Canada's euthanasia law devalues people with disabilities.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Janine Benedet and Isabel Grant, who are law professors at UBC, wrote an excellent opinion article that was published in the Globe and Mail on April 17 titled: Canada’s permissive assisted-dying culture is devaluing people with disabilities. The writers are commenting on domestic murder and how Canada's assisted dying law affected the sentencing of a murder victim who was a woman with a disability.

We know that the home continues to be a dangerous place for women, and that an average of one woman in Canada every week is killed by a current or former male partner. And so, as a society, we are supposed to be taking domestic violence seriously. The Criminal Code has a provision that makes violence against an intimate partner an aggravating factor in sentencing, and another that states that where the victim is vulnerable because of age or personal circumstances, the primary sentencing objectives are denunciation and deterrence.

And yet, in Edmonton last month, a man who killed his wife in 2018 through a lethal injection of insulin was sentenced to just two years of house arrest after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Why was the deliberate killing of 69-year-old Christiane Belzile by her husband Francois, then 73, treated so leniently? We believe the reason was simple: she was a woman with disabilities.

The lenient sentence was based on the fact that Christiane had a disability. The writers explain:

In 2011, after Mrs. Belzile had a stroke, her husband decided that he would be her sole caregiver, preventing her from receiving care from professionals. But she developed diabetes and dementia and, after a fall in 2018 that led to an infection, Francois told her they had “reached the end.” After the injection, when she stopped breathing, he tried to end his life.

If she had been a woman without disabilities, these actions might have been seen as examples of coercive control in an abusive relationship; instead, a combination of sexism, ableism, and ageism appears to have obscured the fact that she was exactly the kind of vulnerable victim the law must protect.

Instead, the judge accepted that Francois Belzile was suffering from “caregiver burnout” in imposing house arrest, even though Mr. Belzile had already received significant mitigation when the Crown reduced a first-degree murder charge to manslaughter.

The writers explain that Mr Belzile referred to his case as"Latimer Two":

Tracy Latimer

After his arrest, Francois Belzile referred to himself as “Latimer Two,” in reference to Robert Latimer, a Saskatchewan father who murdered his 12-year-old daughter Tracy, who had severe cerebral palsy, in 1993. Mr. Latimer went on to be sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Belzile’s lawyer told the sentencing judge that “the world has changed since Latimer, at least in Canada” – an argument that we believe sounded plausible because of the rapid expansion in Canada of medical assistance in dying (MAID) to persons with disabilities considered to be suffering intolerably, but who are not at the end of their natural lives.

The writers explain how this sentence is based on the disability of the victim.

When MAID was legalized in 2016, Canadians were assured that the law would protect vulnerable people from outside pressure, including from family members, and that it would be limited to those who could express a settled, informed choice to die after exhausting other options at the end of their lives. We were told MAID would protect against the possibility that individuals claiming to be acting out of mercy would take matters into their own hands. But by expanding MAID to those whose death is not imminent, with few safeguards and only a façade of monitoring, we have reached the point that killing can now be passed off as an extension of caregiving in a Canadian court.

Providing care to another human being is demanding work, mostly done by women. It should be better supported and better compensated, with options for assistance from professionals when needed. But a man who chooses to access none of those supports, and makes a unilateral decision that his wife is better off dead, should not be given a lesser charge and a considerable sentencing discount just because she was physically and verbally unable to resist.

The writers conclude:

Disability activists and scholars across Canada have warned in recent years against the expansion of MAID to disabled people who are not dying but are experiencing “intolerable suffering.” They worried that people with disabilities would seek MAID because they are denied the social and economic resources to live decent lives. They feared that people with disabilities would feel pressure to end their lives, and that non-disabled people, including doctors and other professionals, would undervalue disabled lives and normalize the premature deaths of people with disabilities. The legal system’s treatment of the killing of Christiane Belzile signals to us that they were right.

