Links - 1st September 2026 (1 - Euthanasia in Canada)

M.A. Rothman | Facebook - "𝐊𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐈 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍 𝐎𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐃𝐘𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐖𝐎𝐊𝐄 𝐔𝐏 𝐌𝐈𝐃-𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍
Kelsi Sheren — a Canadian veteran and one of the loudest critics of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program — sat with 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘗𝘰𝘥 and walked through what the press is not telling you about “𝘥𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩.”
𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝟏: 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤. A woman went in for euthanasia. “𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘨𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘦𝘳.” They started the procedure. Halfway through she woke up screaming “𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘦. 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘦.” 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐝. Court ruled the doctor did nothing wrong.
𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝟐: 𝐊𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐮, 𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝟐𝟔, 𝐎𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨. Approved for MAID by a Dr. Tepper at “𝘔𝘢𝘪𝘥𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦” (a Canadian euthanasia clinic) at age 𝟐𝟐. His diagnosis: 𝐓𝐲𝐩𝐞-𝟏 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧. He had untreated mental-health issues and active substance use. “𝘏𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱. 𝘏𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘔𝘈𝘐𝘋.” His mother went to the media. The doctor backed off — because 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚 𝐞𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐚 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫’𝐬 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤. “𝐖𝐡𝐲? 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠”.
𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝟑: 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚’𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓 — 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐭𝐨 “𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐭𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞.” The 2023 Ahmed parliamentary report proposed euthanizing down to age 12. 𝐈𝐟 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐢𝐬 “𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐦𝐚,” 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬?
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐫∗𝐠-𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐜𝐨𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐫. 𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐙𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐭 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝. The head of Critical Care and Anesthesiology at Emory ran post-mortem autopsies on over 200 lethal-injection patients. 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟖𝟎% 𝐡𝐚𝐝 “𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐬” — 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡. The drugs cause “𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘢 — 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘥𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘯.” 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐟𝐟 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫. Canada quietly stopped allowing MAID patients to be considered for organ donation — UNTIL recently. Now it’s the 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 they have. “𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳?” 𝐁𝐂 — 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚 — 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚. 𝐂𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝-𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝: 𝐚 “𝐝𝐨𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝” 𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞-𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥. Increase the morphine. The patient sleeps. Breathing slows. They pass naturally, comfortably, with their family there. 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥? Because 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞-𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃. Delta Hospice Society lost $20M+ in funding because Angelina Ireland — a former palliative patient who got better and runs the facility — said no on religious grounds.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐃’𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐬𝐭-𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬: Quebec, Ontario, BC. “𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘥-𝘭𝘦𝘧𝘵 𝘓𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘷𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺. 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘨𝘦 70+.” A $𝟏.𝟐𝟕𝟑 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 “𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬” 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝟐𝟎 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 — per a single government estimate Sheren cited — if you swap healthcare for the cheaper option.
𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐧𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐯𝐮𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬. 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞."

Canada risks 'suicide contagion' if MAID approved for mental illness | National Post - "People with mental illnesses are already dying assisted deaths in Canada “under the guise of flimsy medical excuses” and others will “doctor shop until death” if euthanasia is allowed for psychiatric suffering alone, MPs and senators were told this week.  “I and other colleagues are experiencing this: People are clearly getting MAID for reasons that are frankly illegal,” psychiatrist Dr. John Maher told a special joint parliamentary committee weighing Canada’s readiness to extend assisted death to those whose sole underlying condition is a mental disorder. Maher, who specializes in treating severe mental illness, also warned Canada risks a “suicide contagion” effect if medical assistance in dying (MAID) becomes seen as a legitimate option for mental suffering. He pointed to the Werther Effect, a phenomenon that refers to a rise in suicides after publicized reports of celebrity deaths by suicide. Rates of suicide in jurisdictions that have legalized doctor-assisted death “have risen much faster after it was legalized than before,” he said.  “Suicide contagion is a well-proven reality. Don’t pretend that it won’t happen in Canada,” he said. The committee has heard conflicting testimony over the safety of expanding MAID eligibility to those with mental illness alone, including over whether, or how, a mental disorder could be considered incurable.  Maher, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health, works with specialized teams that treat the most severe mental illnesses.  “For the last 23 years I’ve treated patients that other psychiatrists told me could not get better and they get better,” he told the committee.  “Suffering can always be reduced…. There is absolutely no such thing as ‘everything has been tried,'” he said...  “People need lifeguards, not someone to push you under,” he said.  Maher rejected the argument by MAID proponents that a request for assisted death is well thought out while true suicides are impulsive.  “Decades of suicide research put the lie to this: 80 per cent of suicide attempters thoughtfully plan their suicides,” he said.  “MAID is suicide par excellence, like having a wedding planner to make it all as easy as possible, even with same-day service.” At times, requests for MAID are made urgently: In 2023, 54 requests for same day assessments and provision (less than 24 hours) were reported in Ontario, and 154 provisions occurred the day after the MAID request, according to Ontario data.  Conservative MP Andrew Lawton asked Maher, “When you describe mental health as already qualifying people in the eyes of some assessors and providers for MAID, you’re describing criminal misconduct, are you not?”  “I absolutely am,” Maher responded. He said he had a patient with schizophrenia who was approved for MAID based on a treatable skin condition and a sore ankle from not cooperating with physiotherapy for a broken ankle. “That is what’s happening. These are already happening,” he said.  Maher told the committee he tried reporting his concerns with a doctor to a provincial college and was told “until the patient is dead there is no malpractice.”  “My teams are pulling their hair out over people planning to refuse medications so they can get get MAID who would have healed, recovered,” he said.  “I had a patient today (with) schizophrenia very, very cavalierly say if he didn’t get a job and a girlfriend he’s going to get MAID.”"

Canada told mentally ill must be euthanized lest they kill themselves - "Jocelyn Downie, a leading MAID activist since 2004, warned that if the federal government keeps excluding mentally ill Canadians from accessing assisted suicide, the result will be more mentally ill Canadians dying by suicide... The argument is not a new one. In fact, it’s been at the core of the Canadian assisted suicide regime since the beginning... In 2021, she co-authored a paper which argued that suicidal ideation should not disqualify patients from wanting to seek a doctor-assisted death. It argued that suicidality may not even be evidence of mental illness at all."
Why even bother with suicide prevention? Just send everyone who wants to kill himself for MAiD

Families of Canadians who received MAID talk of rushed assessment, not being told of decision: study - "Rushed, incomplete assessments, families kept in the dark, loved ones driven to choose MAID because of unbearable suffering. A new study adds to growing evidence that Canadian families’ experiences with doctor-assisted death are deeply mixed, with some describing the experience as raw, traumatic and surreal — including sometimes oddly “cheerful” providers... In 2021, 61-year-old Alan Nichols, who had a history of depression, was euthanized over the objections of his family and nurse practitioner soon after being hospitalized for a psychiatric episode. The sole condition listed in his MAID application was hearing loss... “Canada is now noted as the fastest growing assisted dying program in the world,” the U of Alberta research team wrote... in some cases the decision for MAID was driven by... feared loss of autonomy, and having to rely on others for daily tasks like bathing or toileting, or the possibility of moving into a nursing home... Some MAID deaths were driven by insufficient home care — “they come when they come but not when you need it,” one family member said — or drawn-out waits to see specialists. “My mom needed psychiatric help,” reads one transcribed interview. “My mom was a victim of a broken healthcare system. My mom had been trying to see specialists for months and months and months (for a brain injury)…. It got to the point she lost all hope. “And so my mom ended her life because of desperation, not anything to do with dignity.” “Although many participants experienced respectful, caring and compassionate interactions with healthcare professionals involved in the MAID process, others did not, adding to already stressful and intense emotions,” the researchers wrote in BMC Palliative Care. Some families described hasty assessments done over Zoom, without deep discussions about alternatives and supports families could offer to help, and “what felt like a rapid assessment-to-provision timeline, which contributed to concerns that MAID may have occurred prematurely.” Canada’s law requires two assessors to agree a person is eligible for MAID. But some families said the second assessor seemed to simply “rubber stamp” the first assessor’s decision. Concerned were raised about the accuracy of assessments, including whether mental health issues were fully addressed. A two-page list compiled by one family of their father’s history of depression, suicidality, personality traits and other suspected mental illnesses was largely ignored... Some participants described dispassionate care and a “cold, uncaring, unempathetic” MAID provider. “Booking our MAID date was like booking a dinner reservation. So, it’s just all very, very, very impersonal.” What one family found most off-putting was that the MAID provider seemed strangely “cheerful about it.”... “MAID policy is often framed as purely about autonomy. But health care has never treated autonomy as absolute,” said Dr. Ramona Coelho, a family physician and member of the Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner’s MAID death review committee. “Most families are not asking for veto power,” she said. “They are asking to share information, to be involved and to know that all safeguards and care options were meaningfully considered.”"
This doesn't stop euthanasia supporters from claiming all of them want to die and they are all suffering from terminal diseases, and only religious extremists oppose euthanasia

Alberta to ban doctors from offering euthanasia before a patient asks — unlike rest of Canada - "Alberta doctors will be explicitly banned from raising assisted death with a patient without the person first bringing it up... Some critics argue that it’s “mind boggling” that, across Canada, medical assistance in dying (MAID) is being presented as a care option. The fear is that initiating a discussion about MAID risks unduly influencing someone to choose it, given doctor-patient power dynamics... That fits with most jurisdictions in the world with legalized euthanasia: The suggestion must come from the person... Ontario family physician Dr. Ramona Coelho said she has witnessed patients being approved for MAID quickly, “without a deep dive of their suffering” or discussions around possible solutions to reduce the suffering... Coelho, who cares for people with complex conditions such as disabilities, mental health issues and chronic pain, said patients have told her they’ve been offered MAID repeatedly, by different people, “and sometimes felt pressured to book MAID assessments.” While it’s not the majority of doctors in MAID practice, it raises patient safety issues, she said. “While these conversations are often framed as compassionate, we have to consider the risks, particularly the risk of discrimination,” Coelho later said in an email. Doctors, like anyone else, can hold both conscious and unconscious biases, she added. “This means certain groups — such as people with disabilities, older adults, racialized communities and women — may be more likely to have MAID raised to them based on assumptions about their quality of life, and discrimination,” Coelho said. “The suggestion that MAID should be put on the table for anyone who might qualify runs counter to the core duty of physicians to respect the standard of care,” said Trudo Lemmens, a University of Toronto professor in health law and policy. “In standard medical practice, physicians must not offer a therapy that comes with significant risks, if other less intrusive means to help the person are available,” he said. “It’s mind boggling that MAID would have to be offered as some form of universal therapy for chronic illness,” Lemmens added. “Imagine what that will mean if suffering from a mental illness is a basis for MAID.” Would a person who has had recurrent cycles of depression be offered MAID at some point, he asked. “It’s perfectly reasonable and in line with suicide prevention if health-care providers are prohibited from bringing up MAID,” Lemmens said."
The pro-euthanasia people are going to be very upset

