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.”
