Juno News - October 11, 2026


Canada’s MAID Expansion Continues

Mentioned
Pamela Wallen John Fraser Gabriel Peters Amanda Ackman MPT Jansen Bill C-63
The Tipping Point： OSAP Scandal, Mass Immigration, and Corruption

Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

157.18

Word count

2,648

Sentence count

105

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:01.000 Canada's Justice Minister recently announced changes to Canada's Medical Assistance in 1.00
00:00:09.920 Dying program, which some critics initially celebrated, saying it was a win for those
00:00:16.880 seeking to protect the mentally ill who may not fully understand what they would be agreeing
00:00:22.480 to.
00:00:23.480 John Fraser says he's putting a hold on plans to expand MAID to those using mental illness
00:00:29.720 as the sole condition for choosing to die under the program.
00:00:33.560 Fraser also made it clear he wants to protect doctors
00:00:37.160 taking part in the program from criminal prosecution.
00:00:40.820 Amanda Ackman is founder of Dying to Meet You
00:00:44.040 and ethics director at Physicians for Life.
00:00:47.640 She's joining us from Ottawa.
00:00:49.780 She says that the government is being dishonest,
00:00:52.920 actually seeking to expand the program
00:00:55.580 for those suffering from dementia nationwide.
00:00:58.300 Amanda, welcome to the show.
00:01:00.080 Thank you. 1.00
00:01:01.780 All right, why do you think the government is being dishonest in terms of what it really wants to do as far as a MAID program goes?
00:01:07.780 This is an incredibly sly move on the part of the government because it is, as you note, an expansionist policy of Canada's already reckless euthanasia regime where one in 20 or potentially one in 18 deaths now in this country is the result of a doctor or nurse.
00:01:25.180 Now, the Liberals brought in made for mental illness as a sole underlying condition on March 17th, 2021. That's the day it passed alongside the disability track, so-called track two. That law passed. Its implementation has only been delayed due to public pressure, due to every chair of psychiatry in this country and international attention shining the light on what a disaster of a policy this would be.
00:01:53.080 And so the Liberals have delayed it. They want the credit both for legalizing it and for preventing its legalization, only now, given that the policy is so unpopular.
00:02:04.360 and yet as a concession to the euthanasia lobbyists they are rolling into a single bill
00:02:12.040 this policy of euthanasia expansion by going with the more popular and i use the word popular
00:02:18.320 because that's the word senator pamela wallen who has advocated for so-called advanced directives
00:02:24.460 death for dementia a policy of euthanasia without contemporaneous consent this is being rolled into
00:02:30.900 the bill that would ban made for mental illness now why it's sly is because the very people who
00:02:36.180 have been campaigning to ban made for mental illness as a sole condition probably cannot
00:02:40.980 in good conscience vote for the government bill that will do that because it will also expand
00:02:46.500 euthanasia to those with dementia that's why it's incredibly sinister that's why it's basically a
00:02:53.460 trade of death for depression for death for dementia yeah i don't understand how people
00:03:00.900 Well, I can't understand how people can misconstrue what the government is doing, because outwardly they're coming out and saying, yeah, we understand, we've been listening to you, we hear what you're saying, and we're going to restrict the use of MAID for the mentally ill who, I mean, strictly on the sole criterion that they're mentally ill.
00:03:23.520 But you say that what they're really doing is expanding it to people who have dementia, which is a mental illness.
00:03:30.660 So you see the confusion here, right?
00:03:33.400 The liberals wanted to quibble over wording of mental illness and mental disorder.
00:03:38.040 MPT Jansen, who put forward the bill, Bill C-218, that members of the government voted against yesterday,
00:03:45.340 said she was happy to change the language and to work through that.
00:03:49.180 Nevertheless, the government shut it down.
00:03:51.240 Part of it was over the disagreement on the technicality of the distinction between a mental illness and a mental disorder.
00:03:58.960 So some mental disorders that are not mental illnesses would be, for example, autism.
00:04:04.480 And right now, autism is a neurological condition that qualifies a person already for MAID in Canada.
00:04:12.520 And so we saw that devastating story of a 27-year-old at the time, woman being approved on the basis of autism for MAID.
00:04:21.580 Thank God she's still alive and her father had managed to get an injunction to save her daughter's life from this state-sponsored killing that she was asking for really because she also had compounding mental health factors.
00:04:36.240 And I mention this because we must take note that Canadians with mental illness are already dying by MAID.
00:04:44.920 I'll say that again. Canadians with mental illness already and right now are dying by the euthanasia program.
00:04:51.800 It's simply a requirement that they also have a compounding physical illness, neurological condition, disability.
00:04:59.120 And for anyone who's familiar with mental illness or physical illness, these tend to go together.
00:05:08.080 Who receives a terminal diagnosis who doesn't at least have some serious mental health challenge?
00:05:13.660 Who lives with severe mental illness who doesn't have some physical manifestation of it?
00:05:19.840 And so this division, this division between physical and mental suffering is creating all of this havoc.
