Image 01 Image 03

Canada’s Euthanasia Policies Under Scrutiny As Reports Surface Of Euthanizing A Man For “Hearing Loss”

Canada’s Euthanasia Policies Under Scrutiny As Reports Surface Of Euthanizing A Man For “Hearing Loss”

When euthanasia becomes the sixth leading cause of death in your country, perhaps it is time to rethink the real value of “free” healthcare.

Recently, the Canadian government has ordered a ‘full and thorough’ investigation after a Veterans Affairs Canada employee encouraged a veteran to undergo assisted suicide when he called for help.

The Canadian Forces veteran was seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury when he was casually offered medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in July.

A VAC employee reportedly brought up MAiD unprompted in the conversation with the veteran, who was ‘deeply disturbed’ by the suggestion.

Sources close to the military man told Global News Canada that he and his family were ‘disgusted’ by the conversation and felt ‘betrayed’ by the agency.

He had reportedly been seeking to recover from injuries that he suffered in the line of duty, and the unprompted MAiD offer has been harmful to his progress.

People are beginning to notice that the application of Canadian euthanasia laws are problematic, seemingly designed to cut the fiscal drain on the government-run medical system.

…[H]uman rights advocates say the country’s regulations lack necessary safeguards, devalue the lives of disabled people and are prompting doctors and health workers to suggest the procedure to those who might not otherwise consider it.

Equally troubling, advocates say, are instances in which people have sought to be killed because they weren’t getting adequate government support to live.

Canada is set to expand euthanasia access next year, but these advocates say the system warrants further scrutiny now.

Euthanasia “cannot be a default for Canada’s failure to fulfill its human rights obligations,” said Marie-Claude Landry, the head of its Human Rights Commission.

Landry said she shares the “grave concern” voiced last year by three U.N. human rights experts, who wrote that Canada’s euthanasia law appeared to violate the agency’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They said the law had a “discriminatory impact” on disabled people and was inconsistent with Canada’s obligations to uphold international human rights standards.

They are right to be concerned. Troubling stories are now being publicized that report Canadians with fairly standard medical conditions associated with aging are being pushed toward euthanasia.

Alan Nichols had a history of depression and other medical issues, but none were life-threatening. When the 61-year-old Canadian was hospitalized in June 2019 over fears he might be suicidal, he asked his brother to “bust him out” as soon as possible.

Within a month, Nichols submitted a request to be euthanized and he was killed, despite concerns raised by his family and a nurse practitioner.

His application for euthanasia listed only one health condition as the reason for his request to die: hearing loss.

Nichols’ family reported the case to police and health authorities, arguing that he lacked the capacity to understand the process and was not suffering unbearably — among the requirements for euthanasia. They say he was not taking needed medication, wasn’t using the cochlear implant that helped him hear, and that hospital staffers improperly helped him request euthanasia.

“Alan was basically put to death,” his brother Gary Nichols said.

It turns out more than 10,000 Canadians were killed through state-sanctioned euthanasia last year, a 33% increase from the year before. It certainly appears that Prime Minister Trudeau’s government is pushing death upon its citizens, especially the ones most in need of significant healthcare services.

Roger Foley, a patient suffering from a degenerative brain disorder in London, Ontario, was repeatedly told by hospital staff exactly how much his stay was costing taxpayers. They suggested euthanasia as a solution. The patient insisted he never brought it up, but the hospital “ethicist” tried to badger him to death with it.

“Roger, this is not my show,” the ethicist said. “My piece of this was to talk to you [to see] if you had an interest in assisted dying.”

As if all of this isn’t bad enough, a euthanasia advocacy group (Dying with Dignity Canada) is pressing for access for “mature minors.”

DWDC is of the view that the safeguards that exist now are acceptable for eligible mature minors.

DWDC recommends that the informed consent of a competent parent or guardian be required for eligible minors seeking MAID who are 12 to 15 years of age inclusive, and that MAID assessors be required to consult a competent parent or guardian for eligible minors aged 16 and 17.

People often make inappropriate or incorrect analogies to Nazi Germany. In this case, it may be apt.

Tim Stainton, of the University of British Columbia, described it as “probably the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis’ program in Germany in the 1930s.”

