Euthanasia lobby plans to open euthanasia clinic in Toronto.

Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The euthanasia lobby is planning to open a euthanasia clinic in Toronto and they have asked the Ministry of Health to provide the funding.

In an article by Kelly Grant published in the Globe and Mail, Shanaaz Gokool the chief executive officer of the advocacy group Dying With Dignity Canada, and a member of MAIDHouse’s startup board of directors states:

“It’s a unique project. It’s the only one of its kind in the country,”

“I think it will really meet the needs of people who – for whatever reason – don’t want to die at home, but want a safe space where their friends and family can gather with them when they’re having an assisted death.”

The Globe and Mail reports that the executive director expects MAIDHouse to relieve the problem of overcrowding in Toronto hospitals. Thomas Foreman told the Globe:

he hopes the province can be persuaded to finance the project because of the money and space it might save the Greater Toronto Area’s chronically overcrowded hospitals.
“Providing MAID in hospital is very expensive, very inefficient and not entirely patient- and family-friendly,” 

Another purpose MAIDHouse could serve would be to welcome patients who have been asked to leave hospitals or nursing homes that forbid assisted deaths, usually for religious reasons.

According to the Globe and Mail report, between June 2016 and January 2018 the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario said that there were 1,146 assisted deaths completed in Ontario with 52 per cent taking place in hospital. (Of the total assisted deaths, 224 were in Toronto.)

Coffin leaving Dignitas
suicide clinic in Switzerland

Ms. Taylor who co-chaired the provincial-territorial advisory group on physician-assisted dying is also among the organizers who met with provincial officials to discuss the plan for MAIDHouse.

“We pitched this to the province as a pilot project that could start in Toronto, but then perhaps be adopted in other regions,”  

“If they say no to any funding, we’re going to have to get out there and fundraise ourselves and then that’s just going to make it that much more of a distant realization.”

Ms Taylor supported euthanasia for everyone, including children, in the Provincial-Territorial advisory group report, but her involvement with MAIDHouse confirms her connections with the euthanasia lobby.

The Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland has created much controversy over the years. Nearly all of the controversial euthanasia death in the Netherlands and Belgium are done at the euthanasia clinics.

The Ministry of Health already pays for euthanasia, it should not be providing extra funding to help the euthanasia lobby open a euthanasia clinic.