Juno News - June 15, 2022


The government is expanding and advocating for euthanasia (Ft. Angelina Ireland)


Episode Stats

Length

27 minutes

Words per Minute

163.6659

Word Count

4,433

Sentence Count

223

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Canada is among a handful of countries to offer euthanasia services, and now the Trudeau
00:00:05.500 government wants to expand doctor-assisted suicide to those suffering from mental health
00:00:10.440 issues. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:25.200 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast.
00:00:28.460 So it becomes more evident every single day that our society is sick. We're suffering from a
00:00:33.540 sickness. There's no doubt about it. I think in the United States, the Trump presidency really
00:00:37.980 brought this cultural sickness to the forefront. It revealed the long-running culture war. It brought
00:00:43.360 it right out into the open, exposed the hatred that our so-called elites and experts have for
00:00:49.140 everyday people in their values, their beliefs, and their ideals. In Canada, we saw some of these
00:00:53.960 same trends emerged during COVID. There was a complete lack of trust in the common sense of
00:00:59.280 everyday citizens. There was a reluctance by so many to defend and uphold our basic charter rights
00:01:04.620 and freedoms. And there was an expediency with which politicians and so-called experts would denigrate
00:01:11.020 and demonize the people. Every day in the news, we see reminders of our fraying civil society and the
00:01:17.600 social decay we are experiencing. Whether it's pastors being jailed, schoolchildren being massacred
00:01:23.380 in their schools, or directionless, often fatherless young men carrying out unspeakable atrocities.
00:01:29.440 In response, we see more sneering from the elites towards everyday people and these supposed elites
00:01:34.640 drawing all the wrong conclusions. Well, today, I want to look at an issue that I think really represents
00:01:41.020 the COVID-19 pandemic happening in Canada. I'm talking about the muted discussion when it comes
00:01:44.720 to death, suicide, and our government's role, not just in facilitating, but in expanding and advocating
00:01:51.040 for euthanasia. I'm pleased to be joined today by Angelina Ireland. Angelina is the president of the
00:01:57.560 board of the Delta Hospice Society. It's really an incredible organization. It's a non-profit group
00:02:02.480 promoting life-affirming palliative care. Back in 2014, while suffering from cancer, Angelina joined
00:02:08.940 the Delta Hospice Society as a patient before eventually joining the organization's board
00:02:13.560 four years later. In 2020, the Delta Hospice Society refused to offer doctor-assisted suicide,
00:02:20.180 despite the BC Health Authority making the practice mandatory at all publicly funded hospice centers.
00:02:27.300 So the BC government eventually pulled the Delta Hospice Society's funding and seized their centers,
00:02:33.220 which they'd been operating since 1991. So since then, Angelina has been an outspoken advocate
00:02:38.440 against doctor-assisted suicide and is defending natural end-of-life values. She continues to lead
00:02:45.700 the Delta Hospice Society as a virtual and call-in hospice provider. So, Angelina, welcome to the program.
00:02:52.640 Thank you so much for joining us. It's great to see you. Thank you, Candice, for having me.
00:02:57.440 So let's just talk about your organization, the Delta Hospice Society. I've been following it.
00:03:02.440 It's had certainly a tumultuous last few years, particularly in dealing with the BC government.
00:03:08.700 So can you explain to our viewers what exactly happened with your organization,
00:03:12.700 why you refused to offer this service, and what the consequences have been?
00:03:17.280 Yeah, thank you. You know, we are a 30-year private organization devoted to palliative care.
00:03:24.740 And for those who don't really know, you know, the specifics of palliative care, basically,
00:03:29.860 we take care of people during their illness, during their end of life, and we also take care
00:03:36.920 of their families. But what we do not do in palliative care is kill our patients. So, you know,
00:03:44.880 this is a 50-year medical discipline in which Canada has actually had a great deal to do with
00:03:51.000 in its development. So we should be very proud of that, through people like, you know, Dr.
00:03:55.380 Balfour Mount out of McGill University. So, you know, we have just been a group of private citizens,
00:04:02.400 opening up a palliative care organization, and being very committed and devoted to doing some very
00:04:12.820 good work. And actually, you know, supporting the public health care system. Over our years,
00:04:22.660 we have probably given close to $30 million to the public health care system, 750,000 volunteer hours
00:04:31.460 to the public health care system. So ultimately, it's been a really good deal for the taxpayer.
00:04:36.420 And before euthanasia became law, the government thought that we were a really good partner.
00:04:42.420 And so, I mean, this conversation sort of came up very quickly, and Canada became one of the first
