Starvation led to approval for euthanasia in Canada.

This article was published by Toujours Vivant - Not Dead Yet on May 29, 2020.

By Amy Hasbrouck

In June of 2016, just as medical aid in dying (MAiD) was adopted in Canada, a British Columbia woman known as Ms. S. who had Multiple Sclerosis was evaluated for MAiD by Dr. Ellen Wiebe. According to Jocelyn Downie, Dr. Wiebe concluded that Ms. S. met most of the eligibility criteria (incurable condition, advanced state of decline in capability, and enduring and intolerable suffering) but the doctor did not believe Ms. S. would die “in the foreseeable future,” so she was determined ineligible. 

As we reported in March of 2018, the Final Disposition Report of the Inquiry Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, found that Ms. S. was “suffering from … trigeminal neuralgia and gastrin [sic] intestinal symptoms for which treatment had been only minimal [sic] effective.” Elsewhere in the report, another physician said Ms. S. had declined “potentially effective” treatment.

Dr. Wiebe exchanged correspondence with Ms. S. in December of 2016 and January of 2017, to the effect “that the patient’s life expectancy was not short enough to qualify for medical aid in dying.” Then in mid-February of 2017, “Ms. S decided to starve herself to death at home, with the support of palliative-care nursing.”

Her husband called Dr. Wiebe two weeks later, and Dr. Wiebe visited Ms. S. on March 3. At that time, Dr. Wiebe determined that she met all eligibility criteria, and she was euthanized on March 6, 2017.

The Inquiry Committee, in its final disposition report of February 13, 2018, found that:

• “MAiD is intended to be restricted to those individuals who are declining toward death, allowing them to choose a peaceful death, as opposed to a prolonged, painful or difficult one.”
• “In view of the foregoing standard, a patient cannot be forced to take treatment they do not consider acceptable.” 
• “Ms. S. met the requisite criteria and was indeed eligible for medical assistance in dying despite the fact that her refusal of medical treatment, food, and water undoubtedly hastened her death and contributed to its ‘reasonable foreseeability’.” 

Ms. S.’ suicidal act highlights a basic flaw of assisted dying: governments have put their efforts toward the goal of ending lives, rather than ending suffering. 

From the information provided, we don’t know what symptoms Ms. S. had, how her family and friends reacted to her disability, whether she had peer support, whether she’d received specialist care for her multiple sclerosis, what treatment(s) had been tried, and whether she had received effective palliative care and mental health services. But when the government, in the person of a euthanasia provider, puts its thumb on the scale in favour of death, it makes the struggle to live well with a disability just that much harder.

At the same time, the public policy conclusion drawn by this case is that the person asking to die should not be burdened with the obligation of first trying to improve their quality of life. This might make sense if there were no social costs from assisted suicide and euthanasia (AS & E). But there are very significant social costs, not just to those who choose to die, their families and medical practitioners, but to all people whose lives are devalued and put in danger by the practice.

For more information on the subjects we discuss:

Facebook.com/toujoursvivantnotdeadyet
Website – https://tvndy.ca
Email – info@tv-ndy.ca Twitter – @tvndy.

Competing reports on euthanasia for mental illness.

This article was published by BioEdge on February 16, 2020

Michael Cook

By Michael Cook

The Provincial and Federal governments in Canada need to amend their euthanasia laws quickly. They have to meet a March 2020 deadline set last year by Quebec Superior Court Justice Baudouin who ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny Canadians the right to die unless their deaths were “reasonably foreseeable”.

Amongst other issues, lawmakers need to determine whether people with mental illness will be able to access euthanasia, or Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), as it is called in Canada.

In every jurisdiction where euthanasia has been legalised, this is a fiercely debated topic. There is no doubt that mental illness causes great suffering. But even supporters of euthanasia are divided on whether it is unbearable and whether it is incurable.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Canadians have two acronym-rich reports to digest about euthanasia and mental illness. Or, for more precision, medical assistance in dying as it relates to cases where a mental disorder is the sole underlying medical condition -- MAiD for MD-SUMC.

The first was published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) and was written by “the Halifax Group”, eight academics on the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) expert panel on MAiD. Its best-known member is Jocelyn Downie, a legal expert.

