Blog post by Augustin Hamilton (Quebec Life Coalition) - Photo: aijiro/Adobe Stock

The Quebec government will allow advance requests for euthanasia for people with serious illnesses, such as Alzheimer's, starting this autumn, even though Ottawa has not changed the Criminal Code in this regard.

On 7 June 2023, Quebec passed a law authorising advance requests. Since then, it has asked Ottawa on several occasions to change the Criminal Code, but Ottawa still hasn't done so and doesn't appear to be doing so. Despite this, the Quebec government is still preparing to authorise doctors to apply advance requests. Léa Fortin, the media relations officer for the Seniors Minister, Sonia Bélanger, said: "We're going to be ready, we're going to move forward. What we want is for [the federal government] to change its Criminal Code, but if it doesn't, we'll work on our options in parallel," reports La Presse.

According to Léa Fortin, there is a broad consensus in Quebec on advance requests for euthanasia: "There is a consensus in Quebec. It's a transparent process, with patients, parliamentarians and professionals all agreeing to go ahead with MAiD". Not me, certainly. The Quebec government will be making announcements this autumn.

According to Patrick Taillon, constitutionalist and law professor at Université de Laval, Quebec can move forward on the issue of advance requests, reports La Presse :

"Who files the charges? It's the State of Quebec. And if the Quebec State says, by way of a directive, [...] when it respects our laws, we never file charges, then there won't be a problem," he explains.

The constitutionalist asserts that "Ottawa could not prosecute doctors" in Quebec who administer MAiD as part of an advance request.

Québec solidaire MPs Ruba Ghazal and Christine Labrie even wrote a letter arguing that Quebec could ignore Ottawa, as it did in 2015 with its first euthanasia law.

Like in 2015? At that time, the Carter decision decriminalising euthanasia had just been handed down and Ottawa had not yet passed legislation. The Supreme Court of Canada had given Ottawa one year to do so, suspending the application of its ruling. So Quebec was in breach of the Criminal Code when it passed its euthanasia law. And Ottawa did nothing, letting Quebec kill its citizens before it had even given the go - a deplorable precedent of inaction on the part of the federal government. Because I don't think Ottawa has no means of dealing with a province that doesn't comply with its Criminal Code. What the Quebec government is really counting on is undoubtedly, once again, Ottawa's inaction on an issue on which Ottawa itself is more than willing to move forward.

We can be sure that some other provinces will follow Quebec's example if Ottawa does not intervene.

Young African influencers would be encouraged to reduce their own population at the International Conference for Family Planning  —Photo : Pexels.com 

By Joanne of Arc for Quebec Life Coalition

The International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) was a 4-day event which happened in Thailand this year.

The ICFP took place between November 14 and November 17 in Pattaya City, Thailand at the Pathaway Exhibition and Convention Hall (PEACH). It is said to be the “largest scientific conference on family planning” in the world. The conference was organized by John Hopkins University on behalf of its Bloomberg School of Public Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health Institute. 

 Although minors could not attend in person, it was available for anyone who would like to participate virtually as there was no age restriction for online attendance if a parent or guardian would sign a waiver. Their website advertised the event as more than a conference, but a “platform, movement & community”. According to their site, more than 125 countries participated and their community counts over 40 000 active members. 

Amongst the ICFP’s main sponsors we could find the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization(WHO), IPPF, Pathfinder, Women Deliver, United Nations and the government of Canada. 

Their opening ceremony started with a dance show depicting demons, quite literally. The host for the ICFP 2022 opening session was Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. She explained that this “incredible performance” was “an episode from the play on the epic of Ramekin. It depicts the  royal battle between Rama and Laksman on the one side and the Tosca & the demon of king Lanka on the other.” She explained a short story about the battle and concluded “Tosca retreats into Lanka with his army of demons.” and proposed a round of applause for this play. 

 This performance was followed by a promotional video that promoted the coming of “another world” where “women and men can choose whether & when to have children”, “adolescents and youth have access to contraceptives”, “childbirth is safer for women & babies” and “everybody deserves access to family planning services & products”, in other words abortion and contraception. The belief that was reinforced throughout their promotional video of the opening ceremony and the entire conference was that “without family planning there is no universal healthcare” as their theme for this year was uniting family planning and universal health coverage as “human rights”.

