Court case (Day 3) to force all healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

St Paul's hospital Vancouver

The court case concerning the right of religiously affiliated healthcare institutions to refuse to participate in (MAiD) euthanasia began in a BC Court on Monday January 12 and will be heard for the next four weeks.

(Article for Trail Day 1) (Article for Trial Day 2)

Samantha O'Neill (34) died on April 4, 2023 by euthanasia (MAiD) after being transferred from St Paul's hospital in Vancouver to a Hospice that does euthanasia.

Suzanne Lazaruk reporting for the Vancouver Sun on January 14 explains:

The O’Neills, the pro-assisted death group Dying with Dignity, and a former St. Paul’s doctor filed the lawsuit to ask the B.C. Supreme Court to remove the exemption granted to religious groups such as the hospital’s operator, Providence Health Care, to allow them to opt out of assisted dying procedures.

The exemption is based on the section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the fundamental freedom of Canadians to follow their conscience and religion and not to act against their beliefs.

Lazaruk reported on the testimony of Meagan Mackay, a friend of Sam O'Neill:

Sam’s friend, Meaghan MacKay, on Wednesday testified that the transfer was upsetting to watch even though Sam was sedated through transport.

She said she had heard how the assisted dying procedure was peaceful and beautiful, but she said the reality of Sam’s was that her final goodbyes were rushed because the transfer team was waiting. And she said the hospice didn’t appear set up to accommodate her arrival and Sam’s mother and a friend had to clear a room of medical aids before the gurney could be rolled in.

A witness for the plaintiffs Robert Chevarie, explained that his grandmother, who had also been transferred from a religiously affiliated hospital for euthanasia, suffered from being transferrered because of her obesity.

Chevarie is arguing that his grandmother should had euthanasia at the religiously affiliated hospital. Chevarie's testimony misses the fact that people are transferred everyday from one hospital to another for procedures. His grandmothers obesity would have been a problem whether the transfer was for euthanasia or for anything else. In today's healthcare system, hospitals cannot provide all procedures, whether it is a faith based institution or not.

Finally, Lazaruk reported that:

Also on Wednesday, Skolrood delivered his judgment on an application by Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, one of the defendants, ruling the evidence of the three plaintiff doctors should be limited to their observations and experience and not include opinions.

Their evidence will be used to establish that the assisted dying ban at the hospital caused the doctors moral distress, violating their Charter rights — the guarantee of their life, liberty and security of person, and their rights to freedom of conscience and religion.

This means that Justice Skolrood will only consider the observations and experience of the doctors involved and not their opinions.

On June 17, 2024; Dying with Dignity and the family of Sam O'Neill, who requested euthanasia at St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver but transferred to another facility to die by euthanasia, launched a Charter Challenge claiming that O'Neill's rights were infringed when she was transferred from St. Paul's Hospital to another facility for euthanasia.

One of the goals of the euthanasia lobby is to force all Canadian medical institutions to provide (MAiD) euthanasia.

Court case (Day 2) to force all healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia.

The mother of Sam O'Neill, who is also the key plaintiff in the case, had not visited her daughter for more than a year, before her daughters death.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

St Paul's hospital Vancouver

The court case concerning the right of religiously affiliated healthcare institutions to refuse to participate in (MAiD) euthanasia began in a BC Court on Monday January 12 and will be heard for the next four weeks.

(Article on Day 1 of the trial)

Samantha O'Neill (34) died on April 4, 2023 by euthanasia (MAiD) was transferred from St Paul's hospital in Vancouver to a Hospice that was willing to do euthanasia. 

Suzanne Lazaruk reported on January 13 for the Vancouver Sun on day 2 of the trial. Lazaruk reports on the testimony by Sam O'Neill's mother.

Testifying at Day 2 of the trial before Chief Justice Ronald Skolrood, O’Neill was asked by her lawyer how the transfer made her feel.

“We believe our God is all loving and choosing to die from MAID isn’t a sin,” she said. “It makes us feel that she was made to feel less than she is.”

She likened it to watching a child being pushed down in the playground and seeking help from the principal and “they come over and kick them,” she said.

“That’s how appalling it is to me. And I’ve got to watch them beat them up. That’s how I feel.”

She also described how “horrible” it was to walk into Sam’s room at St. Paul’s the last time she spoke to her, just before her transfer to the hospice on April 4, 2023, the same day a doctor there helped her die.

When O’Neill saw her sitting on a commode in her room, “I was absolutely appalled and horrified and embarrassed for her,” she said.

Lazaruk then reports on the cross-examination of Sam O'Neill's mother:

Under cross-examination by a Providence lawyer, O’Neill agreed that she had never heard any hospital staff disrespect her daughter and she said Sam liked them and the feeling was mutual.

Despite her testimony that she felt the ban on assisted dying was an attack on Sam’s morality, “Nobody at the staff of Providence ever said anything that was disrespectful of your daughter’s morality, did they?” he asked.

“The doctors and the nurses were wonderful,” said O’Neill.

Lazaruk continued with the cross-examination of Sam O'Neill's mother.

But the lawyer suggested to her in questioning that Sam’s care was agreed upon by her and staff and that she wanted to keep short her visits with them until just before the transfer.

“Everything you saw, you understood to be the result of choices Sam had made?” he asked.

“I can’t answer that,” said O’Neill, who said Sam had chosen not to see her mother for the year before her death, until the last day.