More articles on these topics:

• Canada passes Bill C-7 allowing euthanasia for mental illness (Link).
• Canada's law will provide not prevent suicide for some psychiatric patients (Link).
• Euthanasia for mental illness. Killing people with an uncertain prognosis (Link).
• Abbotsford police investigating euthanasia death (Link).
• Canada is not as advertised. Euthanasia is eugenics (Link).
• Canada's euthanasia law is the most permissive in the world (Link).
• (MAiD) euthanasia for disability and poverty (Link).
• (MAiD) euthanasia for mental illness and poverty (Link).
• Veterans affairs worker advocates euthanasia for PTSD (Link).\
• Abandoning people. Canada's broadening euthanasia laws (Link).
• Mother wants to stop 23-year-old son from dying by euthanasia (Link).
• Bereaved mother speaks out against euthanasia (Link).
• Woman died by euthanasia because of inadequate home care (Link).
• Infant euthanasia proposed by Quebec College of Physicians (Link).
• How poverty not pain is driving people with disabilities to euthanasia (Link).
• Ontario man seeks euthanasia to avoid homelessness (Link).
• Why did they kill my brother? (Link).
• Canada's doctors offer euthanasia before receiving a request (Link).
• Food bank clients asking for euthanasia based on poverty (Link).
• No other options. An expose on euthanasia in Canada (Link).
• Poverty and euthanasia creates public interest but euthanasia is abhorent on its own (Link).

Euthanasia’s Cultural Collateral Damage: Edmonton man killed his wife given house arrest.

This article was published by the National Review online on March 21, 2023

By Wesley J Smith

Euthanasia causes egregious cultural damage beyond the direct consequences of allowing the killing — or facilitating the suicides — of sick and disabled people. Eventually, the lives of the elderly, disabled, mentally ill, and seriously ill come to be seen as less valuable than the “healthy” and able-bodied — to the point that their homicides are often winked at by society. (We saw this phenomenon during Jack Kevorkian’s mass assisted suicides in the ’90s, supported by the much of the media and accompanied by the unwillingness of several juries to convict for nearly a decade.)

A recent homicide case in Canada further illustrates the point. As regular readers of my work are well aware, Canada has fallen off the euthanasia moral cliff by allowing broad categories of people to be killed by doctors as a means of ending “suffering.” But that denigrating attitude toward people with serious health conditions is catching on, and now, a man who killed his disabled wife has only had his hand slightly slapped on the wrist by a judge for the crime. From the Edmonton Journal story:

A retired accountant who killed his severely disabled wife will be allowed to serve his sentence on house arrest rather than in prison, with a judge ruling the accused’s “caregiver burnout” lessens his moral responsibility for the crime.

Belzile pleaded guilty last month to manslaughter for injecting Christiane Belzile — a 69-year-old, non-verbal stroke survivor for whom Francois Belzile had been sole caregiver for seven years — with a lethal dose of insulin after she was injured in a fall in 2018. Belzile then tried to end his own life.

Despite Francois’s refusal of state assistance — and a threat to end their lives if they ceased to be able to live “independently” before the crime — he was deemed unable to form intent to murder and allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter. Good grief.

There is no question that euthanasia advocacy and legalization impacted the case:

[Defense attorney] Hurley added that Belzile saw his actions as “the compassionate shortening of the final step.” Hurley also noted societal attitudes toward assisted death are rapidly changing, noting, “The world has changed since Latimer, at least in Canada.”

(Canadian Robert Latimer murdered his daughter Tracy, who was disabled by cerebral palsy, back in the ’90s. He served about ten years — but only because it was mandatory — and had the support of a majority of Canadian people according to polls.)

So, in essence, Francios put Christiane out of his misery and out of pride — i.e., him preferring death over dependency — and the judge winked at the crime by imposing such a light sentence for an egregious act.

What a frightening illustration of the lowered respect for “compromised” human life that euthanasia consciousness breeds. People with disabling conditions and those who love them should be terrified.

Latimer's request for Clemency should be rejected.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Peter Stockland

Peter Stockland, the former editor in chief of the Montreal Gazette, was published by Maclean's Magazine on August 17, 2018 concerning the application for clemency for Robert Latimer, who gassed his daughter Tracy to death in 1993.

Several weeks ago, Robert Latimer asked the Justice Minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould that he pardoned of his second-degree murder conviction in the death of his daughter Tracy, who was living with Cerebral Palsy. Latimer claimed that since euthanasia is now legal in Canada, that his crime should be erased from his record freeing him of the difficulty of crossing the boarder.

Stockland explains that Latimer lacks remorse for killing his daughter:

Tracy Latimer

Latimer himself has never hesitated to volubly proclaim he did nothing wrong in 1993 when he put his 12-year-old daughter Tracy in the cab of his farm truck and pumped carbon monoxide in to kill her. As recently as October 2017, Latimer gave an interview to the Saskatoon StarPhoenix in which he insisted yet again: “What I did was right.” 