                  Conference on euthanasia at St-Simon Catholic Church --Photo: Facebook/Brigade Verte 

By Joanne of Arc for Quebec Life Coalition

A conference on euthanasia was organized in a Catholic church in Rimouski on November 6th, 2022, a Sunday afternoon. 

A conference on "MAID" or "Medical Aid In Dying" was organized at St-Simon's church in Rimouski with the neurosurgeon and president of the Quebec Association for the Right to Die in Dignity (AQDMD)Dr. Georges l'Espérance. The conference was organized by La Brigade Verte de Saint-Simon which is a secular organization that describes itself as a "beautification project for the municipality of Saint-Simon-de-Rimouski", according to their Facebook page. 

Dr. Georges l'Espérance in conference on "MAID" --Photo: Facebook/Brigade Verte

La Brigade Verte works on the embellishment of the exterior of the St-Simon church for example by planting roses around the cemetery. When asked about the group's participation in the organization of a conference on euthanasia in a Catholic church, one of the leaders, Ms. Chantale, explained: "We facilitated contacts between Mr. Beaudoin, the person in charge of the church, and Dr. l'Espérance, who is part of the brigade. It was to help the church so that there would be a little money coming in, as you know the churches in Quebec are struggling financially... all the contributions that people gave were for the church. This information was later confirmed in conversation with the head of the church and president of the Fabrique, Beaudoin Gagnon.

By Joanne of Arc (Quebec Life Coalition) - Photo: Rawpixel.com/Adobe Stock

Catherine Levesque published an article on October 11, 2022 in the National Post. She reports that the Quebec College of Physicians is being criticized by advocacy groups for proposing that euthanasia for critically ill newborns be made legal.

So far, Canada has refused to extend assisted dying to children under the age of 18, although consideration has been given to making it available to "mature minors". Then, in a recent presentation made by Dr. Louis Roy for the Quebec College of Physicians to the House of Commons Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), the federal government of Canada was urged to adopt a protocol to allow euthanasia of seriously ill infants.

Levesque states: Dr. Roy's organization believes that MAID may be appropriate for infants up to one year of age, who are born with "severe malformations" and "severe and life-threatening syndromes" for which their "prospective of survival is virtually null".

In the same article, Krista Carr, Executive Vice-President of Inclusion Canada, expressed being alarmed at Roy's recommendation that Canada legalize euthanasia for children with disabilities under the age of one.

Mrs. Carr added: "Canada cannot begin killing babies when doctors predict there is no hope for them. Predictions are far too often based on discriminatory assumptions about living with a disability. "

She also said: "An infant cannot consent to their own death. That isn't MAID, it's murder. And providing MAID to a person who cannot consent is a standard that is wildly dangerous for all persons with intellectual disabilities in Canada."

By Georges Buscemi, president of Quebec Life Coalition — Photo: Freepik

Subject: Brief ─ Special Joint Committee on "Medical Assistance in Dying"

+JMJ+
May 9, 2022
BY EMAIL: [email protected]
Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying
Parliament of Canada

Dear Committee Members:

Quebec Life Coalition is pleased to provide the following comments to the Special Joint Committee to assist them in fulfilling their mandate to conduct a comprehensive review of the "medical assistance in dying" (MAID) provisions of the Criminal Code as set out in Bill C-7.

We are fundamentally opposed to the introduction and any expansion of MAID, particularly because MAID violates the spirit of the preamble to the Canadian Constitution: "Whereas Canada is founded on principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law." We believe that this preamble needs to be re-emphasized in our law schools in particular and in the culture in general, so that our society can reverse the strong tendency for the laws of our country to increasingly reflect the interests of the powerful rather than the expression of truth, justice and the defence of the weak.

Quebec Life Coalition is a Quebec association that works in concert with any individual or association of good will to establish a Christian society that protects faith, family and life from conception to natural death. Like the framers of the Constitution Act of 1982, we, as an organization, acknowledge that a just society requires the recognition of God ─ by individuals as well as by the authorities responsible for the common good ─ as the ultimate author and guarantor of laws.

