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Assisted suicide activists should not be running our MAID program

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From the MacDonald Laurier Institute

By Shawn Whatley

We should keep the right-to-die foxes out of the regulatory henhouse

The federal government chose a right-to-die advocacy group to help implement its medical assistance in dying legislation. It’s a classic case of regulatory capture, otherwise known as letting the foxes guard the henhouse.

In the ā€œFourth annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2022,ā€ the federal government devoted several paragraphs of praising to the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers (CAMAP).

ā€œSince its inception in 2017, (CAMAP) has been and continues to be an important venue for information sharing among health-care professionals and other stakeholders involved in MAID,ā€ reads the report.

With $3.3 million in federal funding, ā€œCAMAP has been integral in creating a MAID assessor/provider community of practice, hosts an annual conference to discuss emerging issues related to the delivery of MAID and has developed several guidance materials for health-care professionals.ā€

Six clinicians in British Columbia formedĀ CAMAP, a national non-profit association, in October 2016. These six right-to-die advocatesĀ published clinical guidelinesĀ for MAID in 2017,Ā without seriously consultingĀ other physician organizations.

TheĀ guidelinesĀ educate clinicians on their ā€œprofessional obligation to (bring) up MAID as a care option for patients, when it is medically relevant and they are likely eligible for MAID.ā€ CAMAP’s guidelines apply to Canada’sĀ 96,000 physicians,Ā 312,000 nursesĀ and the broader health-care workforce ofĀ two-million Canadians, wherever patients are involved.

The rise of CAMAP overlaps with right-to-die advocacy work in Canada. According toĀ Sandra Martin, writing in the Globe and Mail, CAMAP ā€œfollow(ed) in the steps of Dying with Dignity,ā€ an advocacy organization started in the 1980s, and ā€œbecame both a public voice and a de facto tutoring service for doctors, organizing information-swapping and self-help sessions for members.ā€

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tapped this ā€œtutoring serviceā€Ā to leadĀ the MAID program. CAMAP appears to follow the steps of Dying with Dignity, because the same people lead both groups. For example, Shanaaz Gokool, a currentĀ director of CAMAP,Ā served as CEOĀ of Dying with Dignity from 2016 to 2019.

A founding member andĀ current chairĀ of the board of directors of CAMAP is also a member of Dying with Dignity’s clinician advisory council. One of the advisoryĀ council’s co-chairsĀ is also a member of Dying with Dignity’s board of directors, as well as a moderator of the CAMAP MAID Providers Forum. TheĀ otherĀ advisory council co-chairĀ served on bothĀ the boards of CAMAP and Dying with Dignity at the same time.

Overlap between CAMAP and Dying with Dignity includesĀ CAMAPĀ founders, board members (past and present), moderators,Ā research directorsĀ and more, showing that a small right-to-die advocacy group birthed a tiny clinical group, which now leads the MAID agenda in Canada. This is a problem because it means that a small group of activists exert outsized control over a program that has serious implications for many Canadians.

George Stigler, a Noble-winning economist,Ā described regulatory captureĀ in the 1960s, showing how government agencies can be captured to serve special interests.

Instead of serving citizens, focused interests can shape governments to serve narrow and select ends. Pharmaceutical companies work hard toĀ write the rulesĀ that regulate their industry. Doctors demand government regulations — couched in the name of patient safety — to decrease competition. The list is endless.

Debates about social issues can blind us to basic governance. Anyone who criticizes MAID governance is seen as being opposed to assisted death and is shut out of the debate. At the same time, theĀ world is watchingĀ Canada and trying to figure out what is going on with MAID and why weĀ are so differentĀ than other jurisdictions offering assisted suicide.

Canada moved from physician assisted suicideĀ being illegalĀ to becoming a world leader inĀ organ donationĀ after assisted death in the space of just six years.