They contend that persons with MD-SUMC should not be excluded from accessing MAiD, provided that their decision is “well thought out and not impulsive”. They also insist that legislation should not require their decision to be “non-ambivalent”. In other words, even if people are torn between competing values (such as desiring death but not wanting to leave their children), they can still make a rational decision.

Admittedly, there is a danger of “over-inclusion” – allowing people to access MAiD whose suffering could be alleviated. But they feel that this risk can be minimized by providing better mental health services.

The second report argues that Canada is on the way to becoming “the most permissive jurisdiction in the world for MAiD, with the fewest safeguards against unwanted deaths”. It was written by the Expert Advisory Group (EAG) on MAiD, a group of Canadian and international experts, plus people with lived experience of mental illness.

The EAG’s core recommendation is that:

“determinations of irremediability and irreversible decline cannot be made for mental illnesses at this time, and therefore applications for MAiD for the sole underlying medical condition of a mental disorder cannot fulfill MAiD eligibility requirements”. 

“The risk of providing MAiD for mental illnesses, while being unable to predict irremediability of mental illnesses, is obvious,” they argue. “Non‐dying people who would have improved will be assisted to die prematurely.”

It also recommends two other conditions: non-ambivalence about a MAiD decision and “lack of a reasonable alternative”.

The EAG authors insist that their approach is evidence-based and that the Halifax Group’s report does not represent a consensus of medical opinion. In fact, they say that “surveys of mental health providers show that while most (72%) do support MAiD in general, most do not support MAiD for mental illnesses (only 29% in support)”. They also criticise the competing report for failing to include authors with lived experience of mental illness.

Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge

Canada's Justice Minister says that euthanasia may be expanded to include people with mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Hon David Lametti

Justice Minister David Lametti told CBC Radio One's The House that based on the recent online euthanasia consultation questionnaire that Canadians want more access to (MAID) euthanasia.

Lametti told CBC radio One:

"There does seem to be a clear tendency that Canadians are largely in agreement that we ought to expand the possibility for medical assistance in dying beyond the end-of-life scenario," Lametti said. 

"Obviously there are some voices that don't agree. People living with disabilities can see this as a threat, even an existential threat, and we're trying to achieve the right balance there to not stigmatize people in that context."

The CBC Radio One report explained that the law may be expanded to include people with mental illness:

...Lametti said one possible result of making these changes to the law will be to extend MAID to people whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental disorder. 

That is certainly a possibility that's raised by this expansion," he said.

Last week I reported that Canada's online euthanasia consultation questionnaire was a sham and that its data was unreliable. It was a sham because some of the questions assumed that the participant supported euthanasia. The data was unreliable because the online questionnaire did not limit people to participating once. One person told me that they filled out the questionnaire more than 50 times from the same computer.

Article: Canadian (MAID) euthanasia online consultation was a sham and the data is unreliable (Link).

CBC Radio One then interviewed Jocelyn Downie, a long-time pro-euthanasia activist academic who explained that when the Québec court struck down the "terminal illness" requirement in the law, that this enabled access to euthanasia for mental conditions. CBC radio reported:

"When you remove 'reasonable foreseeability' from the Criminal Code, as the judge in Quebec did for Quebec, one of the things that happens is that more people with mental disorders as their sole underlying medical condition will now be eligible for MAID," said Downie, a Dalhousie University law professor who served on the Council of Canadian Academies expert panel that studied MAID.

Sadly, I agree with Downie, that when the Québec court struck down the terminal illness requirement in the law that this mean't that euthanasia would also permitted for psychological reasons or mental illness. 

Article: Québec court expands Canada's euthanasia law by striking down the "terminal illness" requirement (Link).

The law originally stated that euthanasia could be done based on physical or psychological suffering, but that a person's natural death must be reasonably foreseeable. By removing the reasonably foreseeable requirement from the law, then euthanasia decisions are then based on physical or psychological suffering alone.

Article: Is euthanasia psychiatric treatment?

St. Martha's Catholic hospital will not provide euthanasia on-site.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Last week I wrote that a campaign by Jocelyn Downie, the academic euthanasia activist at Dalhousie University, has resulted in St. Martha's hospital in Antigonish NS being forced to provide MAiD (euthanasia) within the Catholic hospital.