Such defiant lack of remorse, in the face of five legal proceedings affirming his guilt and sentence, might be deemed worthy of comment by a government that seldom feels the need to restrain its vocal enthusiasm on an array of issues, including criminal verdicts still subject to potential appeal.

Stockland recognizes that Latimer has a right to request clemency for his murder conviction, and he explains some of the facts of the case:

Canadians who recall the 25-year-old killing know Latimer confessed, after initially lying to police. 

In its 2001 decision upholding his conviction and sentence, the Supreme Court records that “Mr. Latimer…told police he had considered giving Tracy an overdose of Valium or ‘shooting her in the head’ to end her suffering from severe cerebral palsy. The court documents the alternatives open to Latimer such as surgery for Tracy or placement in a care facility, all of which he rejected in favour of killing her. “Tracy’s proposed surgery did not pose an imminent threat to her life, nor did her medical condition,” the court said in rejecting what is called the defence of necessity. “In fact, Tracy’s health might have improved had the Latimers not rejected the option of relying on a feeding tube. [Latimer] can be reasonably expected to have understood that reality.”

• A pardon for Latimer could have consequences for disabled Canadians. 

Taylor Hyatt

Stockland interviews Taylor Hyatt, the outreach coordinator and policy analyst for the disability rights group Not Dead Yet, how attitides might change if Latimer is given a pardon:

“You’re going to see a tremendous shift in the way that disability, and people who live with it, is treated by Canadian society,” she says. “Down the road, more people could be inspired to share Mr. Latimer’s views and act on them by judging from the outside that a life like mine or Tracy’s is not worth living. People will be put in very real danger.” 

... Hyatt lives with cerebral palsy as Tracy Latimer did for the 12 years of her life, though its effect isn’t remotely as severe. It has taught her a great deal about assumptions Canadians still paternalistically make on behalf the disabled. She loathes, for example, the routine reference to her being “confined” to a wheelchair. 

“It’s true I have to use it all the time, but I’m not confined to it. I’m liberated. Without it, I would not be able to get out and experience the world as I do.”

• Tracy Latimer: my sister in spirit.

Stockland concludes his article by quoting Hyatt:

“He killed his minor daughter without her consent because of what he believed her life was like. Just because a way of life looks unfamiliar, even scary, even a thousand times harder than your own, don’t be quick to judge it is not worth living, and to impose your assumptions of a good life onto the life that is already there,” Hyatt says.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition opposes clemency for Robert Latimer.

Disability rights leader: Latimer stirs up nightmarish wake up call.

Dr Heidi Janz

Heidi Janz (PhD) is an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta’s John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre and the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine and chairs the Council of Canadians with Disabilities Ending-of-Life Ethics Committee. Dr Janz wrote the following opinion article that was published in the Edmonton Journal on July 20, 2018.

Last week, news outlets reported that Robert Latimer has submitted a letter to the federal minister of justice seeking a pardon or a new trial following his conviction for the murder of his daughter Tracy in 1993. When I heard these reports, I, like many Canadians with disabilities, felt a sickening sense of deja vu. 

For many Canadians with disabilities, including me, the murder of Tracy Latimer and the overwhelming media and public support for her father was a nightmarish wake-up call, alerting us to the fact that many, if not most, of our fellow Canadians considered a life with disabilities as being a life not worth living. 

During Latimer’s appeal trial, I vividly remember tuning into a CBC news magazine show on the topic and being overwhelmed with horror. For the first time, I became fully aware that, as a person with severe disabilities, I, too, would be viewed by many of my fellow Canadians as better off dead than disabled. 

Latimer’s request for a pardon means that my nightmare, and the nightmare of thousands of Canadians with disabilities, is beginning all over again. In petitioning to be pardoned, he is declaring: “I was right to kill my daughter; the law was wrong. Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) is now legal in Canada. Therefore, I should no longer continue to have to carry the stigma of being branded a convicted murderer just because MAID wasn’t a legal option when Tracy was alive. And—did I mention?—I WAS RIGHT!” 

What Latimer and his lawyers appear to be overlooking is that Medical Aid in Dying still isn’t legal for minors in Canada. Or perhaps it’s not so much that they’re ignoring that fact as it is that they’re hoping to promote a reshaping of the law that will vindicate Robert Latimer. 

As to the issue of stigma, it seems to me that the stigmatization we should be worrying about isn’t Robert Latimer’s, but Tracy’s, and along with her that of all Canadians with disabilities. 