In other words, Sam O'Neill refused to let her mother visit until the last day of her life. The mother may not have been involved with any of her daughters medical decisions.

On June 17, 2024; Dying with Dignity and the family of Sam O'Neill, who requested euthanasia at St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver but transferred to another facility to die by euthanasia, launched a Charter Challenge claiming that O'Neill's rights were infringed when she was transferred from St. Paul's Hospital to another facility for euthanasia.

One of the goals of the euthanasia lobby is to force all Canadian medical institutions to provide (MAiD) euthanasia.

Court case to force all healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia began on January 12 in Vancouver.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The court case concerning the right of religiously affiliated healthcare to refuse to participate in (MAiD) euthanasia began in a BC Court on Monday January 12 and will be heard for the next four weeks.

One of the goals of the euthanasia lobby is to force all Canadian medical institutions to provide (MAiD) euthanasia.

On June 17, 2024; Dying with Dignity and the family of Sam O'Neill, who requested euthanasia at St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver but transferred to another facility to die by euthanasia, launched a Charter Challenge claiming that O'Neill's rights were infringed when she was transferred from St. Paul's Hospital to another facility for euthanasia.

Susan Lazaruk reported for the Vancouver Sun on January 12 that:

Her parents, Gaye and Jim O’Neill, are among the plaintiffs suing Providence, the province and Vancouver Coastal Health Authority on constitutional grounds, citing Section 7, which guarantees the life, liberty and security of a person, and Section 2, which protects freedom of conscience and religion, including none.

The plaintiffs argue the Catholic institution should not have the right to deny a legal procedure in a building partly funded by taxpayer dollars.

The British Columbia government defended it's agreement with Providence Health. Lazaruk reported:

The province’s lawyer, Alison Brown, said in her opening argument the province will show the medical transfers of those requesting assisted dying are routine and the hospital doesn’t deny patients who request it the chance to access it outside of the hospital.

Brown said the plaintiffs’ position is that moving a patient for MAID, even to a room next door in the same hospital, is “still constitutionally impermissible.” But she argued that can’t be accommodated in Canada’s health care system and “it’s not what the Constitution compels.”

“There’s no positive and specific entitlement under the Constitution to access a health-care service in a specific room,” she said.

I reported on June 27, 2023 that the euthanasia lobby was using the story of Samantha O'Neill (34), who died on April 4 by euthanasia (MAiD) after being transferred from St Paul's hospital in Vancouver to St. John’s Hospice.

Katie DeRosa reported for The Vancouver Sun on June 23 that Dying With Dignity and O'Neill's family initiated a campaign to pressure the BC government to force Catholic hospitals to kill their patients by euthanasia. DeRosa reported:

O’Neill’s family and Dying with Dignity Canada say it’s unacceptable that a taxpayer-funded hospital like St. Paul’s — which is getting a $2 billion replacement in 2027 — forces dying patients to leave its facility to get MAID.

Dying with Dignity’s CEO Helen Long told DeRosa:

such policies will remain in place unless there’s a successful court challenge.

Outside Shoreline Space

In December 2023, The BC government responded to the euthanasia lobby campaign by expropriating property from Providence Healthcare to build a euthanasia killing centre next to St. Paul's hospital.

On May 30, 2025 while on a speaking tour in British Columbia, I visited the Shoreline Space euthanasia killing centre that is attached to St. Paul's Hospital (Providence Health) in Vancouver.

It is not enough for the euthanasia lobby group that the BC government built a killing centre (green shed) that connects to St. Paul's hospital.

It is the goal of the euthanasia lobby to force every medical institution to provide (MAiD) euthanasia in Canada.

This case will decide whether or not religiously affiliated healthcare institutions can continue to exist in Canada.

Built to Coerce: Canada’s Laboratory of Euthanasia

This article was published by The Pulse on October 14, 2025. The Pulse is the research publication for the Catholic Medical Association.

By Yuriko Ryan, DBe, MA, HEC-C

One summer morning my husband and I stepped into a Catholic hospital through a main entrance we both knew well. It was where he was born, where he practiced almost daily as a family physician for 35 years, where we returned to countless specialist visits, outpatient appointments, palliative care meetings with dear friends, and the joy of welcoming babies in the maternity ward. For us, the hospital was a constant holy presence, an unwavering witness to the dignity of life.

Previous articles about the Shoreline Space (Articles Link).

But this visit brought something unexpected into view. On the left wall, a new mural of muted mountains and shoreline scenes quietly caught our attention. There were no familiar reminders – no mission statement and no donor plaques. The absence felt unsettling and eerie. Beside the mural was a locked door, labeled not with Providence or St. Paul’s Hospital but with the name of the regional health authority and Shoreline Space. Outside it, elderly patients unsuspectingly sat in wheelchairs, on walkers, or on chairs, waiting for their ride in a handicapped-accessible van. This was the wall and the door to the euthanasia clinic, conjoined to our Catholic hospital. The mural and the doorway together became more than décor – they became a map of contested moral space.   

Canada – Laboratory of Euthanasia

Canada has transformed into a real-world testing ground for euthanasia – what the law calls medical assistance in dying (MAiD). Initially permitted only in cases of suffering with terminal illness, [i] MAiD has rapidly expanded through court challenges framed as rights. Law makers and healthcare systems have responded with unexpected enthusiasm by widening eligibility to include patients with chronic conditions, disabilities, mental illness, frailty, and various perceived sufferings.