Unfortunately, the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1982 is now considered obsolete by some, in a so-called increasingly "secular" age. Madam Justice Southin, in her 1999 decision in R. v. Sharpe, characterized the preamble as a "dead letter". An appeal of that decision and its ruling in the Supreme Court never challenged that characterization. The 1991 O'Sullivan v. Canada (M.N.R.) decision weakened the meaning of this preamble by explaining that it now has only one function: to prevent Canada from becoming officially atheist, as the USSR was and Communist China is today.

By Joanne of Arc (Quebec Life Coalition) - Photo: Google/Facebook

CTV News shares the sad story of a 66-year-old Lachine man who asked his doctor for "medical assistance in dying", or assisted suicide, due to the lack of care from his Local community services centres (CLSC) in the Dorval-Lachine borough.

Jacques Comeau is a retired art therapist who suffers from quadriplegia and uses a wheelchair. His disease is a paralysis that affects more or less all four limbs of the body (arms and legs). It involves the loss of muscular functions and sensations, to a variable degree, of the affected limbs. Despite his condition, Mr. Comeau is an independent and active man in the community. He drives, runs his own errands, volunteers and paints in his spare time, according to the CTV News report.

In addition, until now, Mr. Comeau had access to health care at home that had allowed him to live a full and happy life. Unfortunately, this summer, his local health center (CLSC) underwent changes that have had a serious impact on Comeau's daily life. He needs the assistance of caregivers who come 3 times a week to help him clear his bowel. However, for the past month, Mr. Comeau has been experiencing difficulties with the new caregivers, who are unfamiliar with his body and care for him incorrectly, causing him to have bowel accidents at unexpected times of the day. As a result, he can no longer function as he used to because he is constantly preoccupied with his accidents.

Mr. Comeau's case is obviously serious, but why did he rush to assisted suicide? It is because it is an option available to him. It seems that Mr. Comeau's problems, which have only been going on for a month, could be solved in ways other than by a hasty death. Moreover, if he opts for euthanasia, there may be no change in the health care system in Quebec.

In the same vein, might this man be suffering from depression because of the discomforts he has been experiencing for the past month and which would lead him to this drastic decision? Or could it be that he was influenced by the discussion he had with his doctor? If this is a case of a man who is otherwise active, but chooses assisted suicide, we are witnessing a society that is not solving the core problem: that of having a better health service.

By Joanne of Arc (Quebec Life Coalition) - Photo: Kelly Block's Facebook page

About a week ago, Kelly Block addressed all pro-lifers in a Campaign Life TV video, asking them to support her Bill C-230, the Conscience Protection Act.

Unfortunately, on October 5, 2022, MP Kelly Block's bill was defeated by a vote of 203 to 115 in the Ottawa Parliament, despite the support of the vast majority of Conservative MPs as reported by La Presse.

The bill was intended to protect the freedom of conscience of health care professionals faced with requests for "medical assistance in dying". It was intended to amend the Criminal Code to allow health professionals not to participate "directly or indirectly" in assisted suicides (euthanasia).

If Bill C-230 had been passed, it would have been illegal to intimidate or fire a health care professional who refuses to perform euthanasia or refer a patient to another health care professional.

This vote comes at a time when requests for euthanasia are becoming increasingly common in Canada, for reasons that include financial problems or mental health issues (which can be resolved).

By Joanne of Arc (Quebec Life Coalition) - Photo: Joanne of Arc

In Montreal, on Wednesday, September 28, there was an exclusive screening of the film "CHSLD - Je me souviens" [LTC Homes – I remember] directed by Sylvain Laforest, about the 6,700 victims in Private senior's residence (RPA) who were seriously affected from spring 2020 to spring 2021.

People finally met in a resto-bar to discuss, eat and drink, regardless of their vaccination status. After two years of terror and trauma imposed by the government during the state of emergency created during the pandemic, the "Macarons de la Dignité" group facilitated a memorable gathering that allowed people to remember the elders who were brutally mistreated during the confinement periods imposed during the pandemic.