Tracy Latimer

From the time Latimer was first arrested for killing Tracy, he portrayed his daughter as little more than a suffering bundle of flesh. And the mainstream media was quick to promote this image of Tracy. As Shafer Parker, a former journalist who covered Latimer’s murder trials, says, “Instead of the pain-wracked, non-communicative sufferer described by Latimer, the record reveals that right up until her last weekend, Tracy continued to ride the bus to the developmental centre in Wilkie five days a week, 45 minutes each way. And in the caregiver’s communication book that was permanently attached to Tracy’s wheelchair Mrs. Latimer included frequent descriptions of her as a ‘happy girl’ who, for example, was ‘all smiles’ when her cousins came for a visit. And when her younger sister Lindsay invited friends for a sleepover, she was fully involved in their hijinks. ‘Tracy was the worst girl,’ her mother wrote, ‘up at 10 to seven, laughing and vocalizing. She was really good the rest of the day.’ ” 

And yet, two-and-a-half decades after Tracy Latimer was murdered by her father, some mainstream media reports about his petition for a pardon still erroneously described Tracy as a “bedridden quadriplegic.” 

Finally, like many other disability-rights advocates, I am sickened and alarmed by Robert Latimer’s petition for pardon because, contrary to the claim of Latimer’s lawyer that “[g]ranting a pardon to Mr. Latimer does not detract from any value or principle,” pardoning Tracy’s killer would, in fact, signal an abandonment of the government’s commitment to equality, justice, and ending discrimination against disabled Canadians. 

Being a disabled Canadian could be about to get a whole lot scarier again thanks to Robert Latimer.

Taylor Hyatt - Tracy Latimer: My sister in spirit. 

Tracy Latimer: my sister in spirit

This article was published by Toujours Vivant - Not Dead Yet on July 19, 2018.

By Taylor Hyatt
Policy Analyst & Outreach Coordinator, Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet

Taylor Hyatt

On July 11, 2018, a number of news outlets revealed that Robert Latimer was seeking either a new trial or a complete pardon for the second degree murder conviction in the 1993 death of his daughter, Tracy. The conviction and life sentence he received (with a mandatory minimum of ten years before parole could be considered), were upheld by the Supreme Court in 2001. Latimer “was granted day parole in February 2008 and full parole in November 2010.”

Most Canadians are aware of his crime: in October 1993, Mr. Latimer put 12-year-old Tracy in the cab of his truck and piped in exhaust fumes. His motive? He “loved his daughter,” who was thought to be in severe pain, and “couldn’t bear watching her suffer.”

Tracy Latimer

The cause of Tracy’s alleged pain and suffering was her cerebral palsy. I was born with the same disability in May 1992, about a year and a half before Tracy’s death. As a result, I’ve always felt a connection when I’ve heard her name in the news. I can’t remember how old I was when I finally understood what had happened to her – probably around age 10 or 11. (For reference, I was 18 when Latimer was granted full parole in 2010. Among my fondest memories of high school law classes are the discussions my classmates had about how sickening his actions were!) Hearing about Tracy’s fate sent shivers down my spine…and years later, it still does. The sense of kinship I felt with her, and the disgust I felt at the thought of her murder, has stayed with me. If I had to put it all into words, it would read something like “She’s like me, and her father resented having to care for her and feared for her future so much that he killed her.”

There are at least two major differences between Tracy’s life and my own. Like all families, mine has had its share of squabbles and drama. Yet as intense as some of these conflicts have been, none would have put me in physical danger. As well, a medical label is just about the only thing our conditions have in common. Because my speech and cognition are unaffected by CP, it would have been easier for me to reach out to others if I were in a dangerous situation at home. Authorities would also be more likely to take my complaints seriously. Due to deep-rooted biases in our legal system, accounts of crimes put forward by people who communicate using assistive technologies or who have cognitive disabilities are more likely to be disbelieved.

As I wrote a few years ago, life with a disability does not seem too strange to the Canadian public right now. Walkers and wheelchairs like the ones used by Tracy and I are common sights. However, the internalized prejudice and fear surrounding disability that played a role in her murder is just as prevalent now as 25 years ago. Legal euthanasia and assisted suicide now offer a socially-sanctioned escape from those negative messages; the procedures are prompting a startling shift in our country’s view of disability, death, the definition of “suffering” and how much of it someone can live with. Just as some physicians have begun to view suicidal behaviour as “an expression of refusal of medical treatment,” Robert Latimer’s lawyers are now arguing that society’s new acceptance of assisted suicide makes his actions more understandable. Therefore, the case against him should be re-examined.

