It is madness, if you will excuse the expression, to extend Canada’s already-permissive euthanasia/assisted suicide regime to the mentally ill. As we have recently reported in these pages, the Trudeau government’s Bill C-7 eliminates what modest restrictions existed in their 2016 euthanasia law, including that death be imminent. While claiming that C-7 does not allow mental illness as a reason to access [...]
Canadian abortionists respond to covid-19 On March 18, Global Newsreported on how various work environments were impacted by the coronavirus; one was a Toronto abortuary. Jane Gerster reported on the “seemingly never-ending list of cancellations and closures,” noting that “The situation changes almost hourly.” She sought out human interest stories on how the widespread closure “is already changing people’s lives nationwide,” including [...]
Editor’s Note:On Feb. 25, Cardinal Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, released a statement on the introduction of Bill C-7:An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying). The Interim reprints the statement in full. The federal government has introduced new legislation expanding the eligibility criteria for euthanasia. The inaccurate term, medical assistance in dying (MAiD), is currently used to describe [...]
Federal government bill guts euthanasia safeguards. On Feb. 24, the Trudeau government tabled legislation that would make Canada’s euthanasia law the most permissive in the world according to anti-euthanasia groups. Bill C-7 was introduced by Justice Minister David Lametti and, if passed without amendment, the Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying) will liberalize the three-year-old euthanasia [...]
Editor’s Note: The term “euthanasia” in Canada, in its legal voluntary form is called “medical assistance in dying” and became legal along with assisted suicide in June 2016. The term ‘assisted suicide’ means that the individual committing suicide dies by a self-administered drug rather than a doctor-administered lethal injection. “Medical assistance in dying” and “death by legal injection” mean that a doctor [...]
Alex Schadenberg criticized the federal government's consultation process and plan to expand euthanasia. The media is reporting that there have been more than 6700 medically assistance in dying (MAiD) deaths in Canada since it was legalized in June 2016. I estimate that there have been at least 13,000 euthanasia deaths and here is how I defend this estimate. First, the [...]
Both federal government and province rush consultations ahead of court-imposed March deadline Justice Minister David Lametti has long supported broadening Canada's euthanasia rules. Ottawa gave the public two weeks to provide input on how it should expand euthanasia while the Quebec provincial government scheduled just one day of consultations ahead of broadening criteria for people seeking so-called medical aid in [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Prior to enactment of the Medical Assistance in Dying (Bill C-14) in 2016, pro-lifers warned that this pernicious legislation would mark but the first, fatal step down an exceedingly slippery slope toward ever broader legal scope for physicians to intentionally kill their vulnerable patients. Proponents of euthanasia scoffed. In a report released in 2011, the self-styled [...]
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition executive director Alex Schadenberg says incompetent individuals will not have autonomy and choice. The Quebec government is opening public consultations on allowing doctors to euthanize sick people with Alzheimer’s, dementia, and other degenerative diseases who are no longer able to give their consent. Coalition Avenir Québec’s Health minister Danielle McCann announced at a press conference that all [...]
In 2015, Justin Trudeau made headlines and history when he became the first Canadian prime minister to make public his mandate letters to the newly appointed cabinet ministers. Each letter contains some standard text about the expectations for all cabinet ministers as representatives of the Trudeau government before outlining some priority areas of responsibility unique to each department, and in some cases [...]
Campaign Life Coalition did not expect much from Justin Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle considering that Trudeau’s entire Liberal caucus is pro-abortion. But when CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson saw the newly unveiled cabinet Nov. 19, he told The Interimit was worse than expected. Gunnarson said he is concerned with one minister who kept his portfolio and upset that a “rabid pro-abortionist” was moved [...]
We have two stories in the “And then there was this” section at the back of the paper that demonstrate that it is impossible to hold the line on euthanasia. In Quebec, the Superior Court threw out the restriction that euthanasia be limited to those whose deaths are reasonably foreseeable. In British Columbia, the provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons ruled that [...]
Alex Schadenberg The Ontario office of the chief coroner released the updated data for MAiD (euthanasia and assisted-suicide) deaths in Ontario. Its report indicates that between legalization on June 17, 2016 and June 30, 2019, there have been 3,303 euthanasia and assisted-suicide deaths. According to the Ontario data, the number of assisted-deaths have increased each year since legalization. There were [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman On April 20, The Spectator, one of the oldest and most influential weekly, news magazines in Britain, published an intriguing debate on the legalization of euthanasia by two avowed atheists, Sam Leith and Douglas Murray, respectively literary and associate editor for the magazine. In recent years, bills to legalize euthanasia have been repeatedly rejected by the [...]
The Canadian euthanasia/assisted suicide (euphemistically known as Medical Aid in Dying or MAiD) data have been missing. I have received multiple inquiries asking how many Canadians have died by MAiD. Now we have some data, but not from the government. On March 15, Jocelyn Downie, Canada’s leading “academic” pro-euthanasia activist, spoke at a lunch lecture for the Royal Society of Canada in [...]