Last year, three United Nations human rights experts reported that the law seems to violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A former special rapporteur for people with disabilities has cautioned that “assisted dying must not be seen as a cost-effective alternative to providing personal assistance and disability services for persons with disabilities, in particular those with high support needs”.

When euthanasia becomes the sixth leading cause of death in your country, perhaps it is time to rethink the real value of “free” healthcare.

DONATE

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.

Comments

2smartforlibs | August 28, 2022 at 10:17 am

Can we at least call it what it is??? Rationed care.

    No, we call what it actually is, MURDER!

    10,000 , dang, 3x the previous numbers and now kids?

    WTF Canada

    What a horrible place it has become. Once the nicest people in the world

    A lot has happened besides Trudeau

    No because this is them killing people instead of treating them. Rationed care would be a physician makes decisions on who gets care while trying to make sure to do the best he/she could with the resources available.

    This is a doctor sees someone who needs physical and psychological help and euthanizes.

    Rationed care to what Euthanasia is comparing apples to motor oil.

    malclave in reply to 2smartforlibs. | August 28, 2022 at 4:55 pm

    Death panels.

saw some of these stories last week.
being euthanized for being suicidal is just….wow.

We went through this in the US, already, when it was only voluntary. My parents decided to put medical directives in place. This was at least about 15, maybe 20-30 years ago, when it was all the rage.

My then-husband wanted it in our wills, as well. The language was innocuous enough, but he talked about “wasting the family resources” just a bit too much, so I made a series of selections in the options to muddle the document. The lawyers questioned this, because it made things unclear, which is exactly what I wanted.

In my opinion, the hard decisions at the end of life should be made on a case-by-case basis, taking all the facts into account, and a piece of paper executed decades before should not be controlling. The burden of decision-making belongs to those who will grieve.

Fairly recently, I asked my mother about those medical directives, and she told me, “Oh, I had them withdrawn. Do you know that, if a person has any kind of directive at all, the hospitals will refuse to treat them?”

After watching the way Pfizer, Moderna, the CDC and the FDA, as well as the States of California and New York performed during the COVID incident, I have concluded that, if you give anybody you don’t know and trust personally any power at all over your medical treatment, they will eventually try to kill you. California is still trying to force those dangerously defective COVID “vaccines” on elementary school children.

I will also note that, in my opinion, the multiple rights acknowledged in our Constitution to life, liberty, property, personal freedom and privacy that extend even to our household and papers surely cover a right to be secure in our bodies. We don’t need to turn to international law to vindicate these rights, but we will need to file and prosecute lawsuits, elect politicians with a little less hubris, and prune our Federal bureaucracies.

Governments now believe they have to reduce the population to save the planet. That is all the reason one needs to know to reject their ability to decide if you live or die.

    Skip in reply to Oracle. | August 28, 2022 at 11:08 am

    Sure appears that way

    Freed Serf in reply to Oracle. | August 28, 2022 at 5:52 pm

    It is just a little bit more nuanced. They want to reduce the population of people dependent on the State, IF THEY DON’T VOTE. No point in subsidizing those that they can’t buy with largesse from the treasury.

    nordic prince in reply to Oracle. | August 28, 2022 at 8:32 pm

    And of course they exclude themselves from that population reduction.

There are some people that believe the vaccine is being used to cull our population. Many folks – especially those that were vaccinated (taking liberties here with the definitions of vaccine and vaccination) – are not open to the reported vaccines injuries and deaths. Other more open minded and inquisitive folks see a darker side of the vaccine and look at money, influence and power, and corruption, along with the documented agendas of the ultra wealthy influencers such as Klaus Schwab and his WEF, George Soros, and to a lesser extent Bill “Population Control” Gates.

Doesn’t Justin “”Castro’s Kid” Trudeau have ties to the WEF? It doesn’t take much of an internet search to find the answer.

It’s easier to pull this of in Canada than the US on a few counts. Let’s think of it as a dry run before it is rolled out here. Killing mom and dad (me and you) will be so much more attractive than paying is our Social Security and Medicare, especially with the enormous Federal Debt created by the Democrats and RINOs Socialists.