00:04:48.100 countries in the world to legalize, basically, doctor-assisted suicide. So the idea behind
00:04:55.940 the Hospice Society and hospices around Canada was to take people out of hospitals and allow them to
00:05:02.900 go to a place, you know, in their final days, weeks, or months, and sort of die with dignity in
00:05:08.980 natural ways. And then this law came out saying that that that's not gonna, that's not the way that
00:05:15.220 that end of life is going to happen in Canada. Can you sort of walk us through that that battle,
00:05:19.780 how it happened, how these laws got introduced, and how it affected your group?
00:05:24.020 Yeah, I think that, you know, ultimately, I can say it, in that we're undergoing a coercive makeover
00:05:31.140 of palliative care in this country. So when C-14 was first introduced, it allowed, it was basically
00:05:38.420 an amendment to the criminal code so that doctors and nurses would not get charged with murder when
00:05:44.820 they help people kill themselves. And so, with that being passed, and because, you know, healthcare is
00:05:52.260 a provincial jurisdiction, it was passed down to the provinces to allow people access to this kind of
00:05:58.340 procedure. Now, out here in British Columbia, I have to say that the NDP government just, you know,
00:06:03.620 accepted this with like an enthusiasm, with like, you know, and they were going to just make sure that
00:06:08.660 every single bed in British Columbia was going to offer euthanasia. So they exalt, you know, they
00:06:14.820 kind of exalted euthanasia is like the king of all procedures. And anybody getting any kind of government
00:06:20.340 money was going to have to provide this service. So, you know, we as a private organization,
00:06:28.900 in 2010, we fundraised and we built a hospice and a palliative care center next to it for support
00:06:38.260 counseling. That was the kind of services that I, you know, took care of when I was a patient myself.
00:06:43.940 So we got into a contract with the government, with the Fraser Health Authority, which is the
00:06:49.060 authority in our area to provide 10 palliative care beds to the public health care system for 1.4
00:06:58.500 million dollars. Now, when MAID came into law. And MAID is the sort of euphemism that the government
00:07:07.380 uses to describe this process. Medical assistance is dying because that's kind of a nice way of saying,
00:07:11.380 you know, they like to say euthanasia. They don't like that word because it's not as,
00:07:15.300 it's not as pretty and comforting. So they came to us and said, you're going to have to provide
00:07:21.300 euthanasia. And we said, no, because we're a palliative care organization. That's why we're a
00:07:26.740 private organization providing palliative care. Why would we do that? Besides right next door to us,
00:07:32.420 like a minute is the Delta Hospital and they provide MAID there. So there's, you know, clearly there's
00:07:38.500 access to euthanasia within this community. So there's no need for that to be forced upon us.
00:07:44.260 So our first battle was with the government and they said, no, not only no, but they became ruthless
00:07:55.860 against us. So it wasn't just enough that they take away their contract from us, which is fine.
00:08:02.660 We accepted that. So they would have taken away the 1.4 million and we were happy to fundraise
00:08:09.380 that amount of money. We have a store, which is a revenue producing property. So we were quite content
00:08:16.180 to be able to provide to the public health care system, 10 palliative care beds at no cost to the
00:08:22.500 taxpayer. But no, that wasn't enough for the government. They thought somehow that perhaps we were
00:08:28.420 so non-compliant and such instigators that they were going to try to crush us completely.
00:08:36.980 So they took away our funding and then they alerted us that they were going to take away our hospice.
00:08:43.700 So we built our hospice on a 35 year land lease. Okay. A registered lease that was not a license just to be
00:08:53.860 there. A lease that was, you know, in the land titles office and everything else. What they did
00:08:59.300 was they canceled that lease. That was not necessary, but it was punitive. They canceled that lease and they
00:09:08.260 evicted us from that property with 25 years left on that lease. Not only did they evict us, they evicted
00:09:17.540 our patients, our dying patients from our hospice. The Fraser Health authority sent around a notice
00:09:24.740 telling the people there that they're going to have to leave in two months. So within that time,
00:09:30.020 a couple of people passed away, but the remaining people, they shipped off to another hospice in the
00:09:36.500 Fraser Health region. They then basically gave us 30 days to get out and we had to fire all of our staff.
00:09:45.300 We had to move and we had to be out of those premises in 30 days. So, you know, this just goes to show
00:09:54.020 that when you stand to defy authority, you know, they will go to every length to crush any independent
00:10:06.420 initiative. It's really unbelievable that story. I'm wondering if you can help explain to the viewers,
00:10:12.260 Angelina, what's the difference between the services that you would provide at your hospice
