From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

A study reveals Ontario emergency rooms struggle to manage cancer diagnoses, leaving patients without adequate follow-up care, while euthanasia remains readily available.

Research has found that Canadians diagnosed with cancer in the emergency room are often sent home without treatment; however, euthanasia remains readily available.

According to a study published September 8 by the National Library of Medicine, Ontario emergency room doctors are struggling to serve patients diagnosed with cancer while Liberals continue to push Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).

“It’s kind of a little bit shocking to me that given how many people cancer affects and how devastating a diagnosis it can be to receive, that we haven’t figured this out better,” one doctor told researchers.

The study found that limited primary care access, specialist shortages, and long wait times have pushed patients to seek care from the emergency room. As a result, emergency doctors are giving out cancer diagnoses but are unable to provide sufficient follow up care. “We don’t often have enough information to know further what that means, in terms of prognosis, in terms of the type of treatments that they’re going to get,” another doctor revealed. “Then, to also add on the burden and say, ‘I also don’t know when you’re going to be seen’ is just a gut punch for them.”

According to the study, poor communication between EDs, primary care, and specialists often results in “lost” patients who are either delayed or prevented from receiving the proper care. Doctors called for standardized referral pathways, patient navigators, and better support to ensure timely follow-up.

The study discovered that the lack of timely care has resulted in “higher stages of diagnosis and increased mortality.”

At the same time, Liberals are focusing on expanding MAiD rather than addressing the medical staff shortage crises. In February 2024 after pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups as well as most of Canada’s provinces, the federal government delayed the mental illness expansion until 2027. Liberals are also working to expand MAiD to children.

The most recent reports show that MAiD is the sixth highest cause of death in Canada. However, it was not listed as such in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.

Asked why MAiD was left off the list, the agency said that it records the illnesses that led Canadians to choose to end their lives via euthanasia, not the actual cause of death, as the primary cause of death.

According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by MAiD lethal injections. This accounts for 4.1 percent of all deaths in the country for that year, a 31.2 percent increase from 2021.

From the Frontier Centre for Pubic Policy

By Brian Giesbrecht

Silence from leaders endangers the rule of law and risks turning public land owned by all Canadians into political bargaining chips.

The Bloodvein blockade of Crown land is illegal. Canadians must insist on the rule of law, or watch public land quietly slip away

The Bloodvein First Nation in northeastern Manitoba has erected a blockade on Crown land, barring non-Indigenous hunters from accessing a large area surrounding its reserve. While the move may reflect frustration with provincial policies or rising tensions over land use, there’s one inescapable fact: it is illegal.

Yet you wouldn’t know that from media coverage. CBC, for instance, referred to the affected area as “its land,” quoting First Nations leaders and provincial politicians who appear to believe that land surrounding a reserve belongs to the First Nation itself. It does not. The land in question is Crown land—public land owned and managed by governments on behalf of all Canadians, not by any individual or group.

Bloodvein is governed under Treaty 5, which, like other numbered treaties, involved the full cession of land to the Crown. The numbered treaties, signed between 1871 and 1921, were formal agreements between Indigenous nations and the federal government. In exchange for surrendering large territories, First Nations received reserved land, annual payments and the right to hunt and fish on unoccupied Crown land, among other benefits.

The language in Treaty 5 is clear: Indigenous signatories “cede, release, surrender and yield up” all rights and title to the land in question. While the treaty permits hunting and fishing on Crown land, those rights are subject to regulation and can be overridden when land is needed for settlement, resource development or other public uses.

This framework was reinforced in 1930 through the Natural Resources Transfer Agreements, which granted provinces full control over Crown lands and resource management, while protecting treaty-based hunting and fishing rights.

This means Bloodvein residents, like all Indigenous peoples in Manitoba, retain the right to hunt and fish on Crown land, but they do not have the right to prevent others from doing the same.

The Manitoba Wildlife Federation has called the blockade unlawful and urged the government to act. So far, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has remained silent. That silence sends the wrong message, not just about this specific dispute, but about the rule of law more broadly.

While public sympathy for reconciliation is real, so too is concern that Indigenous land claims are increasingly encroaching on public and private property rights. Cases like the Cowichan Tribes’ recent title claim, supported by oral history and largely untested assertions of continuous occupation, are raising alarm bells for property owners, especially in British Columbia, where court decisions have cast doubt on long-held ownership rights.

At the heart of these cases is “Aboriginal title”: a legal concept created by Canadian courts that recognizes ongoing Indigenous land rights based on historic occupation, even in the absence of a treaty. These claims, if successful, can override existing property titles and affect both public and private lands.

That concern is compounded by public messaging. Terms like “unceded territory,” “stolen land” and “traditional lands” are now used uncritically in media and government communications. That messaging includes the widespread use of land acknowledgements, statements recognizing that land is historically Indigenous territory. While often intended as gestures of respect, these acknowledgements are also used by some activists to reinforce legal and political claims to land.

Canadians have sat through countless land acknowledgements without being told that these rituals are often linked to broader strategies aimed at asserting expanded territorial control. Many are now asking: How far will this go?

If we are to preserve a fair and functioning system of property rights, the public must insist that governments enforce existing laws, even when it’s politically difficult. Crown land belongs to all Canadians. Indigenous groups have rights, important ones protected by treaty and by law, but so do other Canadians. Those rights must not be overridden by unilateral action or political inertia.

Premier Kinew and other provincial leaders need to reaffirm that the rule of law applies to everyone. That means making it clear: the Bloodvein blockade has no legal standing and should be removed. Canadians—Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike—have equal rights to access public land under the law.

Respect for treaty rights requires clarity and honesty about what those treaties say. They must not be reinterpreted after the fact through the lens of modern politics or public pressure.

Crown land is not a bargaining chip. It’s a trust held for all Canadians. If politicians won’t defend it, then Canadians must—because public land isn’t something we give away to silence criticism. It’s something we defend, together.

Brian Giesbrecht is a retired judge and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.