Ok pops, this won’t hurt. It’ll be just a little pinch and … think of the good you’ll be doing by lessening your kids’ and grandkids’ debt.

Waiting for the first MAD for a speech impediment… namely speaking Ill of the Canadian government and Justina.

But it’s all OK. Canada is a civilized country. After all, they’ve eliminated the death penalty for criminals!

This amount of civilization in Canada is so much that it only takes ancient Greeks from thousands of years ago or Romans, or well anyone because the Hippocratic Oath is universal to be vastly superior in civilization (actually Taliban an exception).

Dumb-o-crats, Leftists and Muslim supremacists truly have nothing to offer the world except hate, stupidity and death.

    Danny in reply to guyjones. | August 28, 2022 at 12:35 pm

    Muslim nations have the Hippocratic Oath; this isn’t a Muslim thing it is a leftist thing. What Muslims have to offer us is their votes but only if we start making amends for the first war on terror and start getting rid of our prejudice against them.

    Islam was not mentioned here, has nothing to do with the topic; and as a religion this is I promise you against all concepts of Islamic theology.

    If you found yourself injured in Saudi Arabia and they knew you supported Trump they would treat you; Britain probably not https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/18/nhs-will-refuse-treat-patients-sexist-racist-new-figures-show/

      alaskabob in reply to Danny. | August 28, 2022 at 12:52 pm

      Depends on who is reading the Koran. And it is a leftist thing about withholding treatment if not following the Party line. Just last week a hospital refused transfer of a patient with significant cardiac findings because the patient was positive on ONE test for covid.. and sent home…and died.

        Danny in reply to alaskabob. | August 28, 2022 at 1:01 pm

        I agree it is a leftist thing; about who is reading the Quran as mentioned every Muslim country except the Taliban has and enforces the Hippocratic oath. If a doctor sends a patient suffering cardiac arrest home for having covid in Saudi Arabia that doctor would be under arrest the next day.

        Outside of the Taliban I know of no Muslim country where Euthanasia would be something a doctor isn’t arrested for. Not long ago this would have resulted in an arrest in Canada to.

        The rise of a new religion that isn’t Abrahamic like Judaism Christianity or Islam, and has no good philosophical undertones to enforce morality like Eastern religions is what drives these western unique developments and that religion is Wokism.

          gonzotx in reply to Danny. | August 28, 2022 at 1:49 pm

          Right, unless your a Christian

          Danny in reply to Danny. | August 28, 2022 at 10:13 pm

          @Gonzo

          That just simply isn’t true Christians are treated in Saudi hospitals all the time; and if a doctor refused to treat a Christian there an arrest would follow.

          Please stop pretending to know something about Saudi Arabia without knowing anything about it. Their system does privileges Muslims; they do not ration care to Muslims only or even do Muslims first.

          Furthermore if you want to go after a place you would likely be denied treatment; hey I just linked an article from a very mainstream British publication showing if you supported Trump (someone the British establishment calls racist and sexist) you won’t be treated in a British hospital.

      Crawford in reply to Danny. | August 28, 2022 at 3:52 pm

      Muslims enforce the pagan Hippocratic Oath? It literally starts: “I swear by Apollo Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.”

      A culture that rejects neckties because they’re “cross-shaped” really adopted that?

        Danny in reply to Crawford. | August 29, 2022 at 11:53 am

        You do realize that the version American doctors take has removed pagan references to right? You do realize that taking an oath to Apollo isn’t done in Christian countries that have also modified it?

        The Hippocratic oath is nearly universal with the only places rejecting it being Afghanistan, and apparently Canada and the UK (with other nations likely to follow).

        Ask any doctor the version they take doesn’t have Apollo in it (if it did Israel wouldn’t have the Hippocratic oath).

Well, if you’re on the euthanasia approval committee you want to produce euthanasia.

Coming soon as an addition to an abortion clinic near you. “Logans Run” getting closer and closer each day.

It’s usually the butler whodunnit, but now it’s the MAiD….

Under the twisted logic of such a policy, shouldn’t all “trans” teens who claim to be suicidal in order to receive hormones and/or surgery be encouraged to be euthanized?