00:10:16.820 versus a hospital? Like, what was the difference for those patients when you got evicted
00:10:23.060 moving to the other facilities? Would they have been sort of offered or presented with the
00:10:29.300 option, I guess you call it, of being euthanized? Is that what happens over there?
00:10:34.660 Well, you know, interestingly, once they kicked us out, they reopened our facility two weeks later
00:10:41.220 under their authority, and now they operate it and they provide euthanasia there. So, you know,
00:10:49.060 they sort of carted off a few people for the interim to another hospice. You know, and I use the term
00:10:56.580 hospice now very loosely because hospices were never a place where you came to die. Hospices were a place where
00:11:04.420 you came to live and where we took care of you. We took care of you, not only your physical, but your,
00:11:09.940 you know, psychological and spiritual needs and those of your family. Now you can go to a hospice
00:11:18.580 and your worst day can become your last day because you can ask for to be euthanized and you can be killed
00:11:26.340 that day. So now people are taking, and they don't use palliative care so much anymore in this
00:11:31.220 province. They use words like end-of-life care, right? They try to steer away from, you know,
00:11:37.300 any kind of connection to, you know, a very noble medical discipline because they know that what
00:11:45.220 they've done in this province is pretty much destroy palliative care.
00:11:49.780 And it's so sad given what you're just describing about how Canada was once sort of a world leader and
00:11:54.980 we have 50 years of experience in really dealing with this very difficult, challenging part of life.
00:12:01.700 Death is a part of life. I'm wondering if you can explain, because I think that the broader discussion
00:12:08.980 kind of gets tied up. People who oppose this way of dying and this idea that the government will just
00:12:15.060 sort of facilitate death if a patient asks for it. I'm wondering if you could walk us through why you
00:12:22.020 personally oppose this method, this doctor assisted suicide, why your group specifically decided to
00:12:28.900 fight against it, because there's so few voices and so few groups doing what the Delta Hospice Society
00:12:34.340 did. And in some ways, it's really inspiring to see what you're doing in other ways. It's like,
00:12:39.460 why isn't there pushback on this stuff from people all over the country? So I wonder if you can,
00:12:43.540 if you just walk us through your views and then your society's views as well.
00:12:47.220 Yeah, I mean, you know, ultimately, we wanted to stand for palliative care. You know, we consider
00:12:53.940 it to be a national treasure. Not only that, but you know, it's a gift to humanity. Right? When you go
00:13:01.460 in a sort of sacrificing selfless way, take care of the most vulnerable among us. You know, that is,
00:13:09.140 that's a noble cause. That's something that this organization has spent 30 years
00:13:14.740 years uplifting and providing, you know, and so what we have seen now is, you know, those people
00:13:23.220 who would prefer a different end of life experience. They, you know, we're not even going to say anything
00:13:31.140 about that. What we're going to say is, if that's what you want, then you go build it. But what we find
00:13:36.660 now happening is that this new political movement wants to walk in and literally steal everything
00:13:44.020 that we've created over the past 50 years, instead of going and doing their own work.
00:13:49.700 You go fundraise, you go open your maid centers, right? And you become then a choice to the public
00:13:57.060 in terms of an end of life marketplace of services available. Because I'll tell you, we have many,
00:14:02.260 many people who want the kind of services that we provide. So no, they don't just get to have, you
00:14:08.500 know, because they have a loud, obnoxious group of people who are demanding to be killed, you know,
00:14:16.420 on demand. That's fine. But we're not going to fight you. What I'm going to say to you is go do your
00:14:23.140 own work. Because the work that we have done for the past 50 years is important. People look to us,
00:14:30.980 they trust us to protect them. And we are not going to just surrender, right, everything that
00:14:39.380 we've created, because it will be more convenient for you. So you go make your own spaces, and we'll
00:14:46.180 have our spaces. I mean, that's, you know, on principle, that is really one of the one of the
00:14:50.900 reasons why we fought so hard. You know, second is all that, you know, we have within palliative care,
00:14:56.500 a real respect for the dignity of life, the sanctity of life, to its natural end,
00:15:04.660 and how much we can do to provide people with an incredible ability to have time at their end of life,
00:15:14.020 to have a reconciliation with their loved ones, right, to be able to physically, emotionally accept
00:15:21.700 the next stage. That's very important, because we can see the trauma that family members go through
00:15:28.740 when they're when their loved ones just, they show up to see them when they're dead, they're gone,
00:15:33.060 they decided in the middle of the night, with I will say, some influence of perhaps some healthcare