00:05:27.820 And now, given the outcry against made for mental illness as a sole condition, the government is pivoting and it is seemingly more amenable to the public to allow euthanasia by advance request.
00:05:41.660 Now, what did we get told years ago? It's a safeguard. The patient must provide contemporaneous consent.
00:05:48.900 Safeguards be damned. They're out the window. Quebec is already, since I believe 2022, allowing euthanasia by advance request, meaning accepting that people can make a decision to die by maid ahead of time before they're going to lose that capacity and no longer be able to consent. 0.72
00:06:10.600 When Quebec ushered this in, they were told by the Liberal Justice Minister at the time, you are in violation of federal law.
00:06:20.180 But what did the government do when Quebec broke the law?
00:06:25.140 Rewarded them. Rewarded them in two ways.
00:06:28.560 First of all, by creating a so-called national conversation around euthanasia by advance request.
00:06:37.800 I'm a bit facetious about this because the national conversation was a survey of people who decided to comment with their views between December and mid-February.
00:06:49.480 Not everyone is thinking about euthanasia for dementia over the Christmas holidays, but the Liberal government thought that was an excellent time to survey the public on euthanasia for dementia.
00:07:00.060 And the report, which was largely answered by elderly white women, according to the data set that they outline at the outset of the report, says, yes, bring on the euthanasia for dementia.
00:07:13.600 Now, many people fear a diagnosis of dementia more than anything. 0.81
00:07:19.120 And what could be more fearful than a society that normalizes those with dementia being made into a killable class? 0.93
00:07:26.940 I use that phrase killable class, borrowing it from disability advocate Gabriel Peters, who referred to the disabled under track two having been made into a killable class. 0.83
00:07:37.100 Now with this expansionist liberal government policy, we see a new category of human beings marked for exclusion, those with dementia.
00:07:47.160 And what is devastating, what is absolutely crushing, is the question of who is going to speak for them.
00:07:54.880 We saw this vociferous, thank God, outcry about MAID for mental illness as a sole condition because everyone knows someone struggling with mental illness.
00:08:04.100 I spoke to high schoolers about euthanasia, a grade 12 class in Victoria, B.C., and most of the students were very sympathetic to MAID.
00:08:12.180 And they thought in cases of physical suffering or chronic pain or terminal illness that it could be justified.
00:08:19.060 But they were very against it for mental illness.
00:08:21.660 And I found that curious. So I asked the students, but why not for mental illness? They said, we all have mental illnesses, basically. And so let's be honest with ourselves. Euthanasia is about fear, fear of certain disabilities, conditions, and by playing these games of marking out categories of human beings who simply could not be here.
00:08:48.060 we are actually wholesale discounting everyone who fits that demographic that's why when people 0.64
00:08:54.820 say oh don't want made don't go for it what's the problem no I'm telling you I speak with seniors
00:08:59.580 every single day the look in their eyes when they tell me that they've been told that they qualify
00:09:04.660 think of what it does for the self-esteem of the elderly to be marked for social exclusion and told
00:09:10.920 you qualify for a state-sponsored premature end to your life because you fit a category the fact
00:09:16.980 of having criteria is itself the problem, is itself dehumanizing. And now the most urgent
00:09:24.120 thing is attending to the dehumanization of Canadians living with dementia, a growing
00:09:30.580 category of persons. And now what are we going to do to mount a similar effort as we saw to
00:09:37.040 euthanasia for mental illness to absolutely shut down euthanasia by advanced request? Again,
00:09:43.140 the sinister obfuscation of language this is a policy of death for dementia
00:09:49.620 yeah i mean it seems that the government is just uh so adamant about targeting people
00:09:55.380 with dementia for one reason or another perhaps because they're so vulnerable i mean these are
00:10:00.820 the most vulnerable people anywhere in the country they don't really understand what's going on
00:10:05.860 apart from children but i mean these are people don't necessarily understand what's going on and
00:10:11.460 The idea that they would be put into this program because of something that they agreed to, I don't know, 15 years earlier, is very disturbing because people do change their minds.
00:10:21.880 And so I certainly appreciate that.
00:10:24.500 But the governor is also dealing, I mean, you mentioned earlier about the outcry, just with a host of stories that have come out.
00:10:31.760 and you know they're incredible some of them are people being offered made when their condition is
00:10:38.980 you know anything but terminal I mean you were speaking on a show recently that I noticed
00:10:45.540 in which a woman said she was shocked when she was offered made there's the story of the woman
00:10:50.900 who was a veteran who wanted money for a stair master and she ended up being offered made there's
00:10:56.840 A recent story that was picked up internationally about a woman who asked for MAID because she could no longer cook for her family and apparently was granted that.
00:11:09.120 Can you confirm that that took place?
00:11:10.920 Do you know about that matter?
00:11:12.220 This story was written up in the New York Times by people who have actually been involved in Canada's MAID program.