Andrew Lawton on X - "Psychiatrist promoting expansion of MAID to people with mental illness says depression or an eating disorder could qualify someone for assisted death."
From Mona Gupta
The "myth" of the slippery slope strikes again

B.C. woman claims she was offered MAID in Vancouver hospital before other treatments - "A B.C. senior is speaking out after a simple trip to an emergency department last year, she says, took an unsettling turn.  For 83-year-old Miriam Lancaster, the experience started as she was getting out of bed one morning.  “I put my foot on the floor and had such excruciating and unusual pain that I called out,” said Lancaster. Paramedics rushed Lancaster to Vancouver General Hospital, but when she arrived, she claims the initial treatment offered to her by a young doctor came as a shock.  “The admitting staff in the ER had whistled me into a bed, and she was the first medical person questioning me, and that’s where it all started,” said Lancaster.  She says the doctor began asking about medical assistance in dying (MAID)...   Lancaster, who declined MAID, says doctors later identified the pain as a fractured sacrum — a bone in the base of the spine which is treated through bed rest...  the Alberta provincial government introduced a new bill to implement safeguards around MAID and provide new frameworks to protect vulnerable individuals.  Lancaster says the same legislation should be considered in B.C.  “Hospitals should review their policy and not be so hasty to offer MAID,” she said...   A 2025 Statistics Canada report on MAID found B.C. was among the provinces with the most MAID provisions"

B.C. woman offered assisted suicide for fractured hip bone : r/ilovebcsub - "The Supreme Court determining that the 'right to life' in the charter meant the right to death was peak stupidity. Time to clean house."

Kari Bundy - Health Activist | Facebook - "🚨 An 84-year-old Canadian woman says she was offered medical assistance in dying (MAiD) almost immediately after arriving at Vancouver General Hospital, before any doctor had asked about her symptoms or attempted a diagnosis. The patient, who asked to be identified only as Miriam, described the experience in a recent interview with Amanda Achtman, founder of the Dying to Meet You Project.  Last year she woke up in severe pain and was unable to get out of bed.  Her daughter called an ambulance, and Miriam was taken to the hospital for evaluation. According to Miriam, a young doctor came to her bedside and, in her words, "the very first words out of her mouth [were]: 'We would like to offer you MAiD.'"  Miriam said she was stunned. "That was the last thing on my mind! I just wanted to find out why I was in pain! I did not want to die!" She had not requested assisted dying, discussed it with anyone, or been told she had a terminal condition.  After a month in the hospital, Miriam recovered fully.  She has since traveled to Cuba, Mexico, and Guatemala, describing her recovery as "amazing" and saying there was "no need for MAiD to even be suggested." The account has renewed debate over how MAiD, Canada's government-regulated euthanasia and assisted suicide program, is presented to patients, especially older adults in acute distress.  Critics cite reports of unsolicited offers and argue the system sometimes positions assisted death as an early option rather than a last resort.  Supporters say MAiD provides compassionate choice for those suffering intolerably. Conservative MP Garnett Genuis has introduced Bill C-260, the Preventing Coercion of Persons Not Seeking Medical Assistance in Dying Act.  The private member's bill would amend the Criminal Code to prohibit certain individuals, particularly those in positions of authority outside direct clinical care, from initiating discussions about MAiD with people who have not expressly requested the conversation. Miriam's story, shared through Achtman's advocacy work, joins other similar accounts that have surfaced in recent months.  It raises questions about safeguards, informed consent, and whether fiscal pressures in the healthcare system influence how end-of-life options are presented. Cases like this highlight the ongoing tension in Canada between expanding access to MAiD and protecting vulnerable patients from undue influence.  As the program continues to evolve, stories from patients and families are prompting calls for clearer boundaries in medical practice. What are your thoughts on unsolicited MAiD offers in acute care settings?"

Alberta seeks to set limits on use of medically assisted dying - "Alberta has proposed a bill that would limit the use of medically assisted dying - also known as voluntary euthanasia - in the Canadian province solely to end-of-life circumstances... Alberta is the first jurisdiction in Canada to independently propose limits to the practice.  Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, said during a news conference on Wednesday that Maid should only be an option for those with no hope of recovery... The proposed seeks to prohibit doctors from unilaterally raising Maid with patients and banning its public advertising in healthcare facilities. It would also enshrine conscience protections for healthcare professionals and institutions."
This is why left wingers hate Alberta so much. Best quote: "Being alive is a terminal illness"
Left wingers usually defend euthanasia claiming that it's only for those who are going to die already. I guess the cognitive dissonance to claim that in response to this article was too much, even for them

Canada: Man gets next-day assisted death after alcohol-related falls - "A Canadian man who was hospitalised due to repeated alcohol-related falls had his life ended by assisted dying the day after having virtual eligibility assessments, despite no clinical investigations and no terminal diagnosis.   An official report by the Chief Coroner of Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying Death Review Committee (MDRC) highlighted that the man, known as Mr A, had previously been found ineligible to end his life under Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide regime because he did not have a “grievous and irremediable condition”.   The report states that Mr A developed covid approximately a month after his prior assisted death assessment, but was showing “no significant impact to his function or ability to live independently”. During this period, Mr A was suffering from alcohol use disorder.   Just over a month later, Mr A was admitted to the hospital due to what the attending practitioner referred to as falls that were “precipitated by alcohol use and decreased oral intake of other fluids”. Shortly afterwards, he was voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric unit in a care institution; following a psychiatric assessment, this status became an involuntary admission.   During his psychiatric admission, Mr A experienced a functional decline and repeatedly expressed a wish to die, expressing significant pain in his upper arm.   Mr A asked to be provided with state assistance in ending his own life. He received two virtual eligibility assessments by phone, one after the other, which the inpatient treatment team was not made aware of, and was found to be eligible due to a presumptive diagnosis of complications following covid and possible heart failure, though no additional clinical investigations took place.   Immediately following the assessments, Mr A was transferred to a hospital, where he was found to have a dislocated shoulder, which was subsequently stabilised.  The next day, Mr A was discharged from the hospital and ended his life with the assistance of the state...   According to the report, most members of the MDRC agreed that the short turnaround time between Mr A’s virtual eligibility assessments and an assisted death “did not promote a quality approach” to assisted dying. They argued that a short timeline like this does not allow for adequate investigation of an individual’s conditions or collaboration with a treatment team, evidenced by the fact Mr A’s treatment team were not aware of his over-the-phone assessments. They also argued that this does not allow for alternative care options to be offered."
Clearly, upper arm pain is a terminal disease

Shocking report exposes terrifying reality of assisted suicide in Canada - "In one shocking case, a woman in her 80s, only referred to as Mrs. B, had her life ended under the country’s euthanasia program despite withdrawing her request — when her husband and caregiver requested it again on her behalf.  The woman, who suffered from chronic complications following coronary artery bypass graft surgery, was receiving palliative care support at home when she told her family that she wanted to end her life through the MAiD program.  She then informed her assessor that she “wanted to withdraw her request, citing personal and religious values and beliefs,” according to the report. Her spouse then requested another euthanasia assessment, which deemed Mrs. B eligible despite her expressed desire to opt for palliative care instead.  A third assessor confirmed the second assessor’s approval, and Mrs. B received MAiD the same day. MAiD was passed in 2016 and originally required a 10-day waiting period between a request for assisted suicide and the act of euthanasia. This requirement was removed in 2021 by Canada’s parliament for those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable,” despite concerns that patients would opt for same-day suicides because it was quicker than accessing high-quality palliative care...   Critics have held up Mrs. B’s case as evidence that patients are being given same-day euthanasia because it is easier for doctors to arrange than end-of-life care, and families are taking it due to caregiver burnout.   Mrs. B was granted same-day euthanasia, despite her first assisted suicide practitioner having “concerns regarding the necessity for ‘urgency’ and… the seemingly drastic change in perspective of end-of-life goals, and the possibility of coercion or undue influence (i.e., due to caregiver burnout),” the MDRC’s report stated. “The focus [in this case] should have been on ensuring adequate palliative care and support for Mrs. B and her spouse. Hospice and palliative care teams should have been urgently re-engaged, given the severity of the situation,” Dr. Ramona Coelho of the MDRC said.  It is the latest troubling incident under Canada’s euthanasia program, which many say is targeting so-called “burdensome” groups such as the elderly and disabled.  The policy was described as “probably the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis’ program in Germany in the 1930s,” by Tim Stainton, director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship at the University of British Columbia in 2022."
Clearly, euthanising her was the right decision, because she had been brainwashed by religious extremists into withdrawing her MAiD request!