However, the lawyers are missing a few important points. First, as a minor, Tracy would not have been able to consent to her own death. Her father had a responsibility to protect his daughter, care for her, and help her to thrive – a task which he clearly rejected. Second, Tracy’s own thoughts about her life were not taken into account. At best, no one asked Tracy what she thought about her life because they lacked a consistent way to communicate with her. At worst, the obvious joy that she found in life with family and friends was dismissed – in part because she was disabled, young, and female.

The questions remain: does Canada value its citizens with disabilities less than it did 25 years ago? Will my sister in spirit continue to get the justice she deserves?

Tracy Latimer's killer does not deserve to be pardoned.

Carmela Hutchinson, the President of the Disabled Women's Network (DAWN) Canada wrote an excellent article that was published in Rabble on July 17, 2018.

Hutchinson points out that woman and girls with disabilities face greater levels of abuse than other groups. Hutchinson wrote:

Tracy Latimer

I would be deeply concerned for the protection of women and girls with disabilities if Tracy Latimer’s killer is pardoned.

Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which Canada ratified in 2010, calls for Equal Recognition under the law. Yet Tracy’s killer, believing he was acting out of “mercy”, acted as judge, jury and executioner. And now, thinking he is being victimized by society, is appealing to those very courts for a mercy of his own, still without any remorse, and continues to maintain he has done the right thing. 

Article 10 of the CRPD affirms the right to life of every human being. Yet, in the intervening years, Tracy was denied her Right to Life.

Tracy, 12-year-old a girl with disabilities who lived with cerebral palsy, was identified under the same Convention to be at particular risk for violence and abuse in extra need of protection as outlined in Article 6 -- Women with Disabilities and Article 7 -- Children with Disabilities.

She was murdered on her family farm by her father on Oct. 24, 1993.

Tracy’s murder is an example of ableism in its most heinous form. Feminist disability scholar Fran Odette cautions that ableism, the idea that disabled bodies are inferior, combined with sexism, place women and girls with disabilities at risk for unique types of violence and more violence.
In March 2018, the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics released a report --Violent Victimization of Women with Disabilities-- which lets us know women and girls living with disabilities like Tracy still live at risk. Specifically, the report notes that: 

- In 45 per cent of all incidents of violent victimization involving women, the victim was as woman with a disability.

- Women with a disability are more likely to experience multiple victimization. 

- Nearly two in five (36 per cent) women with a disability who were victimized reported two or more incidents, twice the proportion among women without a disability (20 per cent). 

- Almost one in three (30 per cent) incidents of violent victimization of a person with a disability occurred in their private residence, 

- One-quarter (26 per cent) of women with a disability were victimized in their own home. 

Clearly, Canada has failed to adequately protect and support women and girls with disabilities.

Funding needs to be provided for women and girls with disabilities to be empowered to live safe and effective lives.

In its comments to Canada in May 2017, the Committee on the CRPD called on Canada to ensure that its federal strategy on gender-based violence included specific benchmarks to address all forms of violence against women and girls with disabilities. 

It is impossible to think that in a country that places so much emphasis on addressing violence against women, that we could consider pardoning Tracy’s killer.

Robert Latimer does not deserve to be pardoned for killing his daughter Tracy.

A pardon for Latimer could have consequences for disabled Canadians

Shafer Parker wrote an excellent article that was published in the Calgary Herald on July 16.

By Shafer Parker

Tracy Latimer

When I read the Herald’s report that Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer is seeking a federal pardon for taking the life of his 12-year-old daughter Tracy, who from birth had lived with cerebral palsy, I knew I had to speak up.

Why? Because his application for a pardon is simply a continuation of the injustice Tracy has suffered ever since Latimer propped her up behind the wheel of his pickup truck in October 1993 and piped in exhaust until she was dead.

It isn’t enough for Latimer to somehow justify the second-degree murder he committed back in 1993 (a conviction unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001).

Part of the injustice Tracy continues to suffer stems from her father’s inability to face the facts of her life, and a compliant media’s willingness to accept his version of her story (more on that in a moment). The larger issue is that Latimer and Vancouver lawyer Jason Gratl are seeking to employ Canada’s two-year-old medical assistance in dying legislation as part of their plea.

Currently, the legislation does not apply to minors. Nor does it justify euthanizing Canadians simply because they are in some measure disabled. Nevertheless, if Latimer succeeds in getting federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to pardon him based on this argument, he will have endangered the lives of many.