In 2021, Quebec surpassed the Netherlands toĀ lead the worldĀ in per capita deaths by assisted suicide, with 5.1 per cent of deaths due to MAID in Quebec, 4.8 per cent in the Netherlands and 2.3 per cent in Belgium. In 2022, Canada extended its lead: MAID now represents 4.1 per cent of all deaths in Canada.

How did this happen so fast? Some point toĀ patients choosing MAIDĀ instead of facing Canada’s world-famousĀ wait timesĀ for care. Others note a lack ofĀ social services. No doubt many factors fuel our passion for MAID, but none of these fully explain the phenomenon. In truth, Canada became world-famous for euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide because we put right-to-die advocates in charge of assisted death.

Regardless of one’s stance on MAID,Ā regulatory captureĀ is a well-known form of corruption. We should expect governments to avoid obvious conflicts of interest. Assuming Canadians want robust and ready access to MAID (which might itself assume too much), at least we should keep the right-to-die foxes out of the regulatory henhouse.

Shawn Whatley is a physician, a Munk senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and author of ā€œWhen Politics Comes Before Patients: Why and How Canadian Medicare is Failing.ā€

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Censorship Industrial Complex

Ottawa’s New Hate Law Goes Too Far

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Ottawa says Bill C-9 fights hate. Critics say it turns ordinary disagreement into a potential crime.

Discriminatory hate is not a good thing. Neither, however, is the latest bill by the federal Liberal government meant to fight it. Civil liberties organizations and conservative commentators warn that Bill C-9 could do more to chill legitimate speech than curb actual hate.

Bill C-9 creates a new offence allowing up to life imprisonment for acts motivated by hatred against identifiable groups. It also creates new crimes for intimidation or obstruction near places of worship or community buildings used by identifiable groups. The bill adds a new hate propaganda offence for displaying terrorism or hate symbols.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) warns the legislation ā€œrisks criminalizing some forms of protected speech and peaceful protest—two cornerstones of a free and democratic society—around tens of thousands of community gathering spaces in Canada.ā€ The CCLA sees no need to add to existing hate laws.

Bill C-9 also removes the requirement that the Attorney General consent to lay charges for existing hate propaganda offences. The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) calls this a major flaw, noting it removes ā€œan important safeguard for freedom of expression that has been part of Canada’s law for decades.ā€ Without that safeguard, decisions to prosecute may depend more on local political pressures and less on consistent national standards.

Strange as it sounds, hatred just will not be what it used to be if this legislation passes. The core problem begins with how the bill redefines the term itself.

Previously, the Supreme Court of Canada said hatred requires ā€œextreme manifestationsā€ of detestation or vilification that involve destruction, abhorrence or portraying groups as subhuman or innately evil. Instead, Bill C-9 defines hatred as ā€œdetestation or vilification,ā€ stronger than ā€œdisdain or dislike.ā€ That is a notably lower threshold. This shift means that ordinary political disagreement or sharp criticism could now be treated as criminal hatred, putting a wide range of protected expression at real risk.

The bill also punishes a hateful motivation more than the underlying crime. For example, if a criminal conviction prompted a sentence of two years to less than five years, a hateful motivation would add as much as an additional five years of jail time.

On paper, most Canadians may assume they will never be affected by these offences. In practice, the definition of ā€œhateā€ is already stretched far beyond genuine threats or violence.

Two years ago, the 1 Million March for Children took place across Canada to protest the teaching of transgender concepts to schoolchildren, especially the very young. Although such opposition is a valid position, unions, LGBT advocates and even Newfoundland and Labrador Conservatives adopted the ā€œNo Space For Hateā€ slogan in response to the march. That label now gets applied far beyond real extremism.

Public pressure also shapes how police respond to protests. If citizens with traditional values protest a drag queen story hour near a public library, attendees may demand that police lay charges and accuse officers of implicit hatred if they refuse. The practical result is clear: officers may feel institutional pressure to lay charges to avoid being accused of bias, regardless of whether any genuine threat or harm occurred.