200+ Ontario residents were approved for assisted suicide on the same or next day in 2023 - "Assisted suicide became even easier to get after Liberals passed Bill C-7, which got rid of a mandatory 10-day reflection time before someone could have themselves killed by euthanasia.  A report has highlighted just how prevalent euthanasia has become in Canada’s largest province of Ontario, noting that, of the thousands who died from assisted suicide, some 200 died from the procedure after getting same-day or next-day approval.  The 2024 report from the “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID) Death Review Committee (MDRC) of Ontario noted how, in 2023, a total of 219 Ontarians were asked to die by euthanasia and then were given quick approval, under what is known as Track 1.  Track 1 rules stipulate that a person has to have a reasonably foreseeable death.  Of the quick assisted suicide approvals, 30 percent of them chose to die the same day, records show.   Highlighted was a case of a man, known as Mr. C, in his 70s with cancer. He asked for assisted suicide, and five days later, he was placed in the hospital.  While in the hospital, his condition worsened to the point that he could not speak clearly. The person who was the assisted suicide practitioner tried to “vigorously rouse” him to get him to consent to being killed. This was after holding his sedation for 45 minutes.  He was killed later that day.  According to some members of the MDRC, not giving the man sedation for 45 minutes was “insufficient time for medication clearance.”  There are many cases like Mr. C in Ontario, according to the report. Assisted suicide became even easier to get after Bill C-7 came to light, which got rid of a mandatory 10-day reflection time before someone could die by euthanasia...   Euthanasia is now the sixth-highest cause of death in Canada, after it was not listed in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.  In 2021, the federal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expanded euthanasia from killing “terminally ill” patients to allowing the “chronically ill” to qualify after the passage of Bill C-7. Since then, the government has sought to include those suffering solely from mental illness."

Links - 31st August 2026 (1 - Covid-19)

Vaccine passports: Threat to liberty or the only way out of lockdown? - "“If you look at some of the language used even during the convoy, it was ethics language. It was informed consent; it was around freedom and liberty and coercion,” said co-author Maxwell Smith, director of Western University’s Centre for Bioethics.  “These are profoundly ethical ideas. We need to confront that these are the sorts of concerns that people have and motivate things like the convoy. We need to get ahead of them to actually ask: were these measures coercive? Do they infringe on freedom in a way that we think is unethical or unjust?”... Smith and his colleagues propose that as three factors increase  — pathogenicity, meaning the ability of the virus to harm the person infected, the prevalence of the virus itself and the protective effects of any vaccine — so, too, do the justifications for considering vaccine certificates. Lower levels, they said, diminish the justification. In addition, “we then need to determine when we, collectively, think a pathogen is ‘sufficiently’ severe, prevalent, etc to. justify the use of vaccine certificates,” Smith said...  “If we don’t try to answer those questions and maybe try to socialize those answers with the Canadian public, we’ll be facing the exact same protests or confusion or contention with a future threat that we faced during COVID,” Smith said... Critics have called them “scientifically questionable,” polarizing and stigmatizing —  part of far-reaching policies that imposed “the largest infringement on civil rights and liberties in living memory.”  They were originally based on several objectives: prevent transmission and make dining indoors and other gatherings safer, and reduce the burden of illness, disease and death. While the shots reduce the risk of severe outcomes, it became clear they weren’t providing “sterilizing” immunity, meaning complete protection. Vaccinated people could still get infected, and infect others. Immunity wanes over months.  An absence of sterilizing immunity — a vaccine that completely interrupts transmission of the virus — weakens the case for vaccine certificates, the paper says.... How much impact vaccine certificates had during COVID is hard to disentangle, said University of Toronto medical microbiologist and infectious diseases specialist Dr. Allison McGeer...  One study estimated that 290,168 additional people in Canada received their first dose in the seven weeks after provinces announced proof-of-vaccination polices, “a 17.5 per cent increase over the number of vaccinations estimated in the absence of these policies.” But it was short lived: Uptake returned to “preannouncement levels,” or lower, within six weeks. The mandates remained in place for at least four months... they said it isn’t enough to satisfy the three conditions set out in their paper alone. Other considerations  include whether the use of vaccine certificates “represents a tolerable approach to balancing public health aims with individual liberty and autonomy.”  “Questions such as this cannot be answered by science alone,” the paper reads. “Determining the point at which benefits are sufficient to justify proof-of-vaccination requirements requires making value judgments about what outcomes matter most (and for whom), what measures are necessary (and for whom) and whether those measures are proportionate or legitimate.”"
Covid vaccines didn't reduce transmission, so.

Covid vaccines may have helped fuel rise in excess deaths - "Covid vaccines could be partly to blame for the rise in excess deaths since the pandemic, scientists have suggested.  Researchers from The Netherlands analysed data from 47 Western countries and discovered there had been more than three million excess deaths since 2020, with the trend continuing despite the rollout of vaccines and containment measures.  They said the “unprecedented” figures “raised serious concerns” and called on governments to fully investigate the underlying causes, including possible vaccine harms.  Writing in the BMJ Public Health, the authors from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, said: “Although Covid-19 vaccines were provided to guard civilians from suffering morbidity and mortality by the Covid-19 virus, suspected adverse events have been documented as well.  “Both medical professionals and citizens have reported serious injuries and deaths following vaccination to various official databases in the Western World.”  They added: “During the pandemic, it was emphasised by politicians and the media on a daily basis that every Covid-19 death mattered and every life deserved protection through containment measures and Covid-19 vaccines. In the aftermath of the pandemic, the same moral should apply.”   The study found that across Europe, the US and Australia there had been more than one million excess deaths in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, but also 1.2 million in 2021 and 800,000 and 2022 after measures were implemented.  Researchers said the figure included deaths from Covid-19, but also the “indirect effects of the health strategies to address the virus spread and infection”.  They warned that side effects linked to the Covid vaccine had included ischaemic stroke, acute coronary syndrome and brain haemorrhage, cardiovascular diseases, coagulation, haemorrhages, gastrointestinal events and blood clotting. German researchers have pointed out that the onset of excess mortality in early 2021 in the country coincided with the rollout of vaccines, which the team said “warranted further investigation”... Researchers said that it was “likely” that the impact of containment measures, restricted healthcare and socioeconomic upheaval during the pandemic had contributed to deaths, although accepted that was difficult to prove.  Gordon Wishart, chief medical officer at Check4Cancer, and visiting professor of cancer surgery at Anglia Ruskin University, warned repeatedly that delaying cancer diagnosis would lead to deaths.  “It was predicted early in the lockdown period that limited access to healthcare for non-Covid conditions would lead to delays in the diagnosis and treatment of time-critical conditions such as cancer, cardiac disease, diabetes and dementia and that this would lead to excess deaths from these conditions,” he said.  NHS England data shows that per 100,000 people the cancer incidence was 521 in the pre-lockdown year, then fell to 456 in 2020-2021, suggesting around 45,000 cancers were missed in the first pandemic year.  The incidence rate rose to 540 per 100,000 the following year suggesting many cancers were diagnosed late, when treatment would be less effective.  Speaking about the potential for vaccine harm, Mr Wishart added: “The authors are correct to point out that many vaccine-related serious adverse events may have been unreported, and point to the fact that the simultaneous onset of excess mortality and Covid vaccination in Germany is worthy of further investigation on its own."

Primary school teacher, 50, pretended she had COVID after killing cheating boyfriend during sex game - and used 10 day isolation from 'illness' to bury him in the backyard, court hears - "Fiona Beal, 50, lured builder Nick Billingham into the bedroom for sex then knifed him in the neck when he was tied to the bed on November 1, 2021... His mummified body was found four months later wrapped in sheeting in a makeshift grave after Beal's journals - where she plotted the killing as her alter ego 'Tulip22' - were found by police, it was said.  Beal then spent months using her partner's phone to message his friends and relatives pretending he was still alive and had moved in with another woman"

Hospital exhausted blood supply trying to save wellness influencer’s life after free birth, Victorian coroner hears - "A hospital exhausted its supply of a wellness influencer’s blood type in an unsuccessful attempt to save her life as she bled uncontrollably after a free birth at home, a court has been told. Stacey Warnecke, 30, was with her husband, Nathan Warnecke, and unregulated doula Emily Lal when she delivered her son at her Melbourne home... Warnecke’s death was reported to police and Nathan Warnecke provided a statement to detectives, but Lal refused. When officers went to examine Warnecke’s home the next day, they also found the house had been extensively cleaned by Lal. Warnecke elected not to receive any health care during her pregnancy, including declining ultra sounds and appointments with a midwife or obstetrician. She wanted to give birth at home and contacted Lal, who also promoted herself as a free birth “keeper” on social media... Warnecke’s interactions with Lal will form part of the coroner’s investigation into her death, Ellyard said. The 30-year-old’s thoughts on the healthcare system, the decisions around her birth plan and broader attitudes following the Covid-19 pandemic will also be examined in a future inquest. The court was told Warnecke was a qualified nutritionist who promoted a healthy and “chemical-free” lifestyle on social media. It appeared she was profoundly affected by the Covid mandates and those concerns influenced her decision-making during pregnancy and birth, Ellyard said. Victoria’s health complaints commissioner announced in October it was investigating Lal over allegations she was facilitating or participating in home births that could put mothers and babies at risk."
Time to mock her for being alienated from the healthcare system by the politicization of covid at the same time as ritual flagellation about how structural racism alienates minorities from the same system

Meme - "Screw ur rights" "Force vaxx now" "Kill unvaxed" "Take their kids" "Comply or die"
"5 minutes later
AT NO POINT IN HISTORY HAVE THE PEOPLE FORCING OTHERS INTO COMPLIANCE BEEN THE GOOD GUYS."

Meme - Skeletor: "The same people that said just wear the mask and follow the rules. Are now calling people bootlickers
Untill we meet again."

Simon Maechling on X - "The collapse of trust in science is going to go down in history as one of the most sad, bizarre, and destructive social contagions of modern times. We cured diseases, fed billions, and powered nations - and people ran toward conspiracies instead."
Sunny on X - "One of the chief turning points will have been when leading scientists were explaining why it was too dangerous for grandma to have a funeral but not too dangerous for thousands of BLM protesters to gather at a protest."
Amy Curtis on X - "My dad couldn’t have a funeral. That summer, George Floyd had three. If anyone doesn’t think that fundamentally changed how I see everything, they’re sorely mistaken."

Meme - Lars McMurtry @larsmcmurtry: "The CDC should roll out a new program: Get the shot or get shot. The unvaccinated need to be rounded up and lined up in front of open trenches. Their choice is simple. America has had enough of their virus. We need to get back to normal life. With or without them."