A

Dr Heidi Janz

s Heidi Janz, chair of the ending of life ethics committee of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, has written: “contrary to the claim of Latimer’s lawyer that, ‘granting a pardon to Mr. Latimer does not detract from any value or principle,’ pardoning Tracy’s killer would, in fact, signal an abandonment of the government’s commitment to equality, justice and ending discrimination against disabled Canadians.”

It might make a difference if Wilson-Raybould takes the time to review transcripts of court testimony by Tracey’s mom before she decides whether to grant Latimer a pardon.

Instead of the “incessant agony” claimed by her father, her mother’s testimony reveals a girl who was enjoying her life. She loved music; she had a pull-switch on the canopy of her chair that would activate toys, and if a caregiver got too close, she would grab his or her glasses with her one useful hand and smile broadly.

She also smiled while playing a clapping game with her peers and would try to start again after others had grown tired.

In cross-examination, her mother also admitted in court that thanks to Tracy’s back surgery, in which steel rods were inserted into her spine, so much pressure had been taken off her abdomen, that for the first time in years, she could breathe easily and digest her food properly.

Yet Latimer has repeatedly cited this particular surgery as a cause of Tracy’s chronic suffering.

Moreover, instead of the pain-wracked, non-communicative sufferer described by Latimer, the record reveals that right up until her last weekend, Tracy continued to ride the bus to the developmental centre in Wilkie, Sask., five days a week, 45 minutes each way.

And in the caregiver’s communication book that was permanently attached to Tracey’s wheelchair, her mother included frequent descriptions of her as a “happy girl” who, for example, was “all smiles” when her cousins came for a visit.

And when her younger sister Lindsay invited friends for a sleepover, she was fully involved in their hijinks. “Tracy was the worst girl,” her mother wrote, “up at 10 to seven, laughing and vocalizing. She was really good the rest of the day.”

A major frustration for many observers, is Latimer’s absolute confidence that he did the right thing in taking his daughter’s life.

“This is not a crime,” he told reporters after the Supreme Court upheld his conviction. “Almost everything that’s happened have been things that ordinary humans would do.”

In light of the impact Latimer’s self-justifications may have on Canada’s assisted suicide law, it is worth noting that after the Supreme Court upheld his conviction, University of Saskatchewan law professor Donna Greschner declared that his actions “met the definition of first-degree murder.”

Not Dead Yet: Tracy Latimer Must Not Be Erased; Her Murder Must Not Be Pardoned.

Media Release

Contact: Amy Hasbrouck 450-921-3057 12 July 2018

TRACY LATIMER MUST NOT BE ERASED; HER MURDER MUST NOT BE PARDONED.

Multiple news outlets are reporting that Robert Latimer has submitted a letter to the Minister of Justice seeking a pardon or a new trial following his conviction for the murder of his daughter Tracy in 1993.

Latimer has been free on parole since 2010. Contrary to some media reports, Latimer has been able to travel outside Canada since 2015, according to the Globe and Mail.

Disability rights activists are concerned that the pardon request is a “symptom and effect of the continuing devaluation of disabled people” as shown by the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia in 2016, according to Amy Hasbrouck, director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet. She notes that individual choice is supposed to be key to the suspension of homicide laws in cases of assisted suicide and euthanasia. “Yet Tracy was not given a choice.”

Hasbrouck says public policies that favour institutional care over home-based supports, and failure to fund such supports, as well as palliative care, deprive disabled people of any real choice in where and how they live. “Under those circumstances, how can the choice to die be truly ‘free’?” she said.

Though Hasbrouck agrees that Tracy Latimer should have received effective pain relief, she finds the statement that ‘Tracy Latimer's life should have ended 'unintentionally' as a secondary consequence of her physicians' administration of opiates to alleviate her pain,” to be “ignorant, insulting, and offensive.”

Hasbrouck also points to a claim made by Latimer’s attorney Jason Gratl that "[g]ranting a pardon to Mr. Latimer does not detract from any value or principle.”

“Pardoning Tracy’s killer would signal a failure of the Government’s commitment to equality, justice, and ending discrimination against disabled Canadians,” said Hasbrouck.

She noted that the Latimer conviction was “the exception to the rule” that parents who kill their disabled children receive more lenient treatment from the criminal justice system than do parents who kill their non-disabled children.

Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet (TVNDY) is a nonreligious and nonpartisan organization established in 2013 by and for people with disabilities as a project of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. Our goal is to inform, unify and give voice to the disability rights opposition to assisted suicide, euthanasia, and other life-ending practices that have a disproportionate impact on people with disabilities.