00:11:20.000 And so you can take it from whoever you like.
00:11:23.580 The fundamental point there, and I realize people think the headlines are sensational, but what checks out is that the number one kind of suffering by people's own admission leading them to requests made is not physical pain or suffering.
00:11:36.660 It's the inability to engage in meaningful life activities.
00:11:40.100 So the fact that it would be cooking for someone, this actually corresponds to the federal government's data,
00:11:47.280 that something from which a person derives meaning and identity would be the symbol of
00:11:54.200 a loss of meaning and let's take that seriously i have heard personally from seniors especially
00:12:00.720 on vancouver island who say when i lose my license due to an illness or a disability
00:12:04.940 that's when i sign up for maid and it's not because of the illness or but it's the alienation
00:12:12.280 and isolation that comes from not being able to drive now that what would this so what would the
00:12:18.480 supposed sensational headline be senior loses driving driver's license and gets made there's
00:12:24.420 something really to it and i think we have to attend to the crisis of meaning the insecurity
00:12:29.660 of identity the breakdown of relationship the profound loneliness the grief in which many
00:12:35.240 seniors live when they lose a spouse the lack of community the lack of social supports that are
00:12:41.600 driving this societal crisis and pay attention to it. These are not flippant headlines. These
00:12:48.000 are people, these are again seniors who I've interacted with who are tempted and vulnerable
00:12:52.960 to euthanasia and we have to have something better to propose than death. Why do you suppose
00:12:58.560 the government is so adamant about pushing this program? Is this about saving money? Is this about
00:13:06.560 the ever lengthening wait times because we hear all sorts of stories of people who opt for made
00:13:13.040 because they can't get the medical treatment that they need what's going on here is a combination
00:13:17.840 of factors have you been able to determine why the government is so in love with this program
00:13:23.760 i do think it's a combination of factors i mentioned earlier senator pamela wallen she
00:13:28.400 has been pushing for euthanasia expansion specifically uh for those advanced requests
00:13:34.240 due to her experience with her parents and due to her own fear about dementia she has said some
00:13:40.640 what i consider very dehumanizing remarks about people living with dementia and uh it's it's her
00:13:47.280 number one greatest fear now for many people especially people who have been used to power
00:13:52.880 and offices and staff and benefits to get a terminal illness to become debilitated to lose
00:14:00.640 the capacity to do so many things who who's prepared for that and so i think partly the uh
00:14:09.200 the political class represents the core made demographic of generally the white worried and
00:14:15.200 wealthy because we see more and more that it is affluent people who are uh seduced to under the
00:14:22.640 illusion of autonomy and control opt for this but what's really at stake is someone who's thinking
00:14:28.960 about euthanasia is wondering who will be with me when i suffer who's going to take care of me who's
00:14:35.120 going to love me who's going to surround me when i don't have a title when i don't have a position
00:14:40.320 when i'm just weak and if the answer to that question is well no one no one's going to
00:14:45.280 particularly care about you then then the request for euthanasia is a way to preempt ever getting
00:14:51.200 that answer and we can see why because those answers would be too tragic too demoralizing
00:14:57.280 and so again i take this very seriously this is a very deep social and cultural matter which is why
00:15:04.640 i engage in it at every level i do think there are many as many reasons to it as there are people
00:15:10.160 involved in our society i will note though that the justice minister in making his announcement
00:15:16.240 was emphatic that this is not about a right and the supreme court is saying this is not about a
00:15:21.840 right. This is about basically protecting doctors and nurse practitioners in Canada from criminal
00:15:29.540 prosecution for participating in MAID. He said it several times repeatedly throughout the press
00:15:35.520 conference. It's so that doctors and nurses who participate in MAID are not treated as criminals.
00:15:41.720 And even a journalist asks, is it about a right? And he repeats the same thing. So again, this is
00:15:47.420 not about patients. This is not even about health care. This is about protecting doctors from
00:15:53.720 criminal prosecution under the guise of expanding Canadians' choice when the only choice is a
00:16:00.520 choiceless choice between death or no other options. Yeah, I think it's a dog whistle to
00:16:06.420 doctors as well to say, we got your back, you know. If you're resisting getting involved in
00:16:13.180 this program because you're worried that you'll be charged criminally, you know, we'll make sure
00:16:18.120 that you'll be okay. I think that's part of it. How do people follow you and find out more about
00:16:23.580 the work that you're doing? You can find me across social media and check out dyingtomeetyou.com. You
00:16:28.160 can send me a message there, and you can also check out Canadian Physicians for Life by going
00:16:32.120 to physiciansforlife.ca. Thank you so much, Amanda. Great chatting with you. You too. Thank you. If you
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00:16:48.460 do here. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time.