Catholic hospital is forced to provide MAiD (euthanasia) in Nova Scotia (Link).

Yesterday I received the press release from St Martha's hospital explaining that MAiD (better known as euthanasia) will not be provided by St. Martha's hospital but at the Antigonish Health and Wellness Centre.

The Sisters of St. Martha, state in their media release:

...The Nova Scotia Health Authority has assured us that Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) will not take place in St. Martha's Regional Hospital.

We do not own St. Martha's Regional Hospital or the building called the Antigonish Health and Wellness Centre.

We continue to uphold the Mission and Values of St. Martha's Regional Hospital for quality compassionate health care. ...

Therefore Downie has not achieved her goal of imposing euthanasia (MAiD) upon a Catholic hospital. Downie will continue to pressure religiously affiliated healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia. Downie stated in The Global News article from last week:

“Governments and health authorities have failed to insist that faith-influenced, publicly funded institutions permit MAiD within their walls,” she said. 

The battle has only just begun.

Downie began her campaign, in December 2018, to force St Martha's hospital into doing euthanasia with an article in the Chronicle Herald.

In late December, Canada's national broadcaster, CBC news, featured a program designed to pressure St Martha's hospital to euthanize their patients.
 
The most recent news articles confirm what I originally stated, that Downie targeted St. Martha's hospital as a first step in a campaign to force all religiously affiliated health care institutions into participating in MAiD.
 
The euthanasia lobby will continue to pressure religiously based healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia on their premises. Religiously based medical institutions must continue to say NO.

I urge religiously based healthcare institutions to maintain their ethics and refuse to provide euthanasia.

Catholic hospital is forced to provide MAiD (euthanasia) in Nova Scotia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A campaign by Jocelyn Downie, the academic euthanasia activist at Dalhousie University, has resulted in St. Martha's hospital in Antigonish NS being forced to provide MAiD (euthanasia) within the Catholic hospital.

An article by Ross Lord and Alexander Quon, for Global News reported that the Nova Scotia Health Authority said:

“Assessments and provision of MAiD [medical assistance in dying] will be available in a section of St. Martha’s Regional Hospital complex at the Antigonish Health and Wellness Centre.”

The Global News article stated that the euthanasia lobby sees the St. Martha's hospital policy as the first of many euthanasia policies that they intend to impose upon Catholic or religious healthcare institutions. The article reports:

“We hope that this is the start and that Nova Scotia’s regulation, Nova Scotia’s position will be used as a model in other jurisdictions across the country. We’re certainly pushing for that,” said Jim Cowan, chair of Dying with Dignity.

Jocelyn Downie

Jocelyn Downie plans to pressure religiously affiliated healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia. The Global News article states:

“Governments and health authorities have failed to insist that faith-influenced, publicly funded institutions permit MAiD within their walls,” she said.

The reason that the euthanasia lobby focused on St. Martha's hospital is that the sisters had signed an agreement in 1996 where the hospital would maintain Catholic beliefs but be administered by a secular board. St. Martha's was considered an easier target. 

There are dozens of other Catholic hospitals and nursing homes across Canada that forbid medically assisted dying, forcing some assisted dying applicants to sign request forms off-site.

In December, Downie began her campaign to force St Martha's hospital into doing euthanasia with an article in the Chronicle Herald.

In late December, Canada's national broadcaster, CBC news, featured a program pressuring St Martha's hospital to euthanize their patients.

The most recent news article confirms what I stated, last December, that Downie targeted St. Martha's hospital as a first step in a campaign to force all religiously affiliated health care institutions into participating in MAiD.

The euthanasia lobby will now challenge other religiously based healthcare institutions. Religiously based medical institutions need to stand up and say NO. Sadly, Catholic hospitals in Canada already agreed to provide euthanasia assessments, on site. Euthanasia assessments are part of the requirement of the law for approving euthanasia. Therefore Catholic hospitals have already agreed to be directly complicit with MAiD in Canada.

I urge religious healthcare institutions to maintain their ethics and refuse to provide euthanasia.

Euthanasia doctor cleared of wrong-doing for sneaking into Jewish care home to euthanize resident.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Louis Brier Care Home

In January 2018, an Orthodox Jewish Care Home filed a complaint against euthanasia doctor, Ellen Wiebe, for sneaking into the Home and killing a resident which was against the policy of the Louis Brier Home in Vancouver.

