2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
Though a vaccination supporter himself, Peter Stockland cautions against the campaign to denigrate those honestly questioning it in a world of abounding COVID absurdities.
In a recently re-opened Ottawa restaurant this week, a member of our party of five was forbidden from using a chair.
He wasn’t sitting in it standing on his head showing off some exotic yoga pose or, more pedestrianly, engaged in man-spreading to a d...
Faced with pandemic “certainties” that quickly turn out to be up, down, and all around, Don Hutchinson cautions that science can provide estimates but not ultimate truth.
A friend recently joined the growing group of Canadians who take issue with the moving goalposts of the declared as life-or-death (not-really-a) game of pandemic response. Another compared the relationship between science advisors and politicians t...
Palliative care expert Dr. Leonie Herx is one of 750 doctors publicly urging the Trudeau government to deep-six its new “death on demand” legislation, Peter Stockland reports.
Picture yourself as doctor trying to prevent a patient in a fugue state from inflicting horrendous self-harm.
Now imagine your medical speciality is palliative care and you are turning to all the skills that 17 years of professional training have dev...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
We will all be vulnerable at some time in our lives and this legislation does not and cannot protect us. Even Justice Lynn Smith, the original Carter trial judge, foresaw the inevitability of wrongful deaths when the healthcare system provides state-sanctioned euthanasia. She suggested strong safeguards that should be “scrupulously enforced.” This bill does little toward establishing concrete guidelines, and life-ending decisions will be made for some patients against their explicit wishes as a result.
Or there soon might be, the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association told a joint Senate-Commons committee this week. The committee is studying legislative responses to replace the Criminal Code prohibition on helping someone end his or her life. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association led in the battle to have the old law struck down. Not surprisingly, BCCLA representatives argued in front of the joint committee that any new law should be as minimalist as possible. By no means, executive director Josh Patterson contended, should there even be a requirement for a second medical opinion when a patient asks a doctor to end life prematurely.
Euthanasia? Assisted suicide? There’s an app for that.
Or there soon might be, the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association told a joint Senate-Commons committee this week. The committee is studying legislative responses to replace ...
Even minus the inspiration of Trudeau père in spiritus, however, Canadians who care at all about our constitutional democracy, and about the rule of law, should be deeply alarmed by what was done to push forward physician assisted suicide in this country. Whatever side of the assisted suicide debate you might be on, the abuse of process that occurred has foundational implications for our continuity as a Confederation as envisaged by the British North America Act and by the Constitution Act of 1982.
An early surprise of 2016 has to be the failure of Pierre Elliott Trudeau's ghost to streak across the sky ululating at the damage done last week to his beloved Canadian constitution.
Even minus the inspiration of Trudeau père in spiritus, how...