Meme - Benjamin Ryan @benryanwriter: "In his new book, Summer of Our Discontent, Thomas Chatterton Williams argues that a major turning point in 2020 that catalyzed mistrust among many Americans toward public health experts was when many such experts said that social distancing was vital except for BLM protests. The argument they made, that racism was a public health crisis that superseded the imperative to fight the spread of Covid, rang hollow for many people, Williams argues, and helped catalyze a backlash that has given rise to such scientific iconoclasts as RFK Jr."
Thomas Chatterton Williams @thomaschattwill: "How can the Bluesky bubble be this airtight?"
Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social: "I've never seen such a disconnect between Dem elected/staff/consultants and actual Dem voters.  The latter understand what's going on.  The former are awash in right-wing brainrot, hence @schatz.bsky.social blaming COVID mitigation and BLM marches for the GOP's wanton destruction of public health."

Alberta’s top doctor is misleading public about COVID with irresponsible tweets - "Dr. Hinshaw tweeted that "there are currently 760 people in hospital with 149 people in ICU" but she omits the highly relevant facts that Alberta has over 8,300 hospital beds, and that Alberta's total ICU capacity is more than 1,000... Dr. Hinshaw's tweets suggest that it's unusual for hospitals to be overrun by patients, when in fact "hallway medicine" has been a sad-but-common feature of Canadian health care for many years. Politicians have refused for decades to address the gross mismanagement of health care dollars by an unresponsive and utterly unaccountable government monopoly. Pretending that hospital over-crowding is a new phenomenon caused by COVID-19 is misleading.  Government officials like Dr. Hinshaw now tell us that hospital overcrowding is the fault of those who protect their human dignity by exercising their Charter freedoms to do things like having Christmas dinner with family and friends, worshipping together with fellow believers, and playing outdoor hockey.  Dr. Hinshaw offers no explanation as to why hospital capacity was not increased in the past eight months, even though government officials have been warning about a "second wave" for many months. Dr. Hinshaw misleads Albertans by blaming a potential shortage of hospital capacity on good citizens who preserve their mental health by socializing with each other, rather than placing blame on government officials, where it belongs.  On December 18, Dr. Hinshaw tweeted about "1,286 new cases of COVID-19" but failed to mention that the vast majority of these "cases" concern healthy people who simply had a positive PCR test, the reliability of which is in dispute, with the number of false positives as high as 90 percent... Dr. Hinshaw fails to explain that her so-called "active" cases consist almost entirely of healthy people without symptoms. Dr. Hinshaw fails to point out that, until our Charter rights and freedoms were taken away from us in March of 2020, a "case" of something referred to a person who was actually sick. This is still how most people interpret the word "case." Daily reporting on "cases" of healthy people, based on unreliable testing of asymptomatic Albertans, is simply fearmongering, and is highly misleading.  On December 17, Dr. Hinshaw tweeted that 790 Albertans had died "as a result of COVID-19" but her tweet fails to mention that 97 percent of these people had comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cancer, stroke, liver cirrhosis, chronic kidney disease, immune-deficiency, congestive heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases.   Dr. Hinshaw's tweets fail to mention that more than three quarters of the alleged "COVID-19 deaths" are amongst people who had three or more of these serious underlying illnesses. Amongst the more than 20,000 Albertans who have died in the past nine months, 20 of them (one tenth of one percent) died of the virus alone, while 99.9 percent died of one or more other causes. To claim that elderly people who are dying of cancer, COPD, and various liver, kidney and heart diseases are dying "as a result of COVID-19" is misleading.  On December 20, Dr. Hinshaw tweeted that she was "sad to report an additional 10 deaths" from COVID-19, but makes no reference to the other 490 Albertans who also died in the preceding week, or to the more than 2,000 Albertans who died in the preceding month, or to the more than 27,000 Albertans who have died in the past year. Every death is sad.   Why not mention the more than 26,000 Albertans who died of other causes in the past year, including those who died because Dr. Hinshaw cancelled their medically necessary surgeries, or because she delayed their cancer diagnosis until it was too late? Dr. Hinshaw speaks as though nobody ever dies. Failing to place deaths from one virus into their relevant context is misleading.  On December 15, Dr. Hinshaw reported on 11 new deaths but failed to mention that there were zero deaths amongst children, teenagers and adults under 23.   Dr. Hinshaw's tweets don't mention that 86 percent of the alleged "COVID-19 deaths" are amongst those 70 and older. In her tweets, Dr. Hinshaw completely ignores Years of Life Lost which is the relevant factor used by doctors and scientists to assess how serious a disease actually is.  The impact of COVID-19 on Years of Life Lost is negligible. In contrast, cancer has a huge impact on Years of Life Lost because it impacts large numbers of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s. But cancer now often goes undiagnosed because governments have cancelled MRIs and CT scans by lockdown measures.  Worse yet, the Alberta government is making no attempt to track how many Albertans have died or suffered permanent health damage after lockdown measures cancelled more than 20,000 surgeries in March and April. Suicides and drug overdoses, both on the rise because of lockdown measures, have a far greater impact on Years of Life Lost than any virus.  In spite of these facts, Dr. Hinshaw appears to be shocked when people in their 80s and 90s die from their numerous, pre-existing, fatal diseases and chronic conditions. Further, Dr. Hinshaw says nothing about the deaths resulting from her lockdown measures, and this silence is misleading."
From 2020. A good illustration of how out of context numbers were used to fan covid hysteria

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH on X - "🚨BREAKING: Our CENSORED Study Showing mRNA Injections Induce SEVERE Genetic Disruption Linked to Cancer and Chronic Disease Is Now Peer-Reviewed and Published We declare a MAJOR victory against the Academic Journal Cartel and their PubPeer Mob enforcement apparatus..."
Synthetic messenger RNA vaccines and transcriptomic dysregulation: Evidence from new-onset adverse events and cancers post-vaccination - "Shared and distinct molecular signatures in both cohorts demonstrate underlying mechanisms contributing to post-vaccine symptomatology and complications, including oncogenesis and or progression of malignant disease. These findings underscore the need for a deeper investigation into the long-term safety of mRNA vaccines and host response variability. "

Conor Friedersdorf on X - "A question for everyone: survey data suggests that by the end of the Covid-19 emergency trust in public health institutions had decreased significantly. If you are among the people who reacted that way, why specifically? I'm hoping for long, diverse, individualized answers."
Daniel Friedman on X - "The most radicalizing moment for most people was when the same officials who had kept children out of school for three months, destroyed millions of American businesses, closed all the churches and even banned outdoor funerals suddenly endorsed mass gatherings for George Floyd, and said that people had to weigh the public health dangers of Covid against the public health dangers of racism.  But public health officials have done a number of other things over the last few years that damaged their professional reputations and eroded the public trust in and authority of their institutions.    Here are several:
1.) They went all in on transgender ideology: In less than a decade, the number of clinics offering transgender treatment to children increased more than 100 fold.    These treatments have never been demonstrated effective for resolving symptoms of any medical condition to a level that would allow them to be approved for these uses by the FDA.  All of these treatments are off-label and untested.  Public health authorities endorsed and even insisted upon their spread, with disastrous results for many vulnerable people.  Leaders of medical and public health organizations were all over the media claiming there was no medically discernible difference between men and women, that there was no biological reason men shouldn’t play in women’s sports and that men could become women — all things ordinary people could easily perceive were false.  Putting the imprimatur of “the science” on these claims didn’t legitimize transgenderism, it undermined trust in science.
2.) Racial rationing of medical care: Since many conservatives turned against Covid vaccines in their entirety, a lot of people don’t remember their controversial rollout, but the way they handled this is a big part of the reason why I personally believe that our public health system is worse than total chaos or nothing at all and support RFK Jr. wreaking havoc and gutting these agencies.  By the time the vaccines were ready for distribution, we knew who was at greatest risk from Covid: The sick, people with chronic conditions and especially the elderly.  The CDC’s problem was that the most vulnerable Americans were disproportionately white.  So instead of prioritizing the old, public health officials at the CDC opted to give the vaccine to “essential workers.”  Which workers did the CDC say were essential? Those in fields with a lot of black people.  In New York, for the first few weeks the vaccine was available, it was only for people who lived in certain zip codes.  Guess which ones. Similar policies were in place in a number of other cities  This woke decisionmaking process killed thousands of people. CDC officials don’t just deserve to be fired; a lot of them should be in prison.
3.) Monkeypox: Monkeypox is a contagious disease that is painful, disfiguring and in some cases deadly.  It is mostly seen in Africa, but in 2022-23, there was a major outbreak in the US with nearly 35,000 cases.   This virus is spread through contact with bodily fluids. Specifically: 99% of monkeypox cases are reported in men and 94% of them occur in men who have had recent male-to-male sexual contact.  The CDC declared monkeypox a public health emergency. What they wouldn’t declare was who was getting it or how it was transmitted. Their messaging was extremely obtuse on this, because they did not want to associate the disease with gay sex for fear of causing stigma.  So Americans who were not at risk were wondering if they should keep their kids home and avoid public toilets while gay sex parties that were superspreader events continued to occur without objection from public health authorities. The CDC would not even advise sexually active gay men to get a vaccine, and many did not.  Instead, they changed the name of the disease to “mpox” because “monkeypox” sounded racist."