• Jewish care home accuses euthanasia doctor of sneaking in to kill resident.

Kelly Grant, the Globe and Mail health reporter, in writing about Ellen Wiebe being cleared of wrong doing stated:

In a letter dated July 5, 2019, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia (CPSBC) dismissed an official complaint against Ellen Wiebe, saying the Vancouver doctor did not break any of the regulator’s rules when she helped Barry Hyman, 83, die inside the Louis Brier Home and Hospital. 

“The committee determined... that the patient had consented and that Dr. Wiebe had met all requirements for provision of MAiD,”

Grant wondered if this decision may affect other religious hospitals and nursing homes. She wrote:

The CPSBC decision is believed to mark the first time that a medical regulator has weighed in on the thorny question of whether doctors could be professionally punished for defying the wishes of a faith-based health-care facility in order to fulfill those of a patient eligible for a medically assisted death. 

However, the self-regulating colleges in each province – all of which have the power to grant and revoke medical licences – generally keep their decisions secret unless they send a case to a formal disciplinary hearing.

Grant reported that the Louis Brier home criticized the decision and changed their rules to prevent similar situations:

David Keselman, the chief executive officer of Louis Brier, criticized the college’s decision and said his organization has tightened its credentialing and privileging process to prevent others from following Dr. Wiebe’s example. 

“I think [the college] disregarded many of the elements that were in the complaint,” Mr. Keselman said, stressing how upsetting it was to learn afterward that a doctor had managed to sneak into the home without staff’s permission. 

“We have quite a number of Holocaust survivors in the building. This is a huge concern … as this came out, it created a very significant level of anxiety and chaos, specifically for those individuals," Mr. Keselman said.

One goal of the euthanasia lobby is to force religiously affiliated health care institutions to allow MAiD (euthanasia) on their premises. 

Euthanasia activist and academic, Jocelyn Downie, has been pressuring St Martha's hospital in Antigonish Nova Scotia to permit euthanasia on their premises because they are the only hospital in the region.

Canada euthanasia - The numbers game.

This article was published by Paul Schratz on his blog on May 17, 2019.

By Paul Schratz is editor of the BC Catholic

I’m indebted to Alex Schadenberg at Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition for this week’s column, since he not only did all the research but a fair chunk of the number crunching.

You may or may not know that it’s been frustratingly difficult to obtain information on euthanasia and assisted suicide since Canada legalized “medical assistance in dying” in June 2016. Trying to find out how many people are euthanized or “assisted” in dying is like trying to estimate how many traffic jams take place each day in Vancouver. It’s not at the top of anyone’s list of things to do.

News organizations have no interest in knowing how many Canadians are dying by assisted suicide. I wrote in March that the most recent data we had was from 2017 and it was still unclear how many people were legally killed in 2018.

So slow was the federal government in releasing data that the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition requested “Medical Aid in Dying” data from every province. Most of them refused to provide it.

So the EPC did its own investigative research. Based on a presentation for the Royal Society of Canada by Jocelyn Downie, an academic euthanasia activist, the EPC reported 4,235 “Medical Aid in Dying” euthanasia deaths in 2018, an increase of 50 per cent over 2017 and representing approximately 1.5 per cent of all deaths in Canada.

Schadenberg also examined data from Ontario and Alberta indicating a 78 per cent increase in Ontario euthanasia deaths and a 50 per cent increase in Alberta.

Finally, at the end of April, Health Canada released the Fourth Interim Report on Medical Assistance in Dying, which stated there were 2,614 assisted deaths in 2018.

Unfortunately, the data was short by two months (it only reported up to Oct. 31, 2018) and didn’t include four jurisdictions (Quebec and the three territories.) Based on that limited information, the report drew the conclusion that assisted deaths represented 1.12 per cent of all deaths in Canada.

Now it turns out Health Canada not only gave us inaccurate numbers, its analysis of them was wrong.

The Canadian data came under scrutiny by Richard Egan, a researcher with Australian Care Alliance, who said the report’s calculation of the percentage of deaths by euthanasia as 1.12 per cent was wrong and should have been quite a bit higher.