The magnitude of what happened to the elderly, who were in a capacity deficit in our society during this time of crisis, requires an independent commission of inquiry. The documentary brings to light through several testimonies the abominable way in which people at the end of their lives were treated in Long Term Care Homes (homes for the aged).

To go into detail, although it is difficult to share, the seniors in the LTC Homes were denied water for 10 days so that they would not fill their diapers. Then they were denied vitamins C and D. Finally, they were neglected when their mouths were full of vomit and their diapers were full. The nursing homes floors were empty of staff members and those who were present were overwhelmed with their responsibilities. Many of the decisions that were made under these circumstances lacked empathy and humanity towards the residents.

For example, one account in the documentary tells us of a senior who was locked in his room with several padlocks placed on his door, as if he was an animal in a cage. The elder in question resisted with all his physical abilities and destroyed the padlocks by forcing them. Imposing all this for the sake of public health and safety?

What about the mental health of the residents of these centers? They could not even walk to get some fresh air, see or touch their loved ones, and the only activity they were allowed was to watch television, which did nothing but talk about the virus and spread fear 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In the documentary, retired professor, ex-psychologist and author Lucie Mandeville talks about this fear. Fear is one of the strongest emotions in human beings that will create traumas in the individual. People at the end of their lives in LTC Homes have not only been neglected, but traumatized. These are serious consequences to which we have turned a blind eye.

Quebec Commissioner of Health, Joanne Castonguay (Photo : Twitter)

By email and mail

November 18, 2020, +JMJ+

Commissioner
Joanne Castonguay
880, chemin Sainte-Foy, suite 4.40
Quebec, Quebec
G1S 4X4

Madam Commissioner,

I am writing to you as President of the Campagne Québec-Vie / Quebec Life Coalition, a non-profit association that aims to make its contribution so that Quebec can once again become a Christian society that protects faith, family, and life, from conception to natural death.[1]

I learned from an article in La Presse that the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, had mandated you “to examine the performance of the health network, especially elder care, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic” and that this study would be similar to a commission of inquiry, less punitive powers.[2]

Your mandate as defined by Mr. Dubé suggests that this spring’s fatalities are all caused by the coronavirus, and that your work will consist solely of identifying gaps in the health care system that would explain why our seniors and other vulnerable people have not been sufficiently protected from a deadly virus. However, we believe that this assumption of a very lethal virus from which we would not have been sufficiently protected is not the only one, nor even the most probable one. We are therefore writing to encourage you to consider, in your report, other scenarios that would better account for the increase in “all-cause mortality” observed in Quebec this spring[3].

In our opinion, the vulnerable people who died in Quebec this spring in unusually high numbers are not only, or even for the most part, dead from a virus with a case-fatality rate close to that of a strong seasonal flu[4]; they mostly died for other reasons[5], including the following:

• Gross neglect caused in part by an acute labour shortage in long-term care facilities, which was in large part the result of a media scare campaign that created panic among long-term care employees; [6]
• A stressful situation caused by isolation and other health measures, weakening the immune system of people who are already very fragile, and making them more likely to succumb to what in normal times amount to relatively benign illnesses; [7]
• A triage policy for seniors, denying them, during the crisis, access to hospital services that were normally available to them; [8]
• Contamination of senior care facilities by sick elderly people who have been evacuated from hospitals (to “free up” 7,000 beds, including those of 1,400 patients who were still sick), in anticipation of a “wave” of “higher priority” patients that never materialized; [9]
• A suspension of several surgeries and other interventions, again in order to “free up” beds to deal with the crisis; a pause in care that may have indirectly caused several deaths this spring; and [10]
• The establishment of euthanasia-like protocols. [11]

Commissioner, you will be required to table a report on how the crisis was managed by the end of summer 2021. We believe that the credibility of your report can only be strengthened if you do not stick to the implicit assumption imposed by government authorities that the emergency measures put in place this spring including the lockdown have “saved lives”. It is our earnest hope that your report will take into account the aforementioned hypothesis, which we believe is more plausible, that health measures, far from having protected the population, actually contributed to the hecatomb : by stressing our seniors, resulting in a fall of their immune systems; by exposing them to patients expelled from hospitals and laden with nosocomial viral loads; by isolating them and making them lose their will to live; by causing their famine and dehydration in care homes from which a large number of long-term care center employees fled in panic because of the fear-mongering campaign by government authorities and the media, and finally by euthanizing them under the guise of “palliative care” made necessary by lack of access to hospital care.

