Health

Great Reset? Or Grand Unravelling?

Peter Menzies

November 30, 2020

Prime Minister Trudeau has mused that COVID-19 will allow for Canadian society to “re-set” on a number of fronts. Peter Menzies says we’ll have to avoid coming apart at the seams first.

Last week’s unravelling of the so-called Atlantic bubble should erase any lingering romantic thoughts that Canadians are united in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since July 3, the nation’s four Atlantic provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, New Br...

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Why Not a Notwithstanding Pause for MAiD?

Don Hutchinson

November 27, 2020

Don Hutchinson argues the Trudeau government should consider the Constitution’s Section 33 opt out rather than rush to pass expanded medically assisted dying legislation under a court-imposed deadline.

At the Trudeau Government’s request, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has deemed a bill to be of such priority that it be fast-tracked through the evaluation process: Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medica...

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Addressing Canada’s MAiD Concerns

Ray Pennings

November 25, 2020

Medically assisted death advocates inside and outside Parliament are gung-ho to expand it. But Cardus’ Ray Pennings says national poll numbers show Canadians want MPs to curb their enthusiasm.

Just because politicians and activists are gung-ho about expanding medical assistance in dying (MAiD), doesn’t mean all Canadians are so enthusiastic.

If anything, Canadians would tell the politicians it’s time to slow down and broaden the discussion...

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Progress Against MAiD

Peter Stockland

November 19, 2020

Catherine Frazee, a long-time disability Rights activist and Ontario’s former Chief Commissioner of Human Rights, talked to MPs about pending MAiD expansion recently. It wasn’t enough to make her give up hope, Peter Stockland reports.

A powerful impetus behind the Liberal government’s push to jam expanded medical aid in dying through Parliament has been the force of proponents arguing it is progressive legislation.

Yet Catherine Frazee, who testified last week before the Commons c...

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COVID's Contagion of Disbelief

Peter Menzies

November 18, 2020

Drug companies touting new pandemic vaccines should be causing huzzahs. But Peter Menzies warns septic skepticism in the body politic must also be addressed.

Today’s news that not one but two COVID-19 vaccines have tested 95 per cent effective casts a welcome burst of light into Canada’s gloomy COVID-19 narrative amid signs the pandemic is ripping into its social fabric.

Moderna announced Monday that its ...

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COVID Hope From Healthy Families

Winnie Lui with Todd Martin

November 13, 2020

Winnie Lui reports on research by Trinity Western sociologist Todd Martin revealing that around the world even the hardships of the pandemic have become sources of family strength.

"Life markers give us an indication that we have moved from one configuration or stage in our family lives to another," says Todd Martin, a family researcher and Dean and Associate Professor of Sociology at Trinity Western University.

Weddings, birth...

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The Human Face of Health Care

Timothy deVries

October 23, 2020

Through the painful season of his wife’s death, Timothy deVries saw past caricatures of faceless health systems to recognize the rich culture of care surrounding patients, families and medical professionals.

One day in May, 2017, a doctor at St. Joseph’s hospital in Hamilton had the awful task of delivering an incurable cancer diagnosis to a pregnant, 40 year-old, mother. It was an appointment she had been dreading, since very few people are subject to a biopsy...

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Crescendo of Critics Denounce MAiD Legislation

Peter Stockland

October 22, 2020

Experts in law, medicine and disability advocacy are joining the chorus calling for the withdrawal of the Liberal government’s bill to expand medically administered death, Peter Stockland writes.

Doctors, lawyers and disability rights advocates are mobilizing against the federal Liberal government’s expansion of Medical Aid in Dying, warning it will open the door to “State-sponsored termination” of vulnerable Canadians.

“Suddenly, a lethal in...

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Faith Leaders Fight Back Against Expanding MAiD

Peter Stockland

October 15, 2020

The Liberal government’s proposed Bill C-7 has drawn multifaith ire across Canada and a sharply-worded public call to immediately halt the legislation, Peter Stockland reports.

More than 50 leaders across the faith spectrum warn the Liberal government’s changes to Medical Aid in Dying legislation will pressure vulnerable Canadians to opt for “lethal procedures” over living with illness or disability.

Equally alarming, says ...

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Hospice Stands Firm Against All-Out Assault

Peter Stockland

July 29, 2020

The current board of the Irene Thomas Hospice in Delta, B.C., is fighting to stay true to its Christian roots and remain “an authentic palliative care facility,” writes Peter Stockland.

The board of the Irene Thomas Hospice hoped faith alone could stop the onslaught of MAiD at the 10-bed palliative care facility on Vancouver’s southeast edge.

The hope now hangs on a stay-of-execution until Aug. 17. A court judgment will then be rend...

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Moving MAiD

Peter Stockland

May 20, 2020

A recent set of public demands by Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying lobby raise serious concerns, reports Convivium's Peter Stockland.

Andrew Bennett insists a recent set of public demands by Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying lobby amount to nothing less than imposition of MAiD ideology on religious faith.

“The agenda is truly disturbing and people need to be made aware of it” th...

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Celebrating Nurses from Crimea to COVID-19

Susan Korah

April 17, 2020

This May marks the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale and the start of a nursing-led health care revolution, reports Convivium contributor Susan Korah.

Today, our world needs healing and to be rekindled with Love. Once, Florence Nightingale lit her beacon of lamplight to comfort the wounded. Her light has blazed a path of service across a century to us --...