TRACY LATIMER NE DOIT PAS ÊTRE EFFACÉ; SON MEURTRE NE DOIT PAS ÊTRE EXCUSÉ.

Contact:  Amy Hasbrouck 450-921-3057                                         12 July 2018

Plusieurs médias rapportent que Robert Latimer a envoyé une lettre au ministre de la Justice pour demander la grâce ou un nouveau procès pour le meurtre de sa fille Tracy en 1993.

Latimer est en liberté conditionnelle depuis 2010. Contrairement à certains reportages dans les médias, Latimer a pu voyager à l'extérieur du Canada depuis 2015, selon le Globe and Mail.

Selon Amy Hasbrouck, directrice de Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, les militants des droits des personnes en situation de handicap craignent que la demande de grâce soit un « symptôme et effet de la dévaluation continue des personnes avec déficiences ». Elle note que le choix individuel est censé être la clé de la suspension des lois sur l'homicide dans les cas de suicide assisté et d'euthanasie. « Pourtant, Tracy n'a pas eu de choix. »

Hasbrouck dit que les politiques publiques qui favorisent les soins institutionnels plutôt que les soins à domicile, et le manque de financement de tels soutiens, ainsi que les soins palliatifs, privent les personnes avec des incapacités de tout choix réel quant à où et comment elles vivent. « Dans ces circonstances, comment le choix de mourir peut-il être vraiment "libre"? » A-t-elle dit.

Bien qu'Hasbrouck convienne que Tracy Latimer aurait dû recevoir un soulagement efficace de la douleur, elle trouve l’énonce « la vie de Tracy Latimer aurait dû se terminer "involontairement" comme une conséquence secondaire de l'administration d'opiacés par ses médecins pour soulager sa douleur, » être ignorante, insultant et offensant. "

Hasbrouck fait également allusion à une affirmation de l'avocat de Latimer, Jason Gratl, selon laquelle « le fait de gracier un pardon à M. Latimer ne porte atteinte à aucune valeur ou principe. »

« Pardonner l'assassinat de Tracy signifierait un échec de l'engagement du gouvernement envers l'égalité, la justice et l'élimination de la discrimination contre les Canadiens avec déficiences, » a déclaré Hasbrouck.

Elle a noté que la condamnation Latimer fait « l'exception à la règle » que les parents qui tuent leurs enfants ayant des incapacités reçoivent un traitement plus clément du système de justice pénale que les parents qui tuent leurs enfants non handicapés.

Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet (TVNDY) est une organisation non religieuse et non partisane fondée en 2013 par et pour les personnes handicapées dans le cadre d'un projet du Conseil des Canadiens avec déficiences. Notre objectif est d'informer, d'unifier et de donner une voix à l'opposition aux droits des personnes handicapées contre le suicide assisté, l'euthanasie et d'autres pratiques qui mettent fin à la vie et qui ont un impact disproportionné sur les personnes handicapées.

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Canada Legalized Euthanasia. Will Parents Be Able To Kill Disabled Children?

This article was written by Rohan Sharma published by Pagalparrot on November 22, 2017

According to a survey conducted by the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS), paediatricians are already increasingly being asked by parents to euthanize disabled or dying children and infants.

American anti-euthanasia activist Wesley Smith wrote in the National Review, 

“Once euthanasia consciousness is unleashed, it never stops expanding. I guess Robert Latimer–a Canadian farmer who murdered his daughter because she had cerebral palsy–was a visionary.”

The CPS survey noted, 

“such consultations may be rare, minors in Canada are contemplating MAID-related concepts and approaching healthcare providers with MAID-related questions. Given the evolving legislative landscape, it is reasonable to anticipate that such questions will increase in the near future.”

The executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition added: 

“All this is very problematic. Why do you want to allow them to suffer? So the idea is, well, this isn’t fair, the law has an inequality because you’re allowing adults who are capable of requesting this, but not children or mature minors.” 

• Canadian Paediatricians consider extending euthanasia to newborns, minors and teens.

Catherine Frazee: The Nazi Aktion T4 euthanasia program is part of my history as a disabled person.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Catherine Frazee

Recently the euthanasia lobby attacked Dr Harvey Schipper for comparing "assisted dying" to the Nazi T-4 euthanasia program. This would not have been a big deal other than that fact that Schipper had been appointed to chair a working group that was to examine Canada's euthanasia law and make recommendations concerning possible extensions to the law.