By the end of 2024, around 90,000 Canadians had died by MAiD since it became legal in 2016.[ii] In 2023, MAiD deaths accounted for 4.7% of all Canadian deaths,^[iii] making it the fifth leading cause of death nationwide. The pace of growth is nearly the same proportion the Netherlands reached after twenty years.[iv] Today, MAiD requests are rarely denied. [v]

Article: There were around 16,500 euthanasia deaths in 2024 (Link).

Spatial Ethics

Spatial ethics, despite their significance to environmental and behavioral psychology,[vi] [vii] [viii] [ix] and moral theology, including principles such as cooperation with evil,[x] have received scant attention. Yet the arrangement of care spaces profoundly shapes our moral imagination and our moral discourse. Hospitals and hospices are not the only ones facing spatial ethics issues. Risks to patients or individuals residing in long-term care homes and other congregate housing settings may be elevated due to the shared use of common areas and, frequently, rooms among clients. They may not be able to express their concerns adequately due to their cognitive decline, serious chronic illness and comorbidities, lack of care advocates, language barriers, and loneliness and isolation. For patients with disabilities, frequently, the limited access to home care, disability support and services in their own communities result in unwanted hospitalization. And MAiD assessments are more readily available in hospitals. These care spaces may implicitly communicate to vulnerable populations that their lives are burdensome.

Built To Coerce

When my poster Built to Coerce: Ethics of Imposed Euthanasia (MAiD) Provision in a Catholic Hospital Space received recognition at the Catholic Medical Association conference, the moment was bittersweet. The award affirmed the urgency of examining how legal and healthcare structures can pressure Catholic and other mission-driven organizations, medical professionals, and patients toward euthanasia through spatial arrangements. Yet the recognition could not erase the grief that such coercion exists, nor the weight of knowing that euthanasia clinics are being embedded in contested care settings across the country, reshaping not only the geography of care but the very meaning of healthcare itself.

Meanings of Healthcare Space

Traditionally, healthcare spaces served as operational, missional, and moral actors. The euthanasia clinic I described is located immediately inside a main entrance of our Catholic hospital. Its placement – on the main floor, adjacent to high-volume outpatient specialty clinics and diagnostic labs and visible along corridor sightlines – functions as an operational and missional signal for the regional health authority and the government. It implicitly states who matters and who is deemed peripheral. Despite a pre-existing agreement signed two decades earlier, denominational healthcare organizations now face human-rights legal challenges and mounting pressure to provide euthanasia onsite in exchange for a license to operate and receive public funding. This forced presence demands collective moral reflection and renewed missional rigor – not only for Catholic healthcare organizations but for any organization striving to remain a witness to the dignity of life.    

On the Ground

British Columbia – our province – has the second-highest per capita rate of MAiD deaths across the country.[xi] By 2023, MAiD deaths had already surpassed deaths from illicit drug overdoses.[xii]In 2024, MAiD accounted for 6.7% of all deaths in BC.[xiii] [xiv] Of the 3,000 MAiD deaths in 2024, nearly 90 % were seniors aged 65 and over. 35% died by MAiD for “Other Conditions” – not cancer or cardiovascular diseases –, with frailty being the leading cause under the “Other” category. MAiD has become a solution to old age. In 2024, approximately 40% of all MAiD deaths in BC occurred in private residences.[xv] Their last breaths in the air of family spaces risk shared memories being tainted. Spatial ethics issues surrounding MAiD now touch every care and housing setting.[xvi]

It is not difficult to imagine how frail seniors reach such decisions, surrounded by cues embedded in care spaces. In hospitals, they overhear conversations about MAiD in multi-occupancy rooms or find pamphlets left at their bedside. In hospices, if MAiD is openly celebrated next door, the space begins to speak to the minds of the dying. Stand alone MAiD suites are also appearing in business complexes, without clear signage, mission statements, or donor plaques – eerily similar to Shoreline Space. One is built in direct view of a community dialysis clinic, remains unmarked with smoky windows, passed daily by unsuspecting patients and office workers.

A Warning to the World

Canada is a warning to the world as an experimental laboratory of euthanasia. When healing and killing share a wall, corridor, and a roof, they become each other’s gatekeepers, and the very meaning of healthcare space is at stake. An unsuspecting patient walking past a MAiD clinic is not only a Canadian story. It is a parable of what hospitals, hospices, and nursing homes elsewhere may soon confront. Built to Coerce was not only the title of a poster; it is the reality inscribed in our healthcare architecture. The question is not whether pressures will come – they already exist. The question is where we will find the courage to preserve spaces where life is reverenced before the geography of care is irresistibly altered.

Build to Care, Not to Coerce  

If Catholic healthcare is to remain a witness to the dignity of life, then MAiD-free zones cannot be left to chance, convenience, or the whim of those who promote euthanasia.  Catholic Medical Association members and all who serve in healthcare are called to remain a constant presence and an unwavering witness to the dignity of life, safeguarding spaces that are theoretically sound, theologically rooted, and morally grounded. Let us call our brothers and sisters, regardless of vocation, to build to care, not to coerce.

Dr. Yuriko Ryan is a bioethicist and gerontologist based in Vancouver, Canada. She serves on the Catholic Medical Association’s Ethics Committee and the International Ad-hoc Committee. Her writing explores the moral contours of artificial intelligence, aging, and end-of-life care, appearing in Momento, her weekly bioethics newsletter, and feature articles for AI and Faith. Through her lectures, publications, and committee work, she advocates for human dignity across all stages of life, guided by a Catholic lens. 