I agree that encouraging this is wrong, but if a consenting adult wants this option who the heck are you to tell them no?
Suicide is not illegal, the only thing in question is doctor assistance to do so with minimal pain.
How free is your society if it has forced participation?

    geronl in reply to Tim.Martin. | August 28, 2022 at 4:44 pm

    Okay, but these countries don’t care if the patient wants it or not sometimes.

    henrybowman in reply to Tim.Martin. | August 29, 2022 at 1:53 am

    If you want minimal pain, use a firearm to the brain.
    Oh that’s right — Canada.
    Because They Care.

    Evil Otto in reply to Tim.Martin. | August 29, 2022 at 6:16 am

    Enticing someone to commit suicide IS illegal in Canada. And there’s no reason doctors and hospitals should be assisting. This isn’t suicide, it’s euthanasia, and it’s increasingly being done in Canada casually, as an early option rather than an absolute last resort.

    gibbie in reply to Tim.Martin. | August 29, 2022 at 2:00 pm

    “I agree that encouraging this is wrong, but if a consenting adult wants this option who the heck are you to tell them no?”

    This is exactly the “my body, my choice” argument. It is not an option for Christians because we believe that our bodies belong to God. Suicide is essentially theft.

Euthanasia is not always voluntary. That’s a huge problem for these countries.

    henrybowman in reply to geronl. | August 29, 2022 at 1:51 am

    Even if they start off caring, they eventually stop.
    Larry Niven wrote The Jigsaw Man, a short story exploring this premise, over 55 years ago. At the time, critic Algis Budrys criticized it for being entirely improbable to occur in the near future. Impatient boy.

It’s for the “Greater Good”, eh.

Really just lambs to the slaughter, you get what you vote for.

Subotai Bahadur | August 28, 2022 at 9:00 pm

I have observed the Canadian medical system commit institutionalized malpractice, fortunately at a remove. At its best, it was murderous.

What we are seeing here though is Trudeau changing the hero he wants to emulate from Castro to Pol Pot.

Subotai Bahadur

They can’t get rid of it, it’s the only thing in the health care system that works.

How is this worse than abortion?

    Danny in reply to Milhouse. | August 28, 2022 at 10:15 pm

    Well because with abortion the people behind it insist it isn’t murder while in this case there is no way to deny it. Unlike abortion there is no way to hide behind euphemism or a pretense about when life begins this is something that objectively is killing.

      henrybowman in reply to Danny. | August 29, 2022 at 1:36 am

      There are gray areas at both ends of life.
      The kind and caring convent nuns kept my wife’s aunt in a hopelessly vegetative state for almost 20 years. It was horrible for everyone concerned, including (I’m confident of it) her.

    I don’t think it is: those who oppose abortion are highly likely to oppose this, while those who are fine with abortion are usually fine with this as well.

    As for myself? One of the things that has disturbed me about abortion proponents is how many arguments for abortion — the child isn’t wanted, the child is likely to be born deformed, etc — sounds a little too close to Nazi justifications for removing “undesirables” from society. And I can’t help but further notice there’s no clear philosophical dividing line as to when those arguments no longer apply to an individual.

    And we are seeing that here, not just in Canada, but it’s happened in other places where doctor-assisted death has become legal, and even in some cases where it’s not legal, but there’s a concern about handicapped people draining resources from the System: there is a natural push to eliminate the “drains on the system”. And because there’s no natural limiting factors in the arguments put forth for abortion, there’s not a natural force that pushes against the push to eliminate “drains on the system”.

    So, how is this worse than abortion? I would say it’s exactly the same. Both are evil, for the same reasons.

Canada will soon be overrun by Jack Benny Moments:
“Should I wait four and a half years to see an oncologist, or two days for an available suicide booth? I’m thinking, I’m thinking!”

I believe that assisted suicide should by an individual right. Were I to come down with some horrible wasting disease, I believe it is my body, and my right. If the idea scare you, well the Constitution does not take away my right because you are too scared to make the same choice. However there should be medical doctors (2) opinion, psychiatrists (2) concurrence and a judge to sign off, safeguarding from abuses such as what is going on in Canada. No medical person should be ALLOWED to “suggest” the procedure.