Egan explains: Health Canada used data for the total number of deaths in Canada, but only counted assisted suicide deaths in the jurisdictions it had data on … which excluded Quebec and the territories. An accurate percentage of deaths by euthanasia based only on reporting provinces is actually 1.47 per cent. That may not seem like much of a difference, but it’s a 30-per-cent error rate and represents hundreds of more dead people.

That figure also more closely matches the data reported by Jocelyn Downie, whose numbers put the euthanasia rate at 1.5 per cent.

Egan published further research on the data in an article published by Australian Care Alliance.

Among the provinces, euthanasia deaths as a percentage of all deaths varies widely, with British Columbia at 2.37 per cent of all deaths and as high as 3.6 per cent on Vancouver Island. That’s nearly three times as deadly as Saskatchewan (0.84 per cent of all deaths). But “Health Canada does not appear overly concerned about the quality of the Medical Aid in Dying report,” says Schadenberg.

And when some of its data is so wrong and outdated, how can we trust government to get its response – comprehensive palliative care – correct?

Health Canada publishes inaccurate and incomplete data on euthanasia in Canada.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On March 21, I reported that there were 4235 "Medical Aid in Dying" euthanasia deaths in 2018, an increase of 50% over 2017, representing approximately 1.5% of all deaths. The data for my report was obtained from a presentation by Jocelyn Downie, an academic euthanasia activist, for the March 15th Royal Society of Canada luncheon in Ottawa.

I have also reported the provincial data from Ontario and Alberta. The 2018 Ontario data indicated a 78% increase in euthanasia deaths while the 2018 Alberta data indicated a 50% increase. Further to that, last week I published an another article concerning the number of euthanasia deaths in Ontario and Alberta in 2019 (Link to the article).

On April 25, Health Canada released the Fourth Interim Report on Medical Assistance in Dying which stated that there were 2614 assisted deaths between January 1 - October 31, 2018. The report indicated that the data was incomplete for Quebec and the three Territories. The report incorrectly stated that assisted deaths represented 1.12% of all deaths in Canada. (Link to the report).

Richard Egan, a researcher with Australian Care Alliance indicated that The Fourth interim Canadian report has wrongly calculated the percentage of deaths by euthanasia as 1.12% when it is actually 1.46%. Egan explains:

Using Statistics Canada’s available data for deaths per month in 2017 and projecting a 2% average annual increase in overall deaths (based on data trends from 2013 to 2017), we estimate that for the first 10 months of 2018, MAID has accounted for approximately 1.12% of the estimated total deaths in Canada during this reporting period.

The data source they refer to is at: (Link).

It gives a total of 276,689 deaths for all of Canada for 2017. Deducting the deaths for November 2017 (23,133) and December 2017 (25,141) gives a total of 228,415 for the 10 months Jan-Oct 2017. Applying the 2% increase the report suggests gives a presumed 232,983 deaths for all of Canada for the 10 months Jan-Oct 2018.

Health Canada does not appear overly concerned about the quality of the Medical Aid in Dying report. Basing percentages on an estimated, two percent increase in deaths is unacceptable. The data concerning the number of 2018 deaths in Canada does exist. Egan continues:

The report gives a total of 2,614 deaths by euthanasia for the same period Jan-Oct 2018 for Canada excluding Quebec. (And the NWT, Yukon and Nunavut for which there is also no data for 2017 deaths in the Statistics Canada death by months report.)

The report appears to have divided 2,614 into 232,983 to get 1.12%. However the correct calculation should use as its denominator the presumed number of deaths for Jan-Oct 2018 for Canada excluding Quebec.

There were 53,612 deaths in Quebec from Jan-Oct 2017. Subtracting these from the total for Canada of 228,415 for the 10 months Jan-Oct 2017 gives 174,803. Applying a 2% increase gives 178,299 presumed deaths in Canada other than Quebec from Jan-Oct 2018.

Dividing 2614 into 178,299 gives a percentage of deaths by euthanasia of all deaths in Canada excluding Quebec of 1.47%.

This more closely matches the data reported by Jocelyn Downie. She reports 4235 deaths by euthanasia for all of Canada (including Quebec) in 2018. The presumed number of deaths in all Canada in 2018 using the expected increase of 2% from 2017 data would be 282,222. 4235/282,222 = 1.5%.