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[i] The Government of Canada. Medical Assistance in Dying: Overview. Accessed August 1, 2025.Accessed August 30, 2025. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html

[ii] Schadenberg, Alex. (September 29, 2025). Accessed September 30, 2025. Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: There were around 16,500 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2024, 5% of all deaths.

[iii] Health Canada. (2024, December 11). Fifth annual report on medical assistance in dying in Canada, 2023 (Cat. No. H22-1/6E-PDF; ISBN 2563-3643). Accessed September 30, 2025.  https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-system-services/annual-report-medical-assistance-dying-2023.html

[iv]   Regional Euthanasia Review Committees. (March 25). Accessed September 30, 2025. Annual reports (English, Spanish, French and German) | Regional Euthanasia Review Committees

[v] Th Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, 2023 – Canada.ca

[vi] Kahana, Eva. “A congruence model of person-environment interaction.” Aging and the environment: Theoretical approaches (1982): 97-121.

[vii] Bell, Paul A., T. Green, Jeffrey D. Fisher, and Andrew Baum. Environmental psychology. New Jersey, 2001.

[viii] Ajzen, Icek. “The theory of planned behavior.” Organizational behavior and human decision processes 50, no. 2 (1991): 179-211.

[ix] Stamps, Arthur E. Psychology and the aesthetics of the built environment. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013.

[x] Meany, Joseph. Referral as Formal Cooperation with Evil – F.I.A.M.C.

[xi] See Health Canada’s 5^th annual report.

[xii] BC Coroners Service. Unregulated Drug Deaths – BC. Notes: 2588 deaths due to unregulated drug deaths in 2023. In the same year, 2,759 MAiD deaths were reported.

[xiii] BC Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Statistical Report 2024. Accessed September 28, 2025. bc-medical-assistance-in-dying-statistical-report-2024.pdf

[xiv] Statistics Canada. Accessed September 30, 2025. Estimates of the components of natural increase, quarterly

[xv] BC Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Statistical Report 2024. Accessed September 28, 2025. bc-medical-assistance-in-dying-statistical-report-2024.pdf

[xvi] Angus Reid Institute (December 12, 2024). Division over aspects of assisted dying, including MAiD-free spaces. Accessed August 10, 2025.  https://angusreid.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024.12.12_MAID_free_discretion.pdf

Catholic hospital answers MAiD onslaught with authentic medical care.

This article was published by Terry O'Neill on his blog on June 20, 2025.

Terry O'Neill

By Terry O'Neill

As I reported earlier this month, the B.C. government and its operatives at Vancouver Coastal Health have relentlessly forced euthanasia facilities into or near several Catholic spaces in the Metro Vancouver area.

Given the Catholic facilities’ pro-life beliefs, this can only be seen as a grave incursion. It’s certainly one that has profoundly upset many of the faithful.

But what are the consequences within those facilities? How deeply has this fatal infection reached? And how rigorously has Providence Health Care, the Catholic medical-care agency, been able to maintain its pro-life principles?

The answers I recently received to these questions give me some hope, and I’ll will share them below. First, though, a quick review.

Door from St Paul's
to the Shoreline Space

My original story found that a Vancouver-Coastal-operated Medical Assistance in Dying facility on the campus of the Providence-operated St. Paul’s Hospital has been operating since January 6 of this year. It’s called the “Shoreline Space” and is attached, with no intervening corridor, to a wall of the hospital. See photo.

To my eyes, it’s a carbuncle—a death chamber facilitating homicide and, in doing so, performing a function that is exactly the opposite of the medical care to which St. Paul’s is dedicated.

Shoreline Space

My story also disclosed how I had discovered, through a freedom-of-information application, that Vancouver Coastal is planning to impose a 2,800-square-foot MAiD facility on the new St. Paul’s, which is scheduled to open in 2027. No agency—not the B.C. government, Vancouver Coastal, Providence, or the Archdiocese of Vancouver (which oversees Providence)—has ever announced this.

And finally, my story reported that Vancouver Coastal has established MAiD rooms in the same buildings as two Providence-operated hospices. Providence does not own those buildings.

The story has now received international coverage. Alex Schadenberg, of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, featured it on his blog. The Canadian Catholic News website carried my story. Campaign Life Coalition carried the news on its Facebook page. Two pro-life websites, lifenews.com and liveaction.org, reported on it. And, finally, anti-MAiD firebrand Kelsi Sheren wrote about on her Substack space.

My reporting on MAiD was sparked five years ago by acquaintances who told me that, while in hospital, they had been pestered by hospital staff about accepting MAiD, even though they weren’t dying.

I was shocked and launched an investigation into what the MAiD-delivery policy was at one large, public health agency, Fraser Health. My freedom-of-information request found that its policy was that MAiD is supposed to be a patient-led process.

But, clearly, if hospital staff were pestering patients about MAiD, such a policy isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Moreover, I discovered that at Fraser Health hospices, staff are instructed to inform every incoming patient that, among the services they were entitled to, was a cocktail of deadly drugs. The policy led to the resignation of at least one doctor.

I also learned that at least one Australian health agency maintains a policy prohibiting staff to initiate any discussion about euthanasia. This, I believe, should be the policy everywhere.

Hospital patients are in a vulnerable state. They’re sick, often elderly, and sometimes harbouring feelings that they are being a burden on their families.