    NotCoach in reply to Eddie Coyle. | August 29, 2022 at 9:42 am

    You can kill yourself. Why do you need the state for that?

    I don’t care how many regulations there are, it will be abused. The state should not be in the business of ending your life beyond executions for criminal convictions.

    Milhouse in reply to Eddie Coyle. | August 29, 2022 at 11:43 am

    Perhaps it should be an individual right, but I don’t think you can argue that the constitution makes it one, because as far as I know at the time it was adopted suicide was a felony in every state, and nobody thought this was a problem.

    henrybowman in reply to Eddie Coyle. | August 29, 2022 at 12:43 pm

    Suicide is an individual right because nobody but you owns you.
    Assisted suicide cannot be a right because it coerces someone else into working for you. And if it is a right, you need not even pay them.

      Milhouse in reply to henrybowman. | August 29, 2022 at 11:21 pm

      A right to assisted suicide, if one exists, is like the right to assistance of counsel in court. It doesn’t mean a lawyer is forced to represent you, nor does it mean you don’t have to pay them; it just means that if you have a lawyer willing to represent you the court must allow them to do so. Likewise a right to assisted suicide would mean that if someone is willing to assist you the law can’t prevent them from doing so.

        The problem with a “right” to assisted suicide is that it gives people the power to kill others, and then say that the people killed wanted it done.

        And even doctors can’t be trusted with this power — people in nursing homes in Holland (where assisted suicide has been around for a while) have been known to hire body guards to make sure they didn’t “choose suicide” in their sleep, when the nursing home decided they needed a few extra beds available.

    M Poppins in reply to Eddie Coyle. | August 29, 2022 at 4:20 pm

    you don’t get it. Just like how the legalization of abortion led to killing the baby in the last moments of pregnancy, and the legalization of hmsxlty led to them becoming a protected class that it was criminal to criticize or question, the legalization of euthanasia will result in its being used as a tool to eliminate “useless eaters” and dissidents.

Euthanasia Polices
What does it police?
I think you meant “Policies”. Proof-reading should not be a lost art on a conservative website.

This should not be unexpected for those with even a lick of sense. If you give the state the authority to kill you then the heartless state will find every excuse to do just that.

1980’s: Let’s be reasonable, why shouldn’t a terminally ill person in untreatable pain be offered a medically supervised death with dignity?

Today: This is why.

I lived and worked in Canada for about four years not all that long ago. My Canadian co-workers – professional people, mostly – where disgusted with the Canadian health care system. A common topic of conversation, even among the clerical level, was “medical holidays” to Mexico for non-routine / non-emergency care (such as knee replacement, or back surgery), because they just could not get it in Canada…not without years-long waiting periods.

This is socialism for all to see. And the part that is not mentioned is that the dwarf tyrant Trudeau and people in high places in the government go right to the front of the line if they have a medical issue, unlike the unwashed masses.

BierceAmbrose | August 29, 2022 at 4:03 pm

It’s controlling costs exactly as it was intended to. It’s obfuscating how, exactly as you get with bigger, more Byzantine operations. It’s unaccountable by separating deciding who gets what from the people served, exactly as required to bureaucratically “control” costs. It’s rationing, exactly as the only lever available to idiots who can’t actually get better at doing the thing.

When the motivation for nationalizing health care is to contain the “exploding” “costs” (Per the President who took his name off the thing) killing off sick people is the only sure lever when we keep getting smarter about how to keeping people alive. Otherwise know as “care.” Otherwise known as “for the sick.”

Nothing is a surprise here. It’s just math.

number crunch | August 30, 2022 at 10:54 am

And where do we find these angles of human nature to make the decisions of who lives and who dies? I wouldn’t trust anyone with that responsibility.

History has shown that when you give any group the right to make euthanasia decisions that – in spite of noble sounding reasons – it always devolves into a eugenics program dominated for convenience and benefit of those making the decision. Always.

I shudder when I hear politicians like Trudeau state their absolute faith in Government and Government solutions. I think that people won’t stand for it and then I remember Brownings book, “Ordinary Men”, and I understand that evil takes hold one small step at a time.