Black Lives Matter Union Boss Dismisses Children Failing to Learn ‘Times Tables’ - "United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) President Cecily Myart-Cruz told Los Angeles Magazine (LAmag) children did not experience “learning loss” during the pandemic school closures, because they learned the words “insurrection” and “coup.”... '“There is no such thing as learning loss,” she responds when asked how her insistence on keeping L.A.’s schools mostly locked down over the last year and a half may have impacted the city’s 600,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade students. “Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.” She even went so far as to suggest darkly that “learning loss” is a fake crisis marketed by shadowy purveyors of clinical and classroom assessments.'
Under Myart-Cruz, LAmag reported, teachers’ salaries and working conditions are no longer the sole focus of UTLA.  Since she assumed her post in 2020, “that purview has been expanded to include a breathtaking range of far-flung progressive issues: racial justice, Medicare for all, the millionaire tax, financial support for undocumented families, rental and eviction relief—over the last 15 months, UTLA has championed them all.”  Additionally, in June, UTLA announced its members will vote in September on a declaration to call for an end of the United States government’s aid to Israel... UTLA also called for Los Angeles to defund police in order to free up funds to reopen schools safely...   “Education is political,” she told LAmag. “People don’t want to say that, but it is.”"
From 2021

Deaths “due to” COVID-19 and deaths “with” COVID-19 during the Omicron variant surge, among hospitalized patients in seven tertiary-care hospitals, Athens, Greece | Scientific Reports - "In Greek hospitals, all deaths with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test are counted as COVID-19 deaths. Our aim was to investigate whether COVID-19 was the primary cause of death, a contributing cause of death or not-related to death amongst patients who died in hospitals during the Omicron surge and were registered as COVID-19 deaths. Additionally, we aimed to analyze the factors associated with the classification of these deaths. We retrospectively re-viewed all in-hospital deaths, that were reported as COVID-19 deaths, in 7 hospitals, serving Athens, Greece, from January 1, 2022, until August 31, 2022. We retrieved clinical and laboratory data from patient records. Each death reported as COVID-19 death was characterized as: (A) death “due to” COVID-19, or (B) death “with” COVID-19. We reviewed 530 in-hospital deaths, classified as COVID-19 deaths (52.4% males; mean age 81.7 ± 11.1 years). We categorized 290 (54.7%) deaths as attributable or related to COVID-19 and in 240 (45.3%) deaths unrelated to COVID-19 In multivariable analysis The two groups differed significantly in age (83.6 ± 9.8 vs. 79.9 ± 11.8, p = 0.016), immunosuppression history (11% vs. 18.8%, p = 0.027), history of liver disease (1.4% vs. 8.4%, p = 0.047) and the presence of COVID-19 symptoms (p < 0.001). Hospital stay was greater in persons dying from non-COVID-19 related causes. Among 530 in-hospital deaths, registered as COVID-19 deaths, in seven hospitals in Athens during the Omicron wave, 240 (45.28%) were reassessed as not directly attributable to COVID-19. Accuracy in defining the cause of death during the COVID-19 pandemic is of paramount importance for surveillance and intervention purposes."
Weird. We were told that it was a conspiracy theory to claim that covid deaths were overcounted and that deaths with covid were not the same as deaths of covid. Time to ban the journal Scientific Reports for spreading dangerous misinformation that will lead to deaths and to censure Nature for publishing it

Michael Shermer on X - "Jay puts the Lab Leak hypothesis at a Bayesian ~90:10 whereas I put it ~80:20 (can't trust Chinese information) but why was the possibility censored in the first place? Gain of function research has been ongoing for decades. If it's a bad idea then lesson learned. Censorship bad!"

The Murder of Brigitte Stegemann

Damn far right conservative Christian extremists who just want terminally ill people to suffer!

Brigitte Frances Kranendonk | Facebook

Our Family's Experience with Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)

 

This is our family's account of the systemic failures, lack of transparency, and profound procedural violations we witnessed during the final days of our beloved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Brigitte Stegemann, whom we lovingly called "GG."

 

We are sharing our story because what happened in GG's case was a severe breach of medical ethics, informed consent, and basic human dignity. Decisions of this magnitude demand absolute transparency, strict adherence to legal safeguards, and the meaningful involvement of designated family advocates. In GG’s case, the system failed on every single one of these fronts.

 

Everything that follows is a truthful account of how the care home and the attending physician systematically bypassed our family, ignored our legal standing, and pushed forward with ending GG's life against her previously stated wishes.

 

Background

Brigitte Stegemann ("GG") passed away through the MAID program on Friday, July 10, 2026.

 

GG was the mother of two children, Fritz and Karin. For more than twelve years, her granddaughter, Brigitte (who shares her name), devoted herself to GG's care and advocacy. Brigitte held legal Power of Attorney (POA) and served as the primary contact for all medical and personal care decisions.

 

Approximately five months before her death, GG was diagnosed with untreatable Stage IV stomach cancer. For the last two years of her life, she resided at the long-term care facility.

 

Throughout her stay, Brigitte was contacted frequently by the home—often every day or every other day—to make decisions regarding GG's care. Whether the matter involved medications, treatments, appointments, or other aspects of daily living, the staff consistently relied on Brigitte to make or assist with important decisions on GG's behalf.

 

Approximately two months before GG's death, a meeting was held to discuss the possibility of MAID. At that time, GG clearly stated that she did not wish to pursue it. As a devout Christian, she explicitly expressed that MAID conflicted with her personal beliefs and faith.

 

Shortly afterward, Brigitte and her husband, Robert, left on a planned vacation. During their 10-day absence, Karin and her husband, Dave, visited GG regularly to ensure she was not alone.

 

Although Brigitte continued receiving frequent phone calls from the care home about routine decisions while she was away, she was never informed that additional discussions regarding MAID were taking place privately with GG. Instead, she was only advised that another formal meeting concerning MAID had been scheduled for after her return.

 

This blatant omission was the first major warning sign for our family. Given Brigitte's long-standing role as GG's advocate and Power of Attorney, it is indefensible that discussions about such a life-altering decision occurred entirely behind her back during that brief 10-day window, despite the home's daily communication with her on far less significant matters.

 

The MAID Meetings

During the final five days before Brigitte and Robert returned from vacation, Karin and Dave continued visiting GG regularly at the care home.

 

During those visits, they found her to be extremely weak and largely unresponsive. She would briefly awaken, sometimes only long enough to say her daughter's name, before drifting back to sleep. Because GG was completely deaf in her left ear and had very limited hearing in her right, communication was extremely difficult. Although her eyes were often open, she appeared to be looking past visitors rather than engaging in conversation. Dave shared his concerns with the rest of the family; based on what he had witnessed, he believed GG was nearing the natural end of her life regardless of medical intervention.

 

Monday, July 6, 2026

Our family attended the scheduled MAID meeting expecting to discuss the process with GG's physician.

 

To our surprise, GG appeared dramatically different from how she had only days earlier. She was sitting upright in bed, talking, smiling, and interacting. When Dave playfully pinched her toes, she laughed and raised her hands as though she wanted to box with him. Seeing such a sudden, dramatic improvement left us confused and raised serious questions about why she had appeared so heavily sedated during the previous several days.

 

Driven by deep suspicion over this inexplicable turnaround, Brigitte later requested GG’s Medication Administration Record (MAR) log on Wednesday to audit her chemical baseline. Surprisingly, the facility’s official records reflected that the exact same dosage of medication had been administered every single day. This left our family with a profound contradiction: either the home's paperwork did not accurately reflect what was actually being injected into her system, or the clinical team had actively exploited a brief, completely anomalous window of temporary alertness to rush through a permanent evaluation that entirely misrepresented GG's true, unresponsive everyday baseline.

 

Before the physician arrived, an administrator and a registered nurse from the facility entered the room and advised us that the doctor was running behind schedule.

 

During this conversation, which took place entirely inside GG's room in her immediate presence, Brigitte asked who had arranged the MAID meeting. No clear answer was ever given. Instead, the family was met with an immediate wall of defensiveness, specifically from the registered nurse. The nurse informed the family that staff had met privately with GG on two occasions during Brigitte's 10-day vacation to discuss MAID.

 

Brigitte asked why those discussions had been initiated when GG had previously declined MAID due to her Christian beliefs. She asked point-blank whether these conversations were initiated by GG herself or by the facility staff.

 

The registered nurse became physically agitated and defensive, wagging her head back and forth as she spoke directly to Brigitte, stating, "I'm advocating for her."

 

When Brigitte pushed further to find out exactly who brought up the conversation about MAID, the nurse snapped, "I don't need to tell you anything."

 

Brigitte countered that she had served as GG's advocate for over a decade, held Power of Attorney, and visited consistently, noting that she had never once encountered this particular nurse during her frequent visits. As the interaction grew increasingly hostile, Brigitte finally stated, "I don't understand where this attitude is coming from."

 

The nurse snapped back, "Well, you have attitude." At that point, Brigitte told the nurse she needed to leave the room and return only when she was composed. The nurse scoffed and stormed out.

 

As family members preparing to discuss the impending death of our grandmother, we found this volatile, unprofessional behaviour from a staff member completely unacceptable, particularly because this aggressive argument was brought directly into GG's room where she could see and hear the distress it was causing.

 

After the nurse left, the administrator remained. Brigitte explained that our family did not support MAID in GG's circumstances and expressed serious concerns that GG was not mentally capable of making such a significant decision independently. GG had lived for many years with what our family knew to be a lifelong, undiagnosed developmental or cognitive disability (which we suspected may have been on the autism spectrum), which deeply affected her processing, understanding, and decision-making.

 

The administrator then explained that the doctor would eventually need to be in the room completely private with GG. The administrator added, "Worst case, I can be in the room with her and the doctor." Brigitte immediately spoke up and refused, stating that the meeting should either be strictly between the doctor and GG, or, if any outside staff member was permitted to be present, Brigitte would be in the room as well. Brigitte was deeply concerned that GG would feel intensely pressured, overwhelmed, and cornered if she were outnumbered by authority figures from the facility, ultimately feeling as though she had no choice but to agree to their terms.

 

After waiting approximately ninety minutes, the administrator informed us that the physician could no longer attend due to an unexpected conflict, and the meeting was rescheduled for the following day.

 

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

The following day, we returned for the rescheduled meeting with the attending physician, Dr. K.

 

Dr. K explained that she needed to determine whether GG possessed the capacity to make an informed decision regarding MAID. She began asking GG a series of questions in our presence.

 

What followed was a deeply alarming farce. Because of GG's severe hearing impairment, Dr. K had to repeat her questions several times, but the barrier was far more than physical hearing. Throughout the assessment, GG repeatedly provided objectively incorrect answers to basic, factual questions about her own life and immediate family.

 

When asked if she had any siblings, GG responded that she had none. The family immediately corrected the record, explaining that GG was the second-youngest of fourteen children. Dr. K then asked if any of her siblings were still alive, and GG again answered no. Once more, the family had to intervene and correct the information, explaining that some of her siblings were still living and that GG had spoken to one of them just the previous week. At this point, GG became completely disoriented and distressed. She began to cry, stating, "I forgot about the grandkids," visibly confusing her living siblings with her great-grandkids.