Commissioner, a huge task lies ahead of you. We wish you all the courage and strength you need to successfully complete it. It goes without saying that in addition to offering you our logistical support in your endeavours, we are committed to praying for you and your team, hoping that your work will bear fruit, not only for the sake of the Quebec health care system, but also so that justice will be done for elderly and vulnerable people for whom the deaths this spring were in many cases perfectly preventable.

Yours sincerely,


Georges Buscemi, president
Quebec Life Coalition

This letter has been published on the Campagne Québec-Vie / Quebec Life Coalition website (https://en.cqv.qc.ca) and sent to various organizations and media.

Electronic copies of this letter were also sent to the following individuals:

• Marguerite Blais, Minister responsible for Seniors and Informal Caregivers ([email protected])
• Pascale Descary, Chief Coroner ([email protected])
• Christian Dubé, Minister of Health ([email protected])
• Christian Lépine, Archbishop of Montreal
• Alex Schadenberg, President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
• Dr. Patrick Vinay, President of Living with Dignity

[1] For more information about our organization, please visit https://en.cqv.qc.ca/ who_we_are

[2] Source: https://www.lapresse.ca/ actualites/2020-08-19/ covid-19-la-commissaire-a-la-sante-fera-enquete.php, consulted on November 18, 2020.

[3] According to the data from the Institut de la statistique du Québec (see https://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca /statistiques/population-demographie/ deces-mortalite/nombre-hebdomadaire-deces_an.html, consulted on November 18, 2020), there was indeed excess mortality in spring 2020 in Quebec. In fact, from year to year we observe a seasonal cycle of death rates, with the rate increasing in winter (with the flu season and other respiratory diseases) and decreasing in summer. In Quebec, approximately 1300 people die each week (186 per day). In 2020 this fluctuating and seasonal mortality rate drastically increased in April, which coincides with the Covid 19 crisis in the province. It is therefore tempting to conclude that these deaths were caused by the coronavirus. However, in our opinion, this is an erroneous conclusion, as we will explain later.

[4] The mortality rate from seasonal influenza is estimated to be 1 in 1000 affected people (see: Fauci, Lane and Redfield [2020], online at: https://www.nejm.org /doi/full/10.1056/ NEJMe2002387, accessed Nov. 18, 2020) while the median covid 19 infection fatality rate is between 2 and 3 in a thousand, according to Ioannidis, John PA (2020), online at : https://www.who.int/bulletin/ online_first/ BLT.20.265892.pdf; accessed November 18, 2020 (Back-up link, here).

[5] There are good reasons to believe that the official figure of 6,710 deaths “due” to Covid 19 as of November 18, 2020, is significantly inflated. For more information on this “statistical inflation”, read the comments of Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, Dr. Horacio Arruda, etc., quoted in the following article, from the section entitled Gonflage statistique des décès dus au covid ?: https://www.cqv.qc.ca/ libre_opinion_sur_la_pandemie_2020 - gonflage, consulted on November 18, 2020.

[6] Among many examples, there is the situation at the Herron and Sainte-Dorothée residences, as described in this article from the Journal de Montréal: https://www.journaldemontreal.com/ 2020/09/23/ les-problemes-de-personnel-ont-engendre-lhecatombe, consulted on November 18, 2020. Another example from the documentary Mourir dans l’angle mort produced by Radio-Canada, which described the situation in the Herron residence as follows: “31 deaths, but, above all, residents found lying in their feces, without care, dehydrated and starved due to a lack of staff. (This quote ends at 9 minutes 42 seconds in the documentary available at the following address: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=S8dhFPfTWP4, consulted on November 18, 2020.)