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Hope on the COVID-19 Front Lines

Johanna Lewis

March 25, 2020

Pam Mulder, a registered nurse at a long-term care home in Ontario, tells Cardus’ Johanna Wolfert how small acts of courage and optimism keep fear at bay for staff and patients.

Johanna Wolfert: How long have you been working in long-term care?

Pam Mulder: I have been in LTC for about 15 years, holding various roles as a registered nurse. I started as an RN on the front line before moving al...

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Quarantine The Clickbait: From the Convivium Team

March 20, 2020

Convivium normally refrains from publishing straightforward press releases. We’re a journalistic site, and we bring journalistic principles and practices to our work. But today’s release from the Mental Health Commission of Canada is so powerful, so timely and so clear that we’re treating as an invaluable public service announcement for our readers.

Funded by Health Canada, the MHCC leads the development and dissemination of...

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What The Doctor Ordered

Peter Stockland

March 13, 2020

Instead of softening reality with euphemisms such as "social distancing," perhaps we might consider accepting quarantine as a response to the novel coronavirus, writes Peter Stockland.

I try to avoid euphemisms like the plague. Language that intentionally masks meaning too often becomes a toxin in the body politic. It can threaten moral and civic life.

Watching the phrase “social distancing” spread rapidly through media reports on ...

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Panic’s Power to Distract

Peter Stockland

March 4, 2020

While fears of coronavirus rise to pandemic proportions, Peter Stockland suggests Canadians look to our own land, concerning ourselves instead with Indigenous reconciliation.

Four decades ago, The New Republic’s editor Michael Kingsley gained a place in the journalistic wit hall of fame by declaring “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” to be the most boring headline in history.

The Bloomberg news service might have ...

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Live and Let Die

Peter Stockland

February 25, 2020

In light of MAiD changes, disabled Canadians say they’re being offered free choice to die, but no choice in where and how they live. Others wonder how the bill squares with the Supreme Court’s legal definition of consent, Peter Stockland reports.

In a YouTube video posted today, Taylor Hyatt sets out from personal experience why she’s “terrified” by proposed ...

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50 Years of Missing Stories

Rebecca Darwent with Mike Schouten

June 28, 2019

Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent talks to producer Mike Schouten about The Missing Project documentary, which fills in the blanks on the 50 years since Canada’s abortion law was overturned and then abandoned entirely.

Rebecca Darwent: Can you tell me about The Missing Project?

Mike Schouten: The thought process started about 18 months ago when a number of us working in the pro-life movement were reflecting on the fact we...

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Stigma and Shame

Barry Bussey

May 22, 2019

When Ontario’s Court of Appeal trampled conscience rights for medical professionals last week, it grievously wounded the entire body of religious believers across Canada, argues lawyer Barry Bussey.

The religious conscience makes little sense to the non-religious. To them, a physician who denies medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to a terminally ill patient is committing the ultimate indignity.

Likewise, they see a physician w...

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Pause and Effect

Peter Stockland

October 10, 2018

Today, Peter Stockland explores how the act of running is not some Olympic-level commitment to all-in exhaustion. Rather, this discipline creates space in our lives to move away from stress and towards a fuller sense of health and goodness.

I was running to school one morning in Grade Two when I dropped my peaches. These were literal, not metaphorical peaches. My mother had put them in my lunch, sliced into a glass container. (Tupperware was but the dream of a distant, mystic future.)

...

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MAiD and Modern Medicine

Peter Stockland

June 18, 2018

Two years ago, on June 1, 2016, federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould was escorted to her seat in front of Canada’s Senate to explain her government's rationale for Bill C-14, a legislative concoction with a name from a high school chemistry class and the full power to transform Canadian society forever.

Two years ago, on June 1, 2016, federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould was escorted to her seat in front of Canada’s Senate to explain her government's rationale for Bill C-14, a legislative concoction with a name from a high school chemistry class a...

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Renewing End-of-Life Care

Doug Sikkema

April 24, 2018

There’s a growing need for more and better end-of-life care in Canada – especially as our population ages. But how does the national picture affect our local communities? Cardus Senior Researcher Doug Sikkema and Ottawa policy analyst Marisa Casagrande have analyzed two of Ontario’s larger communities to get a better idea of what challenges the health system will face, and what all parts of society need to bring to the table to meet them..

In the 2015 report Death Is Natural: Reframing the End-of-Life Conservation in Canada, Cardus noted that Canada’s “current healthcare system is under increasing stress as one of the most populous generations on record—the baby-boomers—ages and dies...

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Christ's Hope in the Wounds of the Rohingya

Hannah Marazzi with Emily Way

February 16, 2018

Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi speaks with Emily Way about working out the Gospel at the Samaritan’s Purse emergency field hospitals in Bangladesh and Iraq.

C: You have previously served in a Samaritan’s Purse field hospital near the besieged city of Mosul. Most recently, you’ve returned from serving the displaced Rohingya people in Bangladesh. Fellow DART member David Bock has been quoted as saying, “W...

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Will the State Hug Me When I Die?

Andrew P.W. Bennett

January 24, 2018

Father Deacon Andrew Bennett, director of the Cardus law program, argues Canadians of religious faith must be left free to choose what procedures their healthcare institutions provide.

For 18 months, Canadian governments have legally permitted assisted suicide on demand for patients suffering terminal illness whose condition is “grievous and irremediable.” It’s considered a choice people now have available to them.

For Catholics, O...

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