Suggesting MAiD to such patients can be misinterpreted as recommending it. And when the question is asked over and over again, day after day, patients will undoubtedly feel pressured.

With all this in mind – the imposition of MAiD at Providence and the must-mention MAiD policy of Fraser Health – I asked Providence how exactly it handled requests for MAiD and whether it had a policy about initiating discussions about MAiD.

I am happy to report now that a Providence spokesperson, Shaf Hussain, very promptly sent me a detailed policy statement on how staff should respond to a request for MAiD.

But, I responded, does Providence allow its staff to actually initiate a discussion about MAiD?

“To clarify, no, we don’t proactively mention MAiD as an option to consider,” Hussain wrote. “We never initiate an offer of MAiD. If a patient enquires about it, we contact the VCH MAiD team. From PHC’s perspective, we ensure the patient is provided information about all [non-MAiD] end-of-life options, so the patient can make an informed decision.”

Hussain then quoted from a policy document that further explained the policy:

“A person can ask a member of their care team about MAiD if it is something they want to explore.” The document states. “Assessments for MAiD eligibility will be conducted by two doctors and/or nurse practitioners. A health authority MAiD care coordination service, like the [Vancouver Coastal] Assisted Dying Program, leads arrangements for assessment.

“To assist with making an informed decision, both the care team at PHC and the MAiD assessors will discuss the person’s medical condition with them. They will also discuss services and treatments that are available to relieve suffering.

“Services and treatments may include adjusting a current treatment plan, engaging palliative care services, community support services or other options. A person does not have to accept any of these services, but it is legally required for a person requesting MAiD to be offered care options to address the person’s suffering.”

All this is good to know—good that Providence is adhering to authentic, pro-life medical care in the midst of a very difficult situation.

Let's pray that Providence is able to sustain and grow its admirable pro-life policies and practices. After all, it's a life and death matter.

Previous articles on this topic:

• Vancouver euthanasia clinic imposed on Catholic hospital (Link).
• Euthanasia clinic forced onto Catholic hospital is now operational (Link). 
• They built a death chamber at a Catholic hospital. You paid for it (Link).

They Built a Death Chamber at a Catholic Hospital. You Paid for It

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her substack on June 17, 2025..

This Is Not Medicine. It’s Modern Extermination. Inside the St. Paul’s Death Chamber in a Catholic Hospital.

Kelsi Sheren

By Kelsi Sheren

Hey! Look over here!

Your taxes are building eugenics facilities!

St. Paul's hospital in BC has just installed a new killing centre. Now servicing BC patients' the government has decided are to expensive to actually care for. A Recent decision by the British Columbia government to forcibly establish MAiD killing centres adjacent to the Catholic operated St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver represents where Canada is at when it comes to helping its citizens. This is a unprecedented shift in Canada’s healthcare practices, raising profound ethical, religious, and societal concerns.

These new locations popping up across the country are designed for effective and fast killing. A one stop shop for death.

You come in and you never come out. This is Canadian health care…. so they say.

St. Paul's Hospital

In June 2023, pro death cult advocates significantly escalated their pressure campaign, utilizing the tragic case of Samantha O'Neill as leverage. If you haven’t heard of this case, let me give you the Coles notes. Samantha O’Neill had requested to be killed at St. Paul's Hospital, but in alignment with its longstanding Catholic ethical stance against euthanasia, the hospital transferred her compassionately to St. John's Hospice.

Instead of recognizing this action as a respectful accommodation of religious ethics and patient choice, the pro death cults of Canada leveraged intense media scrutiny to insist that Catholic hospitals should directly provide euthanasia, I.E. DEATH. They framed transfers as inhumane and insensitive. Just a quick side bar, I think killing someone is more inhumane and insensitive then moving some one, but I digress.

Shoreline Space

Naturally the weak BC government gave into the pressure and public controversy. By December 1, 2023, it expropriated land from Providence Health, the Catholic entity overseeing St. Paul's, and proceeded rapidly to construct a dedicated killing facility, now known as the "Shoreline Space." This facility, described as utilitarian and starkly institutional, sits discreetly (INTENTIONALLY) within an interior courtyard of the existing St. Paul's Hospital.

Hidden behind security fencing and gates, and shielded from public awareness. As do all bad things happen, hidden away from prying eyes and in the dark.

This structure symbolizes a horrific new reality: killing administered covertly yet deliberately close to faith-based medical institutions dedicated to preserving life.

Even more alarming is the government’s intention to replicate this controversial approach. Detailed investigative reporting by independent journalist Terry O'Neill uncovered evidence that planning for yet another killing facility is already well underway at the new St. Paul's Hospital, currently under construction at False Creek Flats. This new facility, expected to open by 2027, just in time for the new expansion of MAID in the mentally ill. This side example of health care will further embed killing in a setting historically committed to life-affirming care.

Internal emails and documents obtained through freedom-of-information requests reveal extensive logistical planning to ensure seamless integration of killing services, including specific requirements regarding proximity to the pharmacy, emergency services access, and even parking logistics.

The graphic and chilling reality extends beyond St. Paul's Hospital. O'Neill’s reporting has shown that Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) already operates MAiD facilities within buildings housing Catholic-run hospices, May’s Place and St. John Hospice, despite Providence Health’s explicit, longstanding prohibition against killing. Providence Health, constrained by contracts and lease agreements, remains powerless to prevent these facilities from operating so intimately close to their hospice patients, creating a profound ethical conflict and confusion for staff, patients, and families alike.

