Euthanasia being forced on Montreal palliative care home.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On June 7, The Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia joined with the Living with Dignity citizen network to express their great disappointment that Bill 11, An Act to amend the Act respecting end-of-life care and other legislative provisions was passed in the Québec legislature.

Bill 11 expanded euthanasia in Québec in four ways including that it created an obligation for palliative care homes to offer MAiD.

Anna Farrow, reported for The Catholic Register on November 29, 2023 that:

A Montreal hospice is under pressure to perform medical assistance in dying (MAiD) contrary to the legal agreement between the Archdiocese of Montreal and the hospice.

St. Raphael Palliative Care Home and Day Centre was founded with an agreement with the Archdiocese of Montreal guaranteeing that St Raphael's would provide end-of-life care but never provide euthanasia. Farrow reported:

In 2016, Archbishop Christian Lépine and then St. Raphael Board Chair Marie-Michèle Del Balso signed a 75-year lease, beginning with an initial 25-year term and renewable for a further two such terms, and the land and buildings were transferred to the use of the centre. A significant condition of the emphyteutic lease was that the facility would offer only end-of-life care and support and never MAiD.

After a successful fundraising campaign that garnered support from several high-profile Catholic foundations and business leaders, including a donation of over $500,000 from the estate of the last priest of St. Raphael Parish, Fr. Gerald “Gerry” Sinel, St. Raphael’s opened its doors in 2019.

But the close relationship between the key players, including the Archdiocese of Montreal, leaseholder, the former St. Raphael parishioners who played a significant role in the realization of the project, and the administration of the centre may now be in jeopardy.

The euthanasia lobby is committed to forcing all religiously affiliated medical institutions to provide euthanasia. A campaign to force Catholic hospitals in British Columbia to provide euthanasia recently resulted in the British Columbia government announcing that they are building a killing center next to St Paul's hospital in Vancouver.