Egan then published further research on the data and published the following information in an article published by Australian Care Alliance:

Euthanasia deaths as a percentage of all deaths varies by province with British Columbia (2.37% of all deaths) nearly three times as deadly as Saskatchewan (0.84% of all deaths).

Other provincial rates are: Quebec 1.54% [Jan-Mar 2018]; Ontario 1.39%; Manitoba 1.25%; Alberta 1.18% and the Atlantic provinces (Newfoundland & Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick) 0.98%.

One fact the fourth interim report did get right is what is really involved in what the Canadians euphemistically call MAID - medical assistance in dying:MAID is "an exception to the criminal laws that prohibit the intentional termination of a person’s life."

MAID includes both euthanasia and assisted suicide. As of October 2018 there have only been six cases of assisted suicide under the Canadian law compared to 6743 cases of euthanasia.

This preference for euthanasia over assisted suicide has implications for Victoria (Australia) where both assisted suicide and euthanasia will be legal from 19 June 2019. While euthanasia is only permitted when a person is unable to physically self-administer or to digest the prescribed lethal substance this only requires one doctor to submit a form [Regulation 8 (b)] to the Secretary for Health making this assertion.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition requested "Medical Aid in Dying" euthanasia data from every Province since the Federal government has been deliberately slow in releasing data. Most of the Provinces have refused to provide the data. Further to that, Richard Egan's analysis, shows how the Health Canada report is inaccurate and incomplete.

Ontario euthanasia deaths increase by 78% in 2018.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Last week I published an article explaining that the euthanasia "MAiD" deaths increased by more than 50% in 2018 from 2704 reported assisted deaths in 2017 to 4235 reported assisted deaths in 2018. The data was gleaned from a presentation by Jocelyn Downie for the Council of Canadian Academies on March 15, 2019 and from the data from the earlier federal government reports.
 
An article published in the Medicine Hat News stated that the Alberta Coroner reported that there were 205 reported assisted deaths in 2017 and 307 reported assisted deaths in 2018, a 50% increase.

I wondered why the federal government had not released the "MAiD" data and how Downie had accessed the data. I decided to send emails to several Provincial Coroner's offices requested the "MAiD" data. In response to my request, Roxanne Halko, Team Lead (MAID), Nurse Investigator from the Office of the Chief Coroner in Ontario sent me the "MAiD" data for Ontario, the largest Province in Canada. 

The 2018 Ontario report states that there were 2529 reported assisted deaths since legalization (June 17, 2016), the 2017 report stated there had been 1030 reported assisted deaths since legalization and the first federal government Interim report stated that there were 189 reported assisted deaths in 2016.

Therefore, according to the Ontario Coroner's office there were 1499 reported assisted deaths in 2018, 841 reported assisted deaths in 2017 and 189 reported assisted deaths in 2016.

I refer to reported assisted deaths since, according to the recent Quebec report, there were 142 unaccounted assisted deaths in Québec and according to a recent study, approximately 23% of the Netherlands assisted deaths are not reported.

According to the Ontario data, 2528 were done by lethal injection (euthanasia) and 1 was done by assisted suicide (lethal prescription).

The 2017 data indicates that 82% of the assisted deaths were done by a provider who did not have a relationship with the person who died. The 2018 report omits that data.

Since the federal government has been slow in releasing data, we will continue to search for more Canadian assisted death data.

Euthanasia activist outlines expansion of euthanasia in Canada.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Yesterday I wrote about Canada's euthanasia statistics indicating that assisted deaths increased by more than 50% in 2018 representing approximately 1.5% of all deaths. 
 
The data was gleaned from a presentation by Canada's leading "academic" euthanasia activist, Jocelyn Downie, who was speaking at a Royal Society of Canada lunch lecture in Ottawa. 

In her presentation Downie stated that 7949 people reportedly died by MAiD in Canada as of December 31, 2018, meaning that there were reportedly 4235 assisted deaths in 2018, up from 2704 assisted deaths in 2017 and 1010 assisted deaths in 2016 (plus December 2015).
 

During her presentation, Downie, who was a Special Advisor to the Canadian Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide; author of the book Dying Justice: A Case for the Decriminalizing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in Canada, a member of the Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel on End-of-Life Decision Making, a member of the plaintiffs’ legal team in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), a member of the Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group on Physician-Assisted Dying, and a member of the Canadian Council of Academies Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying, outlined her goals for expanding euthanasia in Canada.