Grafeneck castle

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, highlights the chilling historical parallels to Germany's notorious Aktion T4 euthanasia program. Specifically, he references Grafeneck Castle, initially a compassionate Lutheran care facility forcibly expropriated by the Nazi regime to become the first euthanasia killing center. The similarities in governmental overreach, forcible land expropriation, and ethical disregard raise uncomfortable and necessary historical comparisons.

Vancouver physician Dr. Will Johnston further underscores the severity of these actions, characterizing the imposition of euthanasia-killing facilities into traditionally life-affirming spaces as an expression of governmental totalitarianism. Johnston argues that such policies demonstrate not inclusion or respect for diversity, but a dangerous intolerance toward those with conscientious objections, effectively marginalizing religious and ethical convictions from healthcare delivery.

The pro-death cult are jumping up and down, bragging at their events that they finally broke the only religious safe guard we had left. (This is true I have an audio recording I made while at one)

Louis Brier nursing home.

This is not the first either. “Dr” Ellen Wiebe has broken these rules before. She attempted to defend herself against allegations of "sneaking in and killing someone" at an orthodox Jewish nursing home. “

“The Louis Brier Nursing Home in Vancouver has issued a formal complaint with the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons against Dr. Ellen Wiebe after she granted 83-year-old Barry Hyman's request to die at the facility he calls home."

Long story short, she went in and MAIDED a man in a Jewish nursing home.

“Dr’s” like her don’t see why this is completely unacceptable.

As Canadians, we need to stop hiding behind what’s happening here and with this disturbing trajectory, we need to stand up. Why aren’t we urgently questioning our politicians and asking why all our tax dollars are going to perfecting and facilitating killing centres but not hospitals.

Why are we adding more locations to increase death and not health care?

Why are we not asking our community how they feel about people being brought into a hiding building, never to come out again?

Why are we standing by as Canada becomes the eugenics capital of the world.

Why are we allowing these pro death cult bullies to come after our only remaining religious strongholds??

Ill tell you why we aren’t, because the dark is scary.

It’s terrifying if I’m being honest, because these people and this government have made it clear that they don’t actually want to help people, they want to remove the “burdens” from our society. They want to cut out the vulnerable and those who can no longer protect themselves, those whose families have given up on them due to overbearing medical costs or care giver burnout.

Canada showed its hand when it began prioritizing death over life by building facilities specifically for killing and cutting funding for those needed for healing.

And now we will begin eradicating anyone who even looks a little ill, because if you are not lonely enough, desperate enough, poor enough, sick enough or mentally unwell yet.

Give it time, the way this country is going.

It’s only a matter of time.

LINKS:

https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/06/euthanasia-maid-unit-forced-onto-st.html

https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/05/vancouver-death-clinic-imposed-on.html

https://bccatholic.ca/news/catholic-van/government-taking-property-from-st-paul-s-hospital-to-deliver-maid

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.4477708/doctor-accused-of-sneaking-in-and-killing-someone-at-jewish-nursing-home-says-she-did-nothing-wrong-1.4477714

Euthanasia clinic forced onto St. Paul’s in Vancouver is now operational.

And a second one is planned for new hospital.

By Terry O'Neill, an independent reporter who lives near Vancouver.

Euthanasia facility at St. Paul's

A British Columbia (BC) government ordered euthanasia (MAiD) facility on the downtown Vancouver campus of the Catholic-operated St. Paul’s Hospital is now fully operational.

My half-year-long investigation into the impact of the NDP government’s MAiD-imposition edict has also uncovered the fact that planning is underway for another euthanasia facility, also to be operated by the provincial government’s Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, to be forced onto the site of the new St. Paul’s on False Creek Flats, currently being built three kilometres east of the existing hospital.

Previous article: Vancouver Euthanasia Clinic Imposed on Catholic Hospital (Link).

As well, I have learned that Vancouver Coastal is now operating MAiD rooms in the same buildings that house two Catholic-run hospices in Vancouver, and that the hospices were powerless to block them.

All those Catholic facilities are operated by Providence Health Care, which is controlled by the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Providence has long maintained pro-life policies which prohibit abortions and euthanasia from being performed on its premises.

Alex Schadenberg

The imposition of MAiD units alongside Catholic facilities has left Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, with deep concerns.

“This is incredibly sad news,” Schadenberg said in an interview. “It’s sad that the unit is now operational. And I’m also incredibly saddened by the fact that the new St. Paul’s will also have a euthanasia clinic attached to it.”

The provincial government forced the euthanasia facility onto the current St. Paul’s site in November 2023 in response to relentless death-on-demand activism and mainstream media pressure.

The utilitarian-looking structure, which Vancouver Coastal built at an undisclosed cost, is sited in an interior courtyard of St. Paul’s, which was founded 131 years ago by the Sisters of Providence.

The laneway-home-sized structure opened on January 6 of this year, a Vancouver Coastal spokesperson said in an email dated April 17. 

“The new space provides patients with options for specialized end-of-life care in a way that supports and respects them, their loved ones, and health-care providers,” he said.

Called the “Shoreline Space,” the MAiD facility is attached directly to courtyard-facing exterior wall of the western section of the hospital’s Providence Building. Public access to the facility from the courtyard is blocked by a gate and a two-metre-high, black chain-link fence.