 

In fact, the family had to step in and correct the vast majority of the answers GG gave during the questioning. Brigitte explicitly objected to the evaluation right then and there, questioning Dr. K directly on how GG could possibly be deemed to have the capacity to consent to death when she could not accurately recount the most basic facts of her own family and was actively breaking down in confusion.

 

Despite these clear, undeniable indicators of cognitive disorientation and the family's direct objections, the assessment carried forward anyway.

 

Dr. K then explained MAID to GG in specific terms, describing it, to the best of our recollection, as receiving medication, feeling peace, falling asleep, and explicitly promising GG that she "would not lose control of her bowels." Our family was deeply unsettled by this framing. For an elderly individual of GG's demographic background and cognitive capacity, "medication" was a term conceptually linked entirely to healing, care, and relief. Describing a lethal injection as merely receiving medication—while focusing intensely on her specific, everyday fears of physical indignity—exploited her vulnerability, making it impossible for her to truly grasp that she was consenting to the active termination of her life. Before any further discussion took place, Dr. K instructed all family members to leave the room. Brigitte requested permission to remain, citing her role as long-time advocate and legal Power of Attorney. Her request was flatly denied, and the critical conversation between Dr. K and GG occurred entirely in private.

 

When Dr. K emerged from the room, she addressed the family and stated flatly, "I have deemed her capable of making her own decisions." She then informed us that GG had consented to proceed and that the procedure was scheduled for Friday, July 10, 2026.

 

Dr. K noted that she was required to meet in private because she wanted to ensure there was no underlying pressure or influence from the family. Brigitte challenged this reasoning directly, saying, "Well, we are concerned about pressure and influence from the home. Would that not be a concern of yours as well?"

 

Dr. K brushed the question off, replying that if that was the family's concern, they would have to take it up directly with the home. Brigitte asked why potential outside influence from the facility wouldn't be an automatic clinical concern for the doctor, rather than only suspiciousness directed at the family.

 

Our family left shocked and deeply distressed.

 

The Backwards Paperwork Timeline

What followed this meeting amplified our family's shock and exposed a staggering procedural failure. Legally and structurally, the formal written application for MAID must be signed by the patient and independently witnessed before final clinical assessments take place and a date for death is set.

 

Yet, in GG's case, the timeline was completely inverted. The procedure was scheduled on Tuesday, July 7th. It was only after this date had already been set—and despite the fact that Brigitte and Robert were at the facility visiting GG every single day—that the administration and staff at the care home took it upon themselves to fill out the official MAID paperwork and witness the signature for GG in secret.

 

They did not inform Brigitte that they were generating these legal documents after the fact, nor did they mention that they were actively witnessing them. They completely bypassed the family, executing the legal requests in the shadows despite our constant physical presence at the home. By declaring GG "capable" in that private meeting, the medical team utilized a highly controversial legal loophole within the MAID framework: if a clinician deems a patient mentally capable at the exact moment of an assessment, the patient's immediate voice legally supersedes any pre-existing Power of Attorney or previous directives. The facility used Dr. K's deeply flawed, fifteen-minute evaluation to effectively strip Brigitte of her legal standing as advocate, finalizing the paperwork in the shadows despite our constant physical presence at the home.

 

The Final Days

Following the July 7 meeting, our family struggled immensely to come to terms with what was unfolding.

 

On Wednesday, July 8, before the family went to visit GG, Brigitte received a phone call from the facility advising her that the MAID procedure was being moved ahead by a full day to Thursday, July 9, simply because the physician had an opening in her schedule.

 

Brigitte immediately objected over the phone and stated she was on her way to the facility immediately to discuss the matter. The home claimed that GG had already agreed to move the date.

 

When Brigitte and Robert arrived for their three-hour visit, Brigitte met with the home manager. She expressed how deeply perplexed she was that staff had gone directly to GG to alter the date of her death without consulting her advocate, knowing how many moving parts and final arrangements were still being sorted out. Brigitte stated plainly that the MAID program was being forcefully rammed down the family's throats, while the items of actual importance to GG were being brushed aside. Specifically, GG had consistently and strongly expressed that she wanted to be surrounded by her family during her final moments and desperately wanted her pastor to be present—wishes the care home treated as secondary to the physician's schedule.

 

It was during this exact conversation that the home manager admitted to Brigitte that she herself had personally filled out GG's official MAID application paperwork.

 

The home manager apologized directly to Brigitte for how things had been handled and asked what she could do to make the situation better. Brigitte looked her in the eye and responded plainly, "The damage is already done, and you have taken an awful situation and made it even worse." During this meeting, the manager also confirmed that the hostile registered nurse from Monday's incident had already been officially barred from entering GG's room immediately following the altercation, proving the administration knew the behaviour was entirely indefensible.

 

During the visit that followed, Brigitte sat with her grandmother and asked if she was entirely certain she wanted to go through with this on Friday.

 

GG appeared confused and visibly distressed. She responded with words to the effect of, "I'm going to die Friday? They're going to kill me Friday?" She wept for an extended period, repeatedly stating that she had made a mistake. Brigitte comforted her and reassured her that if she had changed her mind, she had the absolute right to tell the medical team on Friday that she did not want to proceed.

 

Because of the family’s strong opposition and immediate intervention, the facility backed down from moving the timeline, and the original date of Friday, July 10, at 11:00 a.m. was maintained.

 

Friday, July 10, 2026

Our family arrived at the care home at approximately 9:00 a.m. Rather than remaining inside the clinical walls, Karin and Brigitte helped GG into a wheelchair and brought her out to the patio so she could enjoy the fresh air, have a scoop of Strawberry Ice Cream (her favourite) and spend her final morning outdoors with the people she loved.

 

Within ten minutes, an administrator came outside and insisted that GG return to her room immediately so an intravenous (IV) line could be started. Brigitte firmly responded that the family was spending precious time together and that they would return when they were ready.

 

The administrator asked how long that would be. Brigitte replied, "As long as it takes." Brigitte then had to gently but firmly tell the administrator to leave the patio, stating that the family required privacy to spend this time together and that her presence was not needed.

 

The family was deeply perplexed and unsettled by the facility's aggressive rush, given that the MAID procedure was explicitly scheduled for 11:00 a.m. No clinical explanation was ever provided as to why the staff insisted on inserting the IV nearly two hours ahead of schedule, unnecessarily cutting short the family's final, peaceful moments together on the patio.

 

A short time later, GG's pastor joined the family on the patio. He prayed with us, spoke gently with GG, and provided the spiritual comfort she desperately needed.

 

At approximately 10:20 a.m., we returned GG to her room. The Administrator entered to begin the IV insertion. Distressingly, the Administrator asked Brigitte and Robert to physically assist her by handing her medical supplies. Given that the family was openly opposed to the procedure, being asked to actively participate in the preparation was insensitive and deeply upsetting.

 

Moments later, the entire family was called into the room. Upon entering, they were met with a shocking sight. There was a significant, alarming amount of blood covering GG, the bedding, and the surrounding area—the most blood Brigitte had ever seen resulting from a standard IV insertion in all her years of managing her grandmother's care.

 

Shortly afterward, Dr. K arrived. She attempted to speak with GG. By this point, GG was silent, her hands tightly clasped together in a fixed prayer position. GG never provided a verbal response to Dr. K.

 

Our family had been strictly assured that GG would be asked for a final, explicit verbal confirmation on the day of the procedure to ensure she still wished to proceed. When GG remained completely silent and gave no response, Brigitte felt a sudden wave of relief and a big smile came over her face, believing that the procedure would finally be halted because the strict requirement for final consent had not been met. Tragically, we were left alarmed and horrified when the clinical team completely ignored her silence and carried the procedure forward regardless.

 

As the medications were administered, we observed Dr. K encounter visible difficulty injecting one of the fluids through the IV line. She paused and exchanged a look with the administrator that strongly suggested a complication was occurring.

 

After the final medications were pushed, only a brief moment passed before Dr. K confirmed that GG was gone. The room fell completely silent. Our family said our final goodbyes to the matriarch we had protected, loved, and fought for over so many years.

 

Our Concerns and Our Demand for Accountability

What happened to Brigitte "GG" Stegemann was a systemic failure driven by clinical arrogance, a total lack of transparency, and a blatant disregard for the safeguards meant to protect vulnerable patients.

 

One of our greatest ethical concerns is that GG had explicitly declined MAID, stating it violated her Christian faith. Once a vulnerable patient explicitly declines this path, the facility should never have targeted her for re-evaluation behind closed doors while her primary advocate was away—especially when the facility had no trouble contacting Brigitte daily for minor, routine care decisions.

 

We are deeply alarmed by the absolute lack of transparency and independent oversight regarding the application process. The fact that the facility's internal staff took it upon themselves to fill out the official MAID paperwork and witness the signature themselves—completely bypassing Brigitte and Robert while they were visiting the care home every single day, and doing so after the procedure had already been scheduled—represents a profound violation of trust and a glaring conflict of interest. The safeguards built into the MAID program are legally mandated to protect vulnerable individuals from outside pressure. Instead, the facility acted as the initiator, the facilitator, and the witness to the legal request, intentionally keeping her designated Power of Attorney in the dark.

 

We also remain appalled by the assessment of GG's decision-making capacity. GG lived with a lifelong, apparent cognitive impairment. During a formal capacity assessment, the family had to correct the vast majority of her answers, including her inability to identify how many siblings she had or how many were still living. These glaring factual errors, her visible generational confusion and breakdown, and the family's immediate, vocal objections should have halted the process immediately for a comprehensive, independent psychological evaluation.

 

Furthermore, excluding a long-time advocate from the room during the final assessment, failing to halt the process when the patient expressed agonizing second thoughts and confusion days prior, and proceeding on the final morning without an audible, clear verbal consent from the patient are actions that defy the law.

 

An outside reader might wonder why our family did not legally halt the procedure that Friday morning. The answer is simple: the medical team had explicitly instructed us that only the patient has the right to rescind consent once deemed capable, but they strictly promised us that GG would be required to give an explicit, final verbal confirmation right before the injection was administered. We trusted that this mandatory legal safeguard would protect her. We never could have anticipated that when she remained entirely silent, the clinical team would simply ignore the law and push the medication anyway.

