic skills. Indeed, it has not been his acting, but his boozing and multiple court appearances—both as accused and victim—that have kept the lanky American actor in the public eye for most of the decade or so he has lived in Canada, the last five in the Vancouver suburb of Maple Ridge.

On this balmy mid-summer’s evening, however, Moriarty is playing neither drunk nor brawler. Instead, having sworn off booze, specifically red wine, a year and a half ago, a thoroughly sober Moriarty takes a seat behind a piano and starts to play some jazz. He’s very good. He blends his music—standards and original compositions—beautifully with that of his two sidemen; his face brightens as the audience erupts in applause after a particularly deft solo. It’s no wonder the trio is working on a new CD.

It’s not the big screen or the Broadway stage, but it’s just about all Moriarty has these days—that, a Screen Actors Guild pension, some residuals, and a knot of close friends, including his manager-cum-common-law wife, Margie Brychka, whom he met in a bar in Surrey, B.C., and Hollywood icon Burt Reynolds, both of whom are in the audience this night. In fact, Reynolds eventually joins Moriarty in singing a duet of “Ain’t Misbehavin’”

In an earlier interview, the 64-year-old Moriarty recognizes that his Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning days are behind him. The permanent, booze-induced slur that muddies his once-crisp voice has seen to that. He also uses a cane to walk. And the boyish good looks that helped win him so many top roles have now abandoned him. But he insists his mind is sharper than ever and that he still has one more big role to play. “I’ve got to complete my run for the presidency,” he declares. You heard that right. Michael Moriarty wants to act out his final, great, real-life role at centre stage in the Oval Office. He wants to be President of the United State of America. Really.

Moriarty also thought about running for the presidency back in 1994. That was the year he left Law and Order following a meeting with then attorney-general Janet Reno. He alleged he was dismissed after he threatened to sue Reno, whom he accused of trying to censor the show. But he has said the departure had at least one positive effect: it transformed him from a liberal into a conservative. He soon resettled in New Brunswick (a woman, who became his third wife, drew him to Canada) and publicly mused about running for the leadership of the old Reform Party of Canada. Nothing ever came of it. This time, however, he says he means business. His strategy will be to get on the ballot in the state of Florida, where he aims to garner five percent of the vote—enough to give him some leverage to make a difference in what has, for the last two elections at least, been a tightly-contested state.

But while he says he has opened an office in the state, Moriarty suggests his campaign, which will be run under the banner of “Realists 2008,” is as much poetic pie-in-the-sky as political reality. In fact, asked about his campaign’s infrastructure, he says he will organize his bid with the help of “divine intervention and a very proven skill at capitalizing on the authentic arrival of angels.” He also admits he hasn’t raised any money yet, and has just a handful of supporters, only one of whom is actually qualified to vote.

Nevertheless, he likens his candidacy to something in between the quixotic campaigns of the late comedian Pat Paulsen, who ran for the presidency five times, and the more serious efforts of consumer activist Ralph Nader, who ran twice for the Green Party. Unlike Paulsen, however, Moriarty has some serious policies, a fact that becomes apparent as he spells out his unique political beliefs in a long, oft-times disjointed but nevertheless compelling soliloquy at a Vancouver restaurant.

Moriarty announced his candidacy in May on the conservative Web site Enter Stage Right (www.enterstageright.com). He has stated that his primary goals in running for the presidency are to reduce the power of the U.S. Supreme Court; to overturn that court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion; and to take the U.S. out of the United Nations. In his interview with the Western Standard, it became clear that Moriarty’s beliefs spring from a deep conviction that collectivism in all its forms is evil. In fact, he suggests that the modern world is a vast battleground between communist and individualist philosophies.

In between alternating sips on a coffee and Diet Coke, and drags on his Export A cigarette, Moriarty’s ideas arc out like sparks: sometimes brilliant, sometimes distracting, sometimes irritating. Here’s one of his typical insights: Pierre Trudeau was the diabolic mastermind who first fused communism and capitalism though “dialectic materialism.” This fusion, he once wrote, is related to “the slow and barely discernible transformation of [the] American Republic into a socialist federation.”

There’s more: Bill Clinton is a Marxist and Hillary Clinton is a Leninist, under whose direction “the feminist arm” of her husband’s “third way” presidency “literally expropriated the Supreme Court.” On terrorism: “Big picture on terrorism, all of it—Jerry Adams is not an Irish Catholic. Yasser Arafat was not a Palestinian. Osama bin Laden was not Islamic. They are communist, agent Leninist provocateurs. This idea [communism] will not work without terrorism.”

On why anti-abortion activists should not despair: “Sir, sir, the anti-slavery movement was just as lost….But, in the end, God, reality, put Lincoln into the Oval Office, the way God put Ronald Reagan into the Oval Office.” On why the UN headquarters should not be in New York: “No, it should be in Paris. And I’ll order it. If Reagan can order Moscow to tear down that wall, I can order the United Nations to move it back to Paris, tear down [Napoleon’s] vainglorious tribute to himself, the Arc de Triomphe, and put Napoleon’s real achievement [there], which is the United Nations.”