Downie focused on the section of the law that limits euthanasia to people whose "natural death is reasonably forseeable." Downie admits that reasonably forseeable is undefined, but she also recognizes that this section of the law restricts people who are not terminally ill from accessing euthanasia. She stated that this section of the law is unconstitutional.

Downie then stated that it was unconstitutional to limit euthanasia to people 18 years and older. She advocated for the expansion of euthanasia to include children.

Downie spoke about the fact that the law does not prevent people with mental or psychiatric issues from dying by euthanasia, but the "natural death is reasonably forseeable" provision excludes people with psychiatric issues alone. Downie stated that restricting euthanasia to people whereby "natural death is reasonably forseeable" is unconstitutional therefore, when that is struck down, people with psychiatric issues alone will become eligible for euthanasia.
 
Downie commented on extending euthanasia to incompetent people who made an advanced request. Downie told the Audrey Parker story and claimed that denying euthanasia to incompetent people who made an advanced request forces people to die earlier and is therefore unconstitutional.
 
In the Q&A session Downie was asked about transferring patients from religiously affiliated hospitals for MAiD. Downie suggested that each hospital could have a room that is declared "extraterritorial" to enable MAiD to be done in Catholic hospitals.
 
The media, and groups like the Royal Society of Canada, continue to consider Downie as a neutral academic. Just to make things worse, in 2015 Downie was awarded a $225,000 research grant by the Trudeau Foundation to research Medical Assistance in Dying.
 
I find supposed academics dis-ingenuous that they insist on promoting "quasi-academic" research for the purpose of building a body of false precedents and accepted practises. Yes, I am referring to Jocelyn Downie.

When will the world stop hiring the fox to watch the hen-house?

Links to more articles concerning Jocelyn Downie.

Canada: Euthanasia deaths increase by more than 50%, to 4235, in 2018 and 7949 total euthanasia deaths.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Canadian euthanasia/assisted suicide (euphemistically known as Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) data has been missing. I have received multiple inquiries asking how many Canadians have died by MAiD, now we have some data, but not from the government.

On March 15, 2019; Jocelyn Downie, Canada's leading "academic" pro-euthanasia activist spoke at a lunch lecture for the Royal Society of Canada in Ottawa. In her presentation Downie stated that 7949 people have reportedly died by MAiD in Canada as of December 31, 2018. Downie clearly has access to euthanasia data that is otherwise unavailable.

Since the Third Interim report on MAiD indicated that there were 3714 reported assisted deaths up until December 31, 2017, Downie's data indicates that there were 4235 assisted deaths in 2018, up from 2704 reported assisted deaths in 2017.

Based on Downie's data, in 2018, the number of reported assisted deaths increased by more than 50% and assisted deaths represented more than 1.5% of all deaths.

I refer to reported assisted deaths because there have been 142 unaccounted assisted deaths in Québec and approximately 23% of the Netherlands assisted deaths are not reported.

Last December Québec published euthanasia data indicating that 1664 people died by MAiD from December 2015 to March 31, 2018. The data also indicated that there were 171 missing reports and 142 assisted deaths that were unaccounted.

Jocelyn Downie

What else did Downie say?

Downie stated that 99% of the assisted deaths are euthanasia, 1% assisted suicide, 95% are done by physicians, 42% occur at home and 41% occur in a hospital.

Downie stated that no ineligible persons died by MAiD. I guess that Downie didn't read the Québec Interim report which stated that:

• 3% (19 cases) did not comply with the eligibility criteria and safeguards, including:
• 5 cases – Person did not have a “serious and incurable illness”; 
• 2 cases – The person was not at the end of life.

For more information read: Third report from Québec's euthanasia commission - 142 unaccounted deaths.

According to the Downie data there were 4235 reported assisted deaths in 2018, 2704 assisted deaths in 2017 and 1010 reported assisted deaths (Dec 2015 - Dec 31, 2016). Similar to the Netherlands and Belgium, nearly all of the assisted deaths are euthanasia (done by lethal injection) rather than assisted suicide.

Tomorrow I will write about the rest of Downie's presentation.