 

The events of GG's final morning—being forced to assist with the medical preparation, witnessing a messy and bloody IV complication, and watching the procedure continue while GG sat silently in a prayer position—have left a lasting trauma on our family.

 

Grief does not erase these documented lapses in transparency, nor does it excuse a system that felt entirely rushed, defensive, and calculated. We will forever live with the painful uncertainty of how long GG might have lived comfortably had nature been allowed to take its course.

 

We share this account in loving memory of Brigitte "GG" Stegemann. We hope her story serves as a warning and an urgent call for greater clinical transparency, mandatory family inclusion for cognitively vulnerable patients, and strict legal accountability for facilities that operate outside the law.

 

Submitted in memory of GG by her family

Links - 1st August 2026 (1 - Healthcare in Canada)

Doug Ford defends health-care treatment at Ontario pharmacies - "Ontario Premier Doug Ford is defending his government’s decision to allow pharmacists to handle more ailments instead of doctors, saying it’s one of the most popular moves his government has made.  The Ford government announced last week that it has started consultations on expanding the number of health problems patients can get treatment for at pharmacies...  The new consultations announced last week (opens in a new tab)will look at expanding pharmacists’ scope of practice to include treating other problems such as sore throats, mild headaches, shingles, and sleep disorders like insomnia.  The move has been slammed by the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), as well as a chorus of doctors on social media.  In a recent post on X, the OMA said(opens in a new tab) it is concerned the move will “fragment an already fractured health-care system” and jeopardize patient safety."
Left wingers hate choice and love protectionism, so of course they were bashing him

Pascal Anglehart 🇨🇦 on X - "In Canada, if you earn $75k annually, you pay around $7,1k in taxes toward healthcare. You struggle to find a family doctor, ERs are overflowing, you spend years on waiting lists. In the USA a good Gold plan costs about $7k annually. You can access a doctor in minutes, literally"

Breast cancer death: Montreal woman dies at 32 - "A Montreal woman who was told by health-care professionals that she was too young for breast cancer but later diagnosed with it, has died from the disease. Valerie Buchanan was 32 when she died... Throughout 2020, Buchanan sought answers for a lump in her chest but had said she was reassured by multiple health-care professionals in Ottawa and Montreal that it was a benign cyst without sending her for imaging to confirm. After 13 months, Buchanan eventually went to a private clinic and was diagnosed with Stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer – a biologically aggressive subtype of breast cancer. Just a few months later, she learned it was Stage 4."
Clearly, this shows why private healthcare is a horrendous evil that should never be allowed

Ontario to spend $14B building Canada's largest teaching hospital - "Ontario has announced more than $14 billion in new funding to build the largest teaching hospital in Canada. The new Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital will triple the size and fully replace the existing Mississauga Hospital to help provide health care to an estimated 2.2 million people, the province says."
Time to bash Conservative governments again for underfunding healthcare

BC consulted U.S. Batten disease experts who had links to drug company - "Almost all the U.S. research experts the B.C. government leaned on to make a decision to reinstate a $800,000-a-year drug treatment for a 10-year-girl have, or had, relationships with the pharmaceutical company that manufacturers the drug or foundations that advocate for treatment, a Postmedia examination has found.  The province’s decision went against its own 58-member advisory committee. Of the 12 physicians and one neuroscientist who signed a letter sent to B.C. Health Minister Josie Osborne calling on treatment to be reinstated, eight of the signatories have declared conflicts in the past five years in papers written for scientific journals or for public presentations because they have consulted for, been paid by, or received grants from California-based BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. Another doctor reported being a consultant for BioMarin for four years on a resumé posted online and was paid by BioMarin to be on a medical podcast... one of the U.S. doctors that signed the letter owns shares in BioMarin, two have been quoted in BioMarin news releases and three former BioMarin employees sit on one of the U.S.-based Batten research foundations. Experts in bioethics and pharmaceutical policy say the conflict-of-interest revelations raise questions on why the B.C. government overruled its own advisory committee, why it depended on the opinions of U.S. doctors with relationships to BioMarin, and whether it took those conflict-of-interest relationships into consideration...  Following the reversal, 10 members of the advisory committee quit and B.C. Premier David Eby has now called for a review and overhaul of the decision process...  Schafer, who formerly worked as an ethics consultant for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, said he believes the B.C. government capitulated and caved to pressure, as he believes most Canadian provincial governments would.  “And I think the resulting decision is not morally justifiable,” he said.  Schafer noted the effectiveness of these expensive rare-disease drugs is often unproven, underscoring the importance for governments to have independent expert advice when making difficult decisions in the face of emotion, public pressure and scarce resources. Other experts  have made similar observations.  Pierre-Marie David, a professor in the faculty of pharmacy at the University of Montreal who has been researching access to exceptional drugs, said a key to making these decisions is building trust in provincial health agencies, particularly given there is a large pipeline of these expensive drugs with uncertain effectiveness for rare diseases, which means more difficult decisions and increasing costs...  Another group, the Beyond Batten Disease Foundation, has raised $35 million to help fund research to find treatments and has partnered with the Batten Disease Support and Research Association.  The research association has several chapters around the world, including in Canada.  The 10-year-old B.C. girl’s mother, Jori Fales, is on the board of directors of the Canadian chapter, according to the latest filing of the group for registered charities in Canada."
If a doctor prescribes something to a patient, there's no reason to deny it. We are justified in murdering anyone who denies coverage.
This is why left wingers hate Postmedia so much

A new era: Rare disease drugs can cost millions of dollars per patient - "The B.C. government has listed 35 of these expensive drugs that it will fund.  The costs for these drugs are very high.   At the low end, they include $119,000 a year for Zavesca, which is used to treat certain rare genetic disorders including Niemann-Pick type C disease that primarily attacks the nervous system. At the high end, they include Zolgensma, which is listed at a one-time cost of $2.9 million. It is a gene therapy used to treat spinal muscular atrophy.  In B.C. spending on expensive drugs for rare diseases was $22 million eight years ago, according to provincial pharmaceutical spending reports.  Last year, it hit just under $200 million. The annual increases jumped significantly starting in 2022, increasing by about $50 million a year.  Medical observers and experts are concerned that if increases continue at that pace, spending on these expensive drugs could hurt the ability of health-care systems to treat larger populations.  The just under $200 million B.C. spent on these drugs last year provided treatment to 600 people. That’s about 10 per cent of the money the province spends on its pharmacare program, which provides drugs to more than one million people...  Lexchin, who was also an emergency physician, said he knows of no country that has a good policy to contend with the myriad issues. These include the high costs of the drugs, and patient groups and clinicians who want publicly funded treatment even as the effectiveness of rare disease drugs is sometimes unclear.  These types of drugs have often not been studied for long periods and trials take place with fewer people than for drugs for common diseases. There’s also a lack of understanding of why these drugs cost so much because the drug companies don’t release that information, said Lexchin.  And then there’s what is called the “rule of rescue,” which describes the strong human impulse to help identifiable individuals facing death or serious harm even when the costs of doing so are high, added Lexchin.  “If they get publicity, you’ll spend a lot of money.”...  “The hypocrisy of it is just astonishing to me. They say no one wants politicians making decisions about your health. Well, that’s exactly what they did,” said Sirrs.  Sirrs had been part of the review process for drugs for rare diseases since its inception. She has also quit as the medical lead for rare diseases at the Provincial Health Services Authority, which provides provincewide specialized health services.  Sirrs says patients with rare diseases should not be discriminated against, but they also should not be given an unfair advantage.  Decisions on a drug should not be made based on negative publicity generated by media attention, she said.  It ultimately harms the ability to negotiate prices for drugs for rare diseases with pharmaceutical companies, ending up with prices being based on a government’s willingness to pay, said Sirrs...  In the past few weeks, one of the strongest opposition voices against the decision to halt the drug treatment for the 10-year-old girl came from the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders.  After Osborne said no stone was left unturned in assessing the drug, the patient advocacy group’s CEO, Durhane Wong-Rieger, said the B.C. health minister did not know what she was talking about.  But some bioethics observers have raised concerns about corporate donations that these advocacy groups get from pharmaceutical companies.  The Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders lists 20 corporate partners on its website, almost all of them in the pharmaceutical industry. Those included some of the biggest names in the industry such as U.S.-based Pfizer and Amgen, and Danish company Novo Nordisk. The total annual revenues of these companies is nearly $600 billion.  In some years, pharmaceutical company representatives have sat on the patient advocacy group’s board."
Time to "tax the rich" to pay for these drugs, because health is priceless, so we need to spend unlimited amounts of money on healthcare

The Healthcare in Toronto is so much better than Ottawa/Montreal? Why is that? : r/montreal - "There's a bunch of problems with healthcare in quebec. A lot of it comes from the need of the government to micromanage everything. Another big problem is the heavy bureaucracy linked to healthcare.  Physicians can not practice where they want unless the provincial government gives them the ok; what is commonly called PREMs and PEMs (these are the sole purview of the government) It's divided into administrative areas (sometimes it's by hospitals, sometimes by geographical area); So if an area needs 10 orthopods, but the government says nope you'll be fine with 5 (and give out 5 PEMS). Guess what ? You can't recruit more orthopods.  Now the government, thinking of next year's election and their dwindling popularity, has come up with the genius idea to micromanage even more... So we now have a law that prohibits graduating physicians from leaving quebec or go into private practice... which seems great on paper... but if you go into med student reddits, you'll see some discussions about this, and basically, the consensus is to avoid quebec medical residencies like the plague. (And no residents, no new physicians).  Now they're going to put forth a new law within the next months with productivity linked penalties... which against might sound ok on paper... but it's ill thoughout.  In the hospital nearest to me, some of the available ORs are not open (fully functional ORs) surgeons do not operate as much as they would love to, because of staffing issues. Now, the government tells them to "operate more with the same ressources", and when asked about this, their answer is "figure it out". On top of this, these quotas will be by administrative areas, so if there's 2 of you in a specific specialty in that area, and you are see a bunch of patients (above your quota) but your collegue isn't cuz they don't feel like it... you both get screwed. So what's the incentive to work hard if you're getting screwed anyway ? And so, a bunch of physicians might think about retiring early (the average / median physician age is quite high), and others will migrate to other provinces.  Again, making things worse. (And things will unfortunately keep getting worse).   Again, this is my 0.02$, but to me, the biggest problem is that need to micromanage, especially since it's done incompetently with a governing idea that changes every voting cycle (that and the incredible amount of bureaucracy created: https://thenorthstar.media/2025/05/bureaucracy-and-health-care-costs-explode-the-caq-betrays-its-commitments/
https://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/article825153.html"
Damn conservative governments underfunding healthcare!
Of course, elsewhere in the thread people claim that healthcare in Quebec sucks because they allow private healthcare