On whether he is still a practising Catholic. “No, no. I pray all the time in my own inimitable way. My Christ is not your Christ or anybody else’s Christ. And in the end, we come into an intimate association with Our Lord. Our Lord shapes himself to you, not the other way around. Now, there are certain basic Christian fundamentals. Golden Rule. Honoring our father.” His mouthing the word “father” immediately throws his thoughts into a new direction. Without so much as a one-word segue, he declares, “The situation where the Church of the United Nations, they’ve told us, with the help of the environmentalists, that there is no male divine principle in the universe. Mother Earth impregnated herself.”

His speech impediment doesn’t make it any easier to follow any of this, and neither does his southern-gentleman’s accent, which catches the interviewer by surprise, given the fact Moriarty grew up in Detroit and was educated in the northeast U.S.  What’s with the drawl, then? “Since I came to Canada, and its increasing anti-Americanism,” he explains, “I get more and more southern American, because that’s the most identifiable American accent, it’s southern.” So he does it on purpose, then? “I am not going to be made ashamed of being an American,” he continues. “And for me to try to hide it, and don politically correct Canadianese, I ain’t going to do it.”

The interview ends with Moriarty taking a drag from his cigarette and once again denouncing Janet Reno. Maybe he’ll finally get his revenge when he becomes president.

(Photo from www.pbs.twing.com)

Let B.C. info be more completely free

The B.C. government has struck a special committee to review the province's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The public has been invited to submit its input into the review, and so I've taken advantage of the invitation and have just submitted my thoughts, which I've reproduced below. If you are also interested in the subject, the deadline for submission is the end of this week--January. 29, 2016. Click here to access the committee's webpage, which has all the information on how to submit.

My submission:

Summary: To adhere to both the spirit of the freedom-of-information movement and the stated intent of the B.C. FOI legislation, Section 22.1 of the Act should eliminated.

Detailed submission: Triple-deleting of emails, lengthy delays in responding to requests, redacted information dealing with finances and a general reluctance to share information: these are the sorts of provincial-government actions and attitudes that have sparked the most public concern during the current statutory review of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

All such concerns seem to be legitimate and need to be addressed. But there’s at least one more outstanding issue that, if left unrectified, can only lead the public to conclude that the provincial commitment to freedom of information is an illusion. I will detail this in a moment.

First, though, a reflection on the importance of freedom of information (FOI). We in the democratic West take it as a given that FOI is an absolute “good,” both in principle (as an integral part of a free society) and in practice (as a necessary way for the public and politicians to obtain the information to make good decisions).

Indeed, this belief is now widespread among advanced nations. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, for example, has declared, “The free flow of information and ideas lies at the heart of the very notion of democracy and is crucial to effective respect for human rights.”

But, of course, this understanding has not always been widespread. And, alas, it is not a value to which many current governments subscribe.

The enactment of B.C.’s FOI law was a long-awaited and much-celebrated fulfillment of the aspirations of those who believe transparency in government, as manifested by a citizen’s right to have free access to government records (as long as such records do not trample on the privacy rights of other citizens), is integral to a more-democratic government.

Such a noble sentiment arose in the West at a time of great intellectual growth. Consider these words: “The freedom of a nation cannot be upheld by laws alone, but also by the light of the nation and knowledge of their use.” They were written in 1763 by Anders Chydenius, an Enlightenment thinker and politician whose work helped inspire the first freedom of information law, in Sweden and Finland in 1766.( www.freedominfo.org.)

Two hundred years later, John F. Kennedy observed, “A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is afraid of its people.”

Yet, British Columbia’s FOI law has, since 2001, contained a censorious and anti-democratic provision that seems to embody President Kennedy’s dark vision of a nation afraid of its people. I refer to Section 22.1, “Disclosure of information relating to abortion services.”

Under this section, the law makes it illegal for “The head of a public body…to disclose to an applicant information that relates to the provision of abortion services.” The effect of this provision is to make it illegal for authorities to disclose information about the number and type of abortions being performed in the province, even though these abortions are funded by the public and often take place in public facilities.

One might appreciate the value of this section if and only if it prevented the release of personal information that would best be left private. But this is not the case. Indeed, no one is suggesting that personal information would be ever divulged.
Rather, the section was made law simply to stifle the free flow of information about a legal, taxpayer-funded procedure which was and remains the subject of legal, medical and moral controversy in the community.

This is certainly contrary to the purpose of B.C.’s FOI act, which is “to make public bodies more accountable to the public” and to give “the public a right of access to records” while also protecting privacy.

The censoring of such information has the deleterious effect of limiting informed public discussion on such important, specific subjects as sex-selection abortions (usually of females), late-term abortions, and abortions based on the results of medical or genetic tests.
Further, any informed discussion and debate on the larger and more general subject of the provision of abortion services is also strangled by the censoring of this information.

Therefore, I would urge the committee to recommend the lifting of the abortion-information ban; this is a simple matter that can and should be enacted by amending the legislation to eliminate Section 22.1.