[7] On the significant impacts of stress on mortality observed during spring 2020 in different communities, see Rancourt, Denis (June 2020) : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 341832637_All-cause_mortality_during_COVID-19_ No_plague_and_a_likely_signature_of_mass_ homicide_by_government_response, consulted on November 18, 2020. This article has been translated in French here: https://lesakerfrancophone.fr/ mortalite-toutes-causes-confondues- pendant-la-covid-19, consulted on November 18, 2020.

[8] An example of such a protocol can be found here: https://www.lapresse.ca/ covid-19/2020-04-18/ un-plan-de-triage-pour-faire-les-choix-dechirants, consulted on November 18, 2020.

[9] At the beginning of the crisis, Health Minister Danielle McCann announced having “freed up” 7,000 beds, including 1,400 patients sent to CHSLDs and other institutions, thereby exposing thousands of vulnerable people to contagious, nosocomial and other diseases. See Mourir dans l’angle mort at 1:49 : https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=S8dhFPfTWP4, consulted on November 18, 2020)

[10] Ibid.

[11] Many Western jurisdictions, in Canada, Sweden, and France, have implemented long-term care facility protocols in times of pandemic that are, in reality, disguised forms of euthanasia. See the following articles for Canada: https://www.cqv.qc.ca/ mort_de_faim_et_de_soif_a_cause_des_mesures_ anticoronavirus, Sweden: https://www.cqv.qc.ca/suede_euthanasie_ dans_les_maisons_pour_personnes_agees_protocoles_eugeniques, and France: https://www.medias- presse.info/gouvernement-et-coronavirus-ouverture-a-leuthanasie-deguisee-en- recommandant-des-usages-letaux-du-rivotril/119441/, each consulted on November 18, 2020.

Isabelle and Ward O'Connor of the Vivere Group offer questions to ponder about Quebec's new Euthanasia legislation.

1. Do euthanasia and palliative care go together?

The palliative care philosophy is based on respect for the natural process of death. Matching induced death by euthanasia ("medical aid in dying") with palliative care in a "continuum of end of life care" is it logical? Doing so risks creating conflict and confusion. This is the view of, among others, le Réseau de soins palliatifs du Québec (RSPQ), as recorded in its deposition regarding the subject legislation. The RSPQ affirms that "Euthanasia is not a treatment." Further, it is important to know that the Fédération du Mouvement Albatros of Québec (FMAQ) adopted unanimously a resolution in support of the RSPQ position.

2. Is End of Life Care Legislation valid?

It is important to know that induced death, either by euthanasia or assisted suicide, is a crime in Canada, although the authors and promoters of the legislation on end-of-life care categorically deny that "medical aid in dying" means "euthanasia", hoping that their semantic game will evade Canada’s Criminal Code. You should know that Canada’s Attorney General announced that he will challenge the 

validity of this legislation, pending the Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the case Carter-Taylor case heard October 5, 2014, with a decision expected within six months – i.e., no later than April 2015. The Carter-Taylor case challenges the validity of criminalizing death induced by euthanasia or assisted suicide.

3. Would government induced death jeopardize the right to personal security?

Consent and intent are difficult to prove, and the weak, vulnerable, disabled, elderly, depressed, illiterate or otherwise physically or mentally vulnerable are very easy to manipulate. Their consent can also be difficult to interpret. Substituted consent is another important issue, appearing in the Quebec law (Articles 47, 48, 55) as does presumed consent (Articles 57 and 58 ). The mistreatment of these large segments of the population, especially from relatives and institutions, being widely and well documented, as are discrimination and other social exclusionary pressures of exclusion, is such a precarious secure environment in our health care facilities acceptable?

The Quebec legislation in no way restricts euthanasia for people diagnosed with terminal illness. It is applicable to anyone with a chronic degenerative disease, whether that person is dying or not.

In addition, each year in Quebec, more than 350,000 medical errors are reported, the vast majority of which are injection errors (Ménard report). As euthanasia is done via an injection, do not the number of medical errors argue against the practice of euthanasia?

Finally, the end-of-life care legislation leaves it to the physician to ensure that consent to euthanasia is not the result of undue pressures arising from different sources. What training in psychology and police detection methods will the doctor receive for this purpose? What budget he will have to conduct the needed investigation? Abuse is both pernicious and very clever thing to detect for he seeks to detect it.