The Healthcare in Toronto is so much better than Ottawa/Montreal? Why is that? : r/montreal - "Quebec requires grads to
   apply to a specific region of the province and if you decide not to respect that, 30% pay cut
   do 12 hours a week of work outside of a clinic (chsld, hospital, ER, home care etc..) or else you get… a 30% pay cut.
   get in with an institution but has to respect an institutional manpower plan. So that way a hospital isn’t allowed to have too many staff to just get more people in their area
   essentially be forced to practice in a family medicine group where the government pays certain things (a certain amount of rent, computers, nursing hours) but in exchange they own you. If you’re too small you can be forced to merge with another clinic or lose all your “benefits”.
To my knowledge no province has any of these. This started after an embarrassing death in the late 80s or very early 90s of a man who died being transported to another hospital while having a heart attack because a regional ER was closed. The government knew it would be closed and they were embarrassed to they vowed that would never happen again so they started their insane micromanagement In Ontario you can do what you want, go wherever in the province etc… it’s up to you. Think about it: you have the most mobile desired professionals in the country and you micromanage them to death. So nobody wants to go into family medicine anymore. And it’s precisely that micromanagement that has killed family medicine."

Martyupnorth®- Unacceptable Fact Checker on X - "Alberta's former health minister Sarah Hoffman giving advice on staying healthy and preventing our healtcare system from getting overwhelmed.  "Get jabbed".  Nothing about eating good food, exercising, drinking lots of water and getting a good night's sleep.  Nope.  Get jabbed by big pharma."

Ottawa says provinces should pay for nurse practitioners, gives one-year grace before penalties - The Globe and Mail - "The federal government says provincial health plans should start covering the services of nurse practitioners who provide primary care as of April 1, but will delay enforcement for non-compliance for a year.  Some of the estimated six million Canadians not connected to family doctors have turned to alternative health-care providers, often staffed with nurse practitioners, that may charge fees for services that would otherwise be covered by public insurance if provided by a physician... Provinces receive billions of dollars from Ottawa to pay for health services, and some of that money is clawed back if a province is found to be allowing health care providers to inappropriately bill patients. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, Ottawa transferred $52.1-billion to provinces and territories for health care and levied $62.2-million in penalties for inappropriate patient charges."
Clearly, since provinces are responsible for healthcare, this is proof that the federal government has nothing to do with why healthcare all over Canada sucks

Across the political spectrum, ageist provincial budgets fail the young - The Globe and Mail - "Both are directing the lion’s share of new spending toward medical care. Both are running large deficits to do so. Both are allowing investments in housing, postsecondary education, child care and support for young workers to grow far more slowly. That two governments who disagree on so much arrived at this same point because of something embedded in Canadian political culture: a willingness to protect older voters at almost any cost, even when it shifts the burden to younger generations.  Unless citizens confront this inversion, provinces will keep tabling budgets that are anti-child, anti-parent and anti-young worker, regardless of which party holds power. The warning signs are visible: new data show B.C. now has the highest rate of children starting kindergarten developmentally vulnerable in a quarter century – the worst in the country. These children face higher risks of school failure, incarceration and preventable illness. When Alberta last collected comparable data, its rate was nearly as high. Demographics are part of the pressure behind this fiscal pattern. Canadians over 65 use roughly four times as much medical care as those under 50, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. As baby boomers move into their 70s and 80s, demand for care inevitably climbs as the share of seniors doubles compared with when boomers were young.  That much was predictable decades ago. What was not predetermined was the response.  Provinces chose not to modernize revenue systems to prepare for aging-related health costs. By contrast, Ottawa reformed the Canada Pension Plan in the 1990s, raising premiums by 68 per cent so boomers would pre-fund a substantial share of their retirement benefits... Expanding it without matching revenues – and covering the difference with debt – is a political choice.  Governments could have paired rising medical costs with new contributions tied to aging. They could have slowed health spending growth to free more funds for generations being crushed by housing prices, navigating underfunded postsecondary systems or entering a fragile labour market.  They chose not to.  Part of the explanation is electoral arithmetic... Expanding medical care is now treated as a moral imperative – almost beyond scrutiny – while asking financially secure retirees to help finance their longer lives is framed as politically perilous. Across party lines, the safer path is to protect age-linked medical spending and let the fiscal consequences fall elsewhere.  That “elsewhere” is younger Canadians: slower investment in housing and education, and deficits that leave them unpaid bills.  Every year we delay modernizing how we finance boomers’ healthy retirements, the costs deepen and younger Canadians remain the collateral damage. Partisan battles may dominate the headlines, but beneath the political theatre the fiscal outcome is the same: budgets that discriminate against children, parents and young workers."
This won't stop left wingers insisting that "conservative" governments like the BC NDP deliberately underfund healthcare so it will collapse and they can privatise it

Where do our health care dollars go? - The Globe and Mail - "When it comes to spending money on health care, Canada is doing well compared to other developed countries.  Charts measuring spending per capita generally show Canada falling in the middle, a rank that would be higher if the figures were age-adjusted. (Health care costs rise rapidly as people age and most European countries have older populations than Canada, so they should be spending more.)  But what are Canadians getting for those health care dollars? When it comes to medical technology, such as MRIs and CT scans, Canada ranks dead last, below countries that spend much less per capita, including Slovakia, Croatia and Turkey.  If we’re not spending on technology, then where is the money going? Is it going toward better access to emergency care, major medical procedures, hospital beds or family doctors?... Canada spends a disproportionate amount on end-of-life care, more than the United States and many European countries. A 2021 C.D. Howe Institute study found we spend nearly double on end-of-life hospitalizations compared with England and the Netherlands. Yet, there’s little to show for it in terms of higher life expectancy or quality of life at advanced ages. And even though they spend less than Canada, I would guess that Europeans do not believe they are any less compassionate toward their elderly.  Another potential factor relates to a trend identified by economist William J. Baumol known as Baumol’s cost disease. His theory noted that salaries in any given sector will rise higher along with the rest of the economy, even when there are no productivity gains within that sector itself. When additional public funding becomes available, a disproportionate amount gets spent on raising salaries rather than on productivity improvements, infrastructure or technology."
Clearly the problem is not enough spending

EDITORIAL: Canada’s family doctor shortage was engineered - " To borrow a phrase from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Davos speech, Canadian politicians for generations posted a sign in the window no one believed.  It said: “Canada has the best health care system in the world.” Canadians stopped believing that a long time ago.  A recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute found half of Canadians surveyed don’t have a family doctor or struggle to see the one they have, up from 40% a decade ago.  Seven in 10 say the quality of health care in their province has deteriorated over the past decade, the same number who are dissatisfied with their provincial government’s performance on health care.  While health care spending nationally has nearly doubled over the past decade, from $219 billion in 2015 to $399 billion in 2025, almost 60% say they’re worried they will not get timely access to health care if they have an emergency.  International surveys show Canadians, while paying a disproportionately high price for health care, face some of the longest medical wait times in the developed world among countries that have universal health care... Canada’s shortage of family doctors was no accident.  It was the result of deliberate government policies.  In the early 1990s, provincial governments became convinced the best way to control medical costs was to cut the number of family doctors.  They got this idea from university academics — so-called health-care economists — whose flawed advice was an example of the dangers of relying on “experts” with little knowledge of front-line health care.  Despite warnings from Canada’s medical colleges that this would inevitably lead to a national doctor shortage, the provinces stalled funding, cut enrolments in medical schools and capped residences.  As predicted, that led to today’s doctor shortage, even as Canada’s aging population requires more care and the baby boom generation of doctors are retiring.  Pay for family doctors has not kept pace with compensation in the medical specialties, exacerbating the shortage."

Privatization means longer waits, less access for surgery: report - "Privatization of surgical services in Ontario has not improved wait times, but instead has forced patients to wait longer while negatively impacting access for all but the wealthiest residents, according to a new report from the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions and the Canadian Union of Public Employees."
Clearly, union-backed studies have no conflicts of interest, because conflicts of interest only exist when alleging that helps the left wing agenda

Why Canadian-trained doctors should be allowed to practise anywhere in Canada without additional licensing - "While politicians tout the benefits of reducing interprovincial trade barriers to unlock prosperity amid escalating trade tensions, our most precious health-care resources — fully qualified doctors — remain shackled. Physicians face a maze of regulations when attempting to practise beyond their home province... The answer lies not in medical competence, but in bureaucracy. Despite national standards for training and qualification, the power to grant a licence rests with 13 separate provincial and territorial regulatory colleges. This fragmented system creates artificial barriers, limiting the mobility of our highly skilled physicians across Canada."

Meme - Shuv Majumdar: "Canada spends among the most on healthcare in the developed world, yet ranks near the bottom for doctors, hospital beds, MRIs, and timely care. In Carney's Canada, you pay more, wait longer, get less."
"Canada is a HIGH SPENDER on health care, but has POOR PERFORMANCE compared to other universal health care countries"
Proof that healthcare in Canada is underfunded because conservatives want the system to collapse so they can privatise it and bring in US healthcare!

The myth of universal health care in Canada - The Globe and Mail
She says privatisation is a dirty word because of US horror stories, but this doesn't get at the role that Canadian patriotism as expressed through reflexive hatred of the US plays (besides, as she points out, 30% of Canadian healthcare is privately funded, including mental health)