Pedestrians using the nearby Thurlow Street entrance to the hospital are given no hint of what the green-metal-clad facility is used for, although the fence, multiple security cameras, and floodlight fixtures suggest something needing high security.

Inside the hospital, patients and families walking through a ground-floor corridor would have no idea of what is behind a locked door with a sign reading: “Shoreline Space. Vancouver Coastal Health.”

The current St. Paul’s will close in a few years, but MAiD will apparently continue on the campus of the new hospital.

Vancouver Coastal emails, which I obtained through a freedom-of-information application, show that the health authority has now launched a planning process to insert a euthanasia facility at the new St. Paul’s, which is currently undergoing finishing work in advance of its planned opening in 2027.

No agency—the B.C. government, the Ministry of Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, Providence Health, or the Archdiocese of Vancouver—has announced that the new St. Paul’s is being forced to accommodate a MAiD facility.

Yet, the text of a Nov. 15, 2024, email from Laurel Plewes, operations director of Vancouver Coastal Health’s “Assisted Dying Program,” to Jennifer Chan of Providence Health Care (PHC) shows that such planning is taking place.

Under the subject heading, “Preliminary VCH requirement for MAiD space at the new SPH [St. Paul’s Hospital],” Plewes wrote: “Here is a list of preliminary requirements, subject to refinement and additions.”

That list, in bullet form, reads as follows:

• Internal 2800 sq feet.
• We suspect PHC requirement will still remain, and VCH agrees, that the pathway must allow for patients to remain in their PHC bed.
• 5 min or less travel time from pharmacy located in SPH.
• Ramp or ground-level entry—ramp is not included in square footage above.
• Require connections for sewage, water, electricity, and IT connections similar to what is listed in previous partial agreement.
• At least two parking spots for staff, easy access for transfer van.
• Physical address to support emergency services knowing where to go.

Most emails I received in response to my FOI request were almost completed redacted, but one, entitled “Future Planning: MAiD spaces,” was sent by Vancouver Coastal’s Nina Dhaliwal, a “senior project manager,” to four of her colleagues on Nov. 27, 2024.

It describes the need to connect all the parties to ensure that “future planning for MAiD spaces” is being done efficiently. Dhaliwal also asks whether “the MAiD team” had an “SOA” (presumably meaning Service-Oriented Architecture) and a “Functional Program.”

Although the email does not specifically mention the new St. Paul’s, Vancouver Coastal released it to me in response to a request for the texts of communications regarding the possible construction of a MAiD unit at the new hospital.

Neither Vancouver Coastal nor Providence Health has commented in response to questions about MAiD facilities at the new and old St. Paul’s.

Grafeneck, May 2024.

On issue of MAiD being forced into areas operated by Christian facilities, Schadenberg said the situation reminds him of the Nazis’ 1939 conversion of a Lutheran-run care home at Grafeneck, Germany, into a euthanasia facility for physically and mentally disabled Germans.

“Sadly, it appears that history is repeating itself,” Schadenberg said. “I know it’s not an exact parallel, but I find it very upsetting.”

Providence Health’s service contract with the provincial government guarantees that it can prevent abortions and euthanasia from taking place within Providence facilities. Instead, patients seeking such procedures are discharged from Providence and transferred to a Vancouver Coastal facility.

Pro-euthanasia groups criticized the arrangement as soon as MAiD was legalized in 2016, and then ramped up pressure when, as revealed in a May 2022 B.C. Catholic story, the B.C. branch of Dying with Dignity Canada launched a multi-platform public-relations campaign aimed at forcing the B.C. government to amend the service agreement in order to compel Providence to allow MAiD.

Dying With Dignity called the “forced” transfer of patients to MAiD-allowing facilities “cruel and unusual.”

The pressure peaked the following year when news media seized on the case of a Vancouver woman, Sam O’Neill, whose family complained that she was forced to transfer from St. Paul’s to access MAiD. In response, the B.C. government announced what observers called a “workaround” or “end-run” solution in November 2023.

The arrangement called for the province to take land at the St. Paul’s campus to create a “clinical space” for MAiD to be performed. The space would be staffed by Vancouver Coastal’s health-care professionals and was to be connected by a corridor to St. Paul’s Hospital.

“Patients from St. Paul’s Hospital accessing MAiD will be discharged by Providence Health and transferred to the care of Vancouver Coastal Health in this new clinical space,” the release said. The MAiD chamber was originally scheduled to open in August 2024.

Archbishop J. Michael Miller was quoted at the time as saying the directive “respects and preserves Providence’s policy of not allowing MAiD inside a Catholic health-care facility,” and the new patient-discharge and transfer protocols would be consistent with existing arrangements for transferring patients at other Providence facilities.

But that did not end the matter. In June 2024, Ms. O’Neill’s mother, Dying with Dignity Canada, and a doctor launched a lawsuit against Providence, Vancouver Coastal, and the provincial government, alleging that they had denied Ms. O’Neill her a constitutional right to access MAiD.

They seek to have MAiD conducted within all provincially funded facilities, such as those of Providence Health Care, which relies on provincial funding for its operating costs. Providence owns the hospitals.

In its formal response to the claim, Providence not only described the St. Paul’s arrangement, but also disclosed that, at the May’s Place and St. John hospices that it operates, “patients who choose to receive MAiD are provided with MAiD by a VCH healthcare provider in a space operated by VCH which is located down the hall from the Providence operated hospice rooms in the same building that houses the hospice.”

