We Demand a Complete Review of Canada's Euthanasia Law.

By Gordon Friesen, President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC)  

EPC has an online petition, we have post-cards to be sent to members of Parliament and we have a traditional paper petition demanding a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law. Contact EPC at: info@epcc.ca to order post-cards or paper petitions.

In coming weeks and months, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and the Delta Hospice Society will be calling on government's to undertake a complete, and long-promised review of euthanasia (MAiD) in Canada.

It is our observation that events have unfolded in a completely unexpected and alarming fashion; that current policy has little to do with its originally stated intent; that such policy is in fact leading us on a horrific course that no one consciously chose (or very few) but which is now evolving under its own anti-human economic logic and impetus.

Even we, in the organized resistance to euthanasia, have been taken unawares, while our rhetoric has been roughly overtaken by the facts. To take one key example, it has always been a priority to champion fair treatment of the most vulnerable, in terms of access to needed care and services. For we all immediately understand that legal euthanasia threatens the safety of specific lives. What we did not understand is just how many lives that would be.

Canadian Man Euthanized Because He Had Bedsores

 International  |  Alex Schadenberg  |   May 20, 2025   |   7:11PM   |  Ottawa, Canada

The coroner’s inquest into the euthanasia death of Normand Meunier continued last week in Saint-Jérôme, Québec.

The inquest examined how Meunier acquired the horrific bedsore that resulted in Meunier dying by euthanasia (Medical Assistance In Dying—MAID).

Coroner’s inquest into Québec euthanasia death of man with a bed sore.

On May 13, Leora Schertzer reported for the Montreal Gazette that:

Geneviève Paradis, a nurse who cared for Normand Meunier during his time in the ICU, testified Monday that she did not check Meunier’s bedsores, noting that the hospital was short staffed. Another nurse, Rachel Lanthier, testified she thought one bedsore was significant, but did not see any records of it in Meunier’s hospital file to make a comparison and track the wound’s growth.

Meunier’s decision to seek MAID, she wrote, was a last resort for a patient who had been systemically neglected by Quebec’s health-care system, Patrick Martin-Ménard, the lawyer representing Meunier’s family, explained in an interview. 

Bolt Out of the Blue: United Nations Committee Calls for Canada to Repeal Track 2 of its Assisted Suicide/Euthanasia Program.

By Ian McIntosh

This report comes in large part owing to the exceptional work done by Inclusion Canada -years in the making – who first issued this Press Release to announce this monumental news:

On Wednesday March 26, 2025, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities released a set of recommendations calling on the government of Canada to repeal Track 2 of its assisted suicide and euthanasia program. Specifically, Canada’s 2021 amendment to its Criminal Code that expanded through Bill C-7, which expanded eligibility passed promised safeguards.

Track 2 of the Canadian assisted suicide and euthanasia program allows people with disabilities (“grievous and irremediable medical condition”) whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable to request assisted suicide or euthanasia.

Arguing against the very premise of Track 2, the report notes that the Canadian federal government,”…did not challenge the Quebec Truchon decision which fundamentally changes the whole premise of medical assistance in dying when natural death is reasonably foreseeable to a new program that establishes medically assisted dying for persons with disabilities based on negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities, including that ‘suffering’ is intrinsic to disability rather than the fact that inequality and discrimination cause and compound ‘suffering’ for persons with disabilities.”

Christopher Lyon's Opposition to Assisted Suicide

https://patientsrightsaction.org/christopher-lyons-opposition-to-assisted-suicide 

Below is an excerpt from Christopher Lyon’s story of his father’s death. [Lyon pictured right]

"That was the worst day of my life. That day and those moments, in that room, there’s nothing… that compares to it… The provider was sitting beside me, on a couch right next to me, injecting very large syringes of propofol, which looks like milk, and other drugs into my father and taking his life…  A few seconds before, he’d been animated. And then he was a corpse."

In this short, five-minute video, Christopher documents the tragic and compelling story of his father’s unexpected death by assisted suicide. He shares his father’s complex character – a man who loved his family and yet was deeply troubled and struggled with depression.