Police, some of whom take part in Pride week or work in stations decorated with rainbow colours in June, may be wary of appearing insensitive or intolerant. There have also been cases where residents involved in home invasion incidents were charged, and courts later determined whether excessive force was used. In a similar way, officers may lay charges first and allow the courts to sort out whether a protest crossed a line. Identity-related considerations are included in many workplace ā€œsensitivity trainingā€ programs, and these broader cultural trends may influence how such situations are viewed. In practice, this could mean that protests viewed as ideologically unfashionable face a higher risk of criminal sanction than those aligned with current political priorities.

If a demonstrator is charged and convicted for hate, the Liberal government could present the prosecution as a matter for the justice system rather than political discretion. It may say, ā€œIt was never our choice to charge or convict these people. The system is doing its job. We must fight hate everywhere.ā€

Provincial governments that support prosecution will be shielded by the inability to show discretion, while those that would prefer to let matters drop will be unable to intervene. Either way, the bill could increase tensions between Ottawa and the provinces. This could effectively centralize political authority over hate-related prosecutions in Ottawa, regardless of regional differences in values or enforcement priorities.

The bill also raises concerns about how symbols are interpreted. While most Canadians would associate the term ā€œhate symbolā€ with a swastika, some have linked Canada’s former flag to extremism. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network did so in 2022 in an educational resource entitled ā€œConfronting and preventing hate in Canadian schools.ā€

The flag, last used nationally in 1965, was listed under ā€œhate-promoting symbolsā€ for its alleged use by the ā€œalt-right/Canada First movementā€ to recall when Canada was predominantly white. ā€œIts usage in modern times is an indicator of hate-promoting beliefs,ā€ the resource insisted. If a historic Canadian symbol can be reclassified this easily, it shows how subjective and unstable the definition of a ā€œhate symbolā€ could become under this bill.

These trends suggest the legislation jeopardizes not only symbols associated with Canada’s past, but also the values that supported open debate and free expression. Taken together, these changes do not merely target hateful behaviour. They create a legal framework that can be stretched to police dissent and suppress unpopular viewpoints. Rest in peace, free speech.

Lee Harding is a research fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Trump admin wants to help Canadian woman rethink euthanasia, Glenn Beck says

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Jolene Van Alstine, approved for state-sanctioned euthanasia after enduring long wait times to receive care for a rare parathyroid disease, is in need of a passport to enter the U.S.

Well-known American media personality Glenn Beck says he has been in touch with the U.S. State Department to help a Canadian woman in Saskatchewan reconsider euthanasia after she sought assisted suicide due to long medical wait times to address her health problems.

AsĀ reported byĀ LifeSiteNews on Tuesday, Canadian womanĀ Jolene Van Alstine was approved toĀ die by state-sanctioned euthanasia because she has had to endure long wait times to get what she considers to be proper care for a rare parathyroid disease.

Van Alstine’s condition, normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism (nPHPT), causes her to experience vomiting, nausea, and bone pain.

Her cause caught the attention of Beck and many other prominent Americans and Canadians on X.

In an update today on X, BeckĀ said,Ā ā€œJolene does not have a passport to gain legal entry into the U.S., but my team has been in touch with President (Donald) Trump’s State Department.ā€

ā€œAll I can say for now is they are aware of the urgent life-saving need, and we had a very positive call,ā€ he added.

Beck had said before that he was in ā€œcontact with Jolene and her husbandā€ and that he had ā€œsurgeons who emailed us standing by to help her.ā€

As of press time, neither the State Department nor other officials have not yet confirmed Beck’s claim that he has been in touch with them.

As a result of Van Alstine’s frustrations with the healthcare system, she applied for Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) and was approved for January 7.

A new Euthanasia Prevention Coalition reportĀ revealedĀ that Canada has euthanized 90,000 people since 2016, the year it was legalized.

AsĀ reported byĀ LifeSiteNews recently, a Conservative MP’s private member’s bill that, if passed, would ban euthanasia for people with mental illness received the full support of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

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