But that does not mean MAiD is actually being performed within a Catholic facility, said Shaf Hussain, a communications officer with Providence.

St John Hospice

Hussain said in a May 30 email to me that both St. John Hospice and May's Place Hospice are in buildings and on lands that are not owned by Providence.

“Regarding St. John Hospice: I believe the building is owned by the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights Hospitaller, the land is owned by [the University of B.C], and the whole building is leased by VCH,” Hussain said.

“Since September 2013, Providence has been operating a 14-bed hospice in the building and continues to do so. In 2021, VCH took some space in the building for its Vancouver Community palliative programming. A room in that space is used for MAiD.”

May's Place Hospice

As for May's Place, “Providence doesn't own the building; we lease the space on one of the floors from its owner and operate a six-bed hospice in that space,” he said. “VCH also leases space in that building from the owner; this space, which they use for MAiD, is separate and away from our hospice operations.”

On issue of MAiD being performed adjacent to Catholic facilities, Schadenberg said the situation reminds him of the Nazis’ conversion of a Lutheran-run care home at Grafeneck, Germany, into a euthanasia facility for physically and mentally disabled Germans.

“Sadly, it appears history is repeating itself,” Schadenberg said. “I know it’s not an exact parallel, but I find it very upsetting.

Dr Will Johnston

Vancouver’s Dr. Will Johnston, who heads the Euthanasia Resistance B.C., said he believes that the B.C. government’s decision to force MAiD into previously life-affirming, medically positive spaces is a form of totalitarianism.

“This is another example of zealots who won’t allow the population any freedom from euthanasia,” Johnston said. “They obviously control the provincial government ... I think it’s totalitarianism, and it shows none of their claimed virtues of inclusion and diversity.”

Previous articles on this topic: 

• Vancouver Euthanasia Clinic Imposed on Catholic Hospital (Link).
• Euthanasia lobby pressures British Columbia government to force Catholic hospitals to provide euthanasia (Link).
• British Columbia government to build killing centre next to Catholic hospital (Link).

Vancouver Euthanasia Clinic imposed on Catholic hospital.

Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director, 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I just completed a speaking tour in British Columbia where I had speaking engagements in Vernon, Kelowna, Salmon Arm and Vancouver - four speaking engagements in four days.

Death clinic
Shoreline Space

While in Vancouver I visited St Paul's Hospital to see the (MAiD) euthanasia clinic that was imposed on it by the British Columbia (BC) provincial government - Ministry of Health.

The Euthanasia (MAiD) clinic was opened in January 2025 and is known as the Shoreline Space (green building). It looked like a euthanasia killing was happening while I was outside the door.

You may remember that on June 27, 2023 I reported that the euthanasia lobby was pressuring the BC government to force Catholic hospitals to provide euthanasia. 

Door from St. Paul's
to Death clinic

The euthanasia lobby used the story of Samantha O'Neill (34) who died by euthanasia (MAiD) on April 4, 2023. O'Neill requested euthanasia at St Paul's hospital. Since St Paul's did not provide euthanasia they transferred Samantha from St Paul's to St. John’s hospice (run by Vancouver Coastal Health) to die by euthanasia. 

On December 1, 2023 I reported that in response to the pressure from the euthanasia lobby the BC government expropriated property from Providence Health (St Paul's) to build a euthanasia killing center next to St Paul's in Vancouver in response to the complaint that palliative care patients did not have access to euthanasia at St Paul's hospital.

Grafeneck castle (front)

In May 2024, I went to Germany to speak at a conference. While in Germany I visited three of the T-4 euthanasia memorials. I first visited the Grafeneck euthanasia memorial since it was the first of the T-4 euthanasia centres. 10,654 people (primarily people with disabilities) reportedly were gassed to death at Grafeneck.

A little bit of information about Grafeneck.

Grafeneck castle (rear)

In 1928, Grafeneck castle came into the possession of the Samaritan Foundation (Samariterstiftung), a charitable arm of the German Lutheran Church. The foundation established a care facility for male patients with disabilities at Grafeneck in 1929.

In October 1939, the German government expropriated the Grafeneck castle property from the Lutheran Samaritan Foundation and transformed Grafeneck from a Lutheran care facility into the first centralized killing center within Aktion T4 (Nazi Euthanasia Program). 

Old coach house.

Grafeneck was the first functioning T4 killing center. Its operations commenced on January 18, 1940. Twenty-five male patients arrived from the Eglfing-Haar facility in Munich that day. Dr. Schumann personally escorted them to the old coach house where Schumann gassed them to death in the newly constructed gas chamber. From this date until December 1940, people were killed by gassing on an almost daily basis, excluding Sundays and holidays.

Shoreline Space

I am not suggesting that the BC government is planning to empty care homes by busing the residents to the Shoreline Space for killing. 

I am stating that when the BC government expropriated property from Providence health and built a euthanasia killing center that is attached to St Paul's hospital that they were repeating one of the ugliest parts of human history.

Links to more articles on this topic: 

• Euthanasia lobby pressures British Columbia government to force Catholic hospitals to provide euthanasia (Link).
• British Columbia government to build killing center next to Catholic hospital (Link).
• Berlin memorial to the victims murdered by the T-4 Euthanasia Program (Link).
• Healthcare sector supported the Nazi euthanasia program (Link).
• Infant euthanasia. Is history repeating itself? (Link).