Schipper responded to the criticism by resigning as chair of the working group

Catherine Frazee, who is an Officer of the Order of Canada and professor emerita at the Ryerson University School of Disability Studies wrote an article titled: Look into the dark corners of history that was published in the Victoria Times Colonist on June 15. Frazee wrote:

History has a role in the national conversation about medically assisted death, despite protests to the contrary. 

A respected physician and scholar recently stepped down as chairman of the expert working group appointed to study the issue of advanced directives for medically assisted death. 

Named to this position only two weeks before by the Council of Canadian Academies, Dr. Harvey Schipper was judged harshly in some circles for having authored a commentary in 2014 in which, according to some reports, he had “compared arguments used to justify assisted dying with those advanced by Nazi Germany to justify the Holocaust.” 

Schipper was repeatedly characterized as “a strident opponent of assisted dying” for reasons having nothing to do with the tone or substance of his argument. What seemed to cause offence and give rise to a condemnation of “strident” opposition was Schipper’s reference to Nazi-era euthanasia.

Nazi T4 euthanasia program victims

Frazee continues by recounting the history of the Nazi euthanasia program:

None of Schipper’s critics disputed the facts upon which his reference was made, nor should they. As historians have chronicled, the Nazi euthanasia program originated when a father in Leipzig petitioned to end the life of his disabled daughter and Adolf Hitler dispatched his personal physician, Karl Brandt, to authorize her death as “an act of mercy.” 

According to historian Hugh Gallagher, “as the story of the little Leipzig girl became known in medical circles, other families sent similar appeals to the Führer.” It fell to Brandt to make determinations on each of these requests and ultimately to authorize the killing of at least 70,000 people with disabilities pursuant to what the American Holocaust Museum describes as “a medically administered program of ‘mercy death.’ ”

Frazee then challenges the attack on Schipper:

Schipper’s recusal as working group chairman will no doubt be applauded by advocates who seek to broaden the availability of assisted death in Canada. Others, such as myself, who know Schipper to be a man of considerable wisdom and integrity, are saddened that the 43-member panel — which includes expert advocates on both sides of this debate — failed to seize the opportunity to rise above the clamour and reject any suggestion that politics, rather than evidence, would govern their work. 

Had they spoken out together, and forcefully, in defence of their colleague, the outcome might have been different. 

This is not the first time that a measured and accurate reference to the historical facts of the Nazi euthanasia program has been condemned as strident, distasteful or offensive. It should be the last. 

Nothing about medically assisted death is ahistorical. As we review current law and practice, and consider potential expansion to the Criminal Code exemptions that permit Canadian doctors and nurse practitioners to end the lives of certain patients, surely we have the maturity to invite history into the conversation.

Frazee then outlines the reality that people with disabilities have historically faced:

Doctors, at times, have killed. This is fact. Often, when they have killed or harmed, they have not acted alone, but as agents of state authority. 

With all of their immense skill and influence, doctors have played indispensable roles in residential schools and asylums in Canada, comfort stations in Southeast Asia, enhanced interrogation facilities at Guantánamo Bay and extermination centres in Nazi Germany. 

People with disabilities have suffered violence and harm at the hands of doctors, parents and caregivers. Sometimes, as with Satoshi Uematsu in Sagamihara, Japan, the world has instantly recoiled in horror. Sometimes, as with parent Robert Latimer in Saskatchewan, a court of law might ultimately uphold conviction, but not before public opinion solidifies in support of the perpetrator. 

Sometimes, as with Brandt, a nation colludes. 

The Nazi Aktion T4 euthanasia program is part of my history as a disabled person. Importantly, it’s also part of Schipper’s history as a physician. Those who would forbid us to speak of this history, or police our speech as strident and unwelcome, can only fuel doubt about whether its lessons have been learned.

Frazee concludes by challenging the working groups to examine the extension of euthanasia through the lens of history:

If our federal government is to benefit from the comprehensive reviews it assigned to the Council of Canadian Academies, and if the council’s working groups are to gather the evidence Canadians require to guide policy decisions about providing medically assisted death to mature minors, to people with mental illness and to people no longer capable of expressing consent, then the history of euthanasia, and questions arising from the darkest corners of that history, must not be out of bounds. 

As Margaret MacMillan, the distinguished Canadian historian, has said: “We don’t always know best, and the past can remind us of that.”

Thank you to Catherine Frazee for setting the record straight.

Previous articles by Catherine Frazee:

• There can be dignity in all states of life.
• Assisted suicide debate masks disability prejudice.