Great Reset
Assisted suicide activists should not be running our MAID program
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 “Fourth annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2022,” the federal government devoted several paragraphs of praising to the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers (CAMAP).
“Since 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,” reads the report.
With $3.3 million in federal funding, “CAMAP 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.”
Six clinicians in British Columbia formed CAMAP, a national non-profit association, in October 2016. These six right-to-die advocates published clinical guidelines for MAID in 2017, without seriously consulting other physician organizations.
The guidelines educate clinicians on their “professional obligation to (bring) up MAID as a care option for patients, when it is medically relevant and they are likely eligible for MAID.” CAMAP’s guidelines apply to Canada’s 96,000 physicians, 312,000 nurses and the broader health-care workforce of two-million Canadians, wherever patients are involved.
The rise of CAMAP overlaps with right-to-die advocacy work in Canada. According to Sandra Martin, writing in the Globe and Mail, CAMAP “follow(ed) in the steps of Dying with Dignity,” an advocacy organization started in the 1980s, and “became both a public voice and a de facto tutoring service for doctors, organizing information-swapping and self-help sessions for members.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tapped this “tutoring service” to lead 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 current director of CAMAP, served as CEO of Dying with Dignity from 2016 to 2019.
A founding member and current chair of the board of directors of CAMAP is also a member of Dying with Dignity’s clinician advisory council. One of the advisory council’s co-chairs is also a member of Dying with Dignity’s board of directors, as well as a moderator of the CAMAP MAID Providers Forum. The other advisory council co-chair served on both the boards of CAMAP and Dying with Dignity at the same time.
Overlap between CAMAP and Dying with Dignity includes CAMAP founders, board members (past and present), moderators, research directors 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, described regulatory capture 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 to write the rules 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, the world is watching Canada and trying to figure out what is going on with MAID and why we are so different than other jurisdictions offering assisted suicide.
Canada moved from physician assisted suicide being illegal to becoming a world leader in organ donation after assisted death in the space of just six years.
In 2021, Quebec surpassed the Netherlands to lead the world 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 to patients choosing MAID instead of facing Canada’s world-famous wait times for care. Others note a lack of 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, regulatory capture 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 “When Politics Comes Before Patients: Why and How Canadian Medicare is Failing.”
From LifeSiteNews
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.
As reported by LifeSiteNews on Tuesday, Canadian woman Jolene Van Alstine was approved to 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, Beck said, “Jolene 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.”
“All I can say for now is they are aware of the urgent life-saving need, and we had a very positive call,” he added.
Beck had said before that he was in “contact with Jolene and her husband” and that he had “surgeons who emailed us standing by to help her.”
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.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, over 23,000 Canadians have died while on wait lists for medical care as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government is focused on euthanasia expansions.
A new Euthanasia Prevention Coalition report revealed that Canada has euthanized 90,000 people since 2016, the year it was legalized.
As reported by 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.
Censorship Industrial Complex
Conservative MP calls on religious leaders to oppose Liberal plan to criminalize quoting Scripture
From LifeSiteNews
Quoting the Bible, Quran, or Torah to condemn abortion, homosexuality, or LGBT propaganda could be considered criminal activity
Conservatives are warning that Canadians should be “very afraid” of the Liberals’ proposal to punish quoting Scripture, while advising religious leaders to voice their opposition to the legislation.
During a December 6 session in Parliament, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Larry Brock warned Canadians of the very real threat to their religious freedom thanks to proposed amendments to Bill C-9, the “Combating Hate Act,” that would allow priests quoting Scripture to be punished.
“Do Christians need to be concerned about this legislation?” MP Bob Zimmer questioned. “Does it really threaten the Bible and free speech in Canada?”
“They should be very afraid,” Brock responded. “Every faith leader should be very afraid as to what this Liberal government with the support of the Bloc Quebecois wishes to do.”
“As I indicated, religious freedom is under attack at the hands of this Liberal government,” he declared.
Brock stressed the need for religious leaders to “speak out loud and clear” against the proposed amendment and contact their local Liberal and Bloc MPs.
Already, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops penned an open letter to the Carney Liberals, condemning the proposed amendment and calling for its removal.
As LifeSiteNews reported earlier this week, inside government sources revealed that Liberals agreed to remove religious exemptions from Canada’s hate speech laws as part of a deal with the Bloc Québécois to keep Liberals in power.
Bill C-9, as reported by LifeSiteNews, has been blasted by constitutional experts as empowering police and the government to go after those it deems to have violated a person’s “feelings” in a “hateful” way.
Now, the Bloc amendment seeks to further restrict free speech. The amendment would remove the “religious exemption” defense, which has historically protected individuals from conviction for willful promotion of hatred if the statements were made “in good faith” and based on a “religious subject” or a “sincerely held” interpretation of religious texts such as passages from the Bible, Quran, or Torah.
As a result, quoting the Bible, Quran, or Torah to condemn abortion, homosexuality, or LGBT propaganda could be considered criminal activity.
Shortly after the proposed amendment was shared on social media, Conservatives launched a petition, calling “on the Liberal government to protect religious freedom, uphold the right to read and share sacred texts, and prevent government overreach into matters of faith.”
Already, in October, Liberal MP Marc Miller said that certain passages of the Bible are “hateful” because of what it says about homosexuality and those who recite the passages should be jailed.
“Clearly there are situations in these texts where these statements are hateful,” Miller said. “They should not be used to invoke or be a defense, and there should perhaps be discretion for prosecutors to press charges.”
His comments were immediately blasted by Conservative politicians throughout Canada, with Alberta provincial Conservative MLA and Minister of Municipal Affairs Dan Williams saying, “I find it abhorrent when MPs sitting in Ottawa – or anyone in positions of power – use their voice to attack faith.”
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