00:15:42.020 providers that they should just put themselves out of this misery and and not be a burden to their
00:15:46.580 families, and they're gone. Right? So, you know, we provide that experience of time to honour who we
00:15:57.380 are as human beings, and to give, you know, those people we love the opportunity to also be able to
00:16:04.020 accept and to heal before we say our ultimate goodbye. Right, it's so interesting that, you know,
00:16:12.340 you have different opinions, right? If some other family, if there's Canadians out there who
00:16:16.660 either don't want their loved ones suffering, and they make this decision altogether,
00:16:20.820 there's space for them, right? There's places where they can go. But it's so interesting that
00:16:24.500 the people in charge, the politicians, the bureaucrats, the experts, say no to the Canadians
00:16:29.780 who don't want this kind of service offered to their loved ones, and they don't believe in it,
00:16:33.700 and it goes against their morals and values. You know, there's no space for you in our society,
00:16:38.420 we're going to go after this little Delta Hospice society, and just eliminate them. And it's really
00:16:45.140 telling that that's the attitude that they had, you know, you talk about sort of the influence,
00:16:50.180 I would call it coercion of healthcare providers pushing this idea of medically assisted dying.
00:16:56.340 Last month, there was a big news story, there was an individual named Donna Duncan, who was an
00:17:00.500 Abbotsford nurse and mother who died on October 29, 2021. So almost a year ago, police are investigating
00:17:08.020 this medically assisted death of Duncan, and her daughter said the death should not have been
00:17:12.420 approved for the procedure based on her mental health at the time. This is terrifying and chilling
00:17:18.340 that these daughters placed their mother in care and came one day, like you said, and their mother
00:17:24.100 was gone. And this decision had been made, and it seems like they didn't consult the family. So I'm
00:17:30.180 wondering, you know, why aren't we talking more about these kinds of stories? And how is this even
00:17:35.380 happening in Canada? How can we push back against it?
00:17:39.380 Well, we do, you know, and I think that people need to understand there are choices,
00:17:42.740 that we should be allowed to have choices. We as a private organization, we're literally told by the
00:17:49.540 government that we have no right, we have no right to our conscience. We have no right as taxpaying citizens
00:17:58.340 to be able to have the kind of service that we actually pay for, right, we become disenfranchised.
00:18:05.380 We've become like indentured serfs, pay your money, you don't get any choices, you do what you're
00:18:11.620 told. You know, I mean, ultimately, that at the end of the day, that that's what this boils down to.
00:18:18.100 You know, we have many, we have a constituency that wants what we offer. But we're not allowed
00:18:23.780 to have it now, because the government deems it to be somewhat inappropriate. You apparently,
00:18:30.580 you have to offer every medical procedure in your facility that, you know, that's available. However,
00:18:39.940 right next door at the Delta Hospital, you can't have your baby there. Nobody in Delta can have their
00:18:46.020 baby in Delta, you've got to go off to some other city to have your child. But in every bed in Delta,
00:18:53.700 you've got to be able to kill someone. So you know, it's ironic. It's, you know, hypocrisy.
00:18:59.940 We want to say that we see you, we see this nonsense that you're, you know, you're trying to push onto
00:19:05.780 people. And, you know, if I was sitting here and telling you, Oh, I'm raising money to have a no kill
00:19:12.260 animal shelter, right? Oh, I'd be getting all kinds of support from the government. But I'm sitting here
00:19:17.380 saying that I want to have a no kill hospice, and I become enemy of the state.
00:19:23.620 It's really wild, isn't it? That's quite a stark difference. Well, we now hear Angelina,
00:19:28.740 that the federal government is expected to unveil new laws to allow doctors to offer
00:19:33.700 medically assisted suicide to the mentally ill. So that means people suffering from depression,
00:19:38.180 bipolar disorder, personality disorders, schizophrenia, even PTSD, and other mental afflictions
00:19:43.540 will be offered this. What are your concerns about legislation like this?
00:19:49.300 Oh, it's, you know, it's happening at the worst time. You know, we have been through as a people,
00:19:56.420 the last two and a half years of a really traumatic experience, we've been locked down,
00:20:01.620 fear mongered about, you know, put your mask on, get your shots, get your boosters, you're going to die,
00:20:06.820 right? We've got inflation going out of control. We've got war in Ukraine are talking about World War
00:20:12.260 3. You know, if you're not suffering some kind of mental strain in this moment, you know, it would
00:20:18.420 be it would be a surprise. So you know, now they want to offer death to people who are, you know,
00:20:27.380 mentally, I'll say unstable. Well, I would argue that that euthanasia in this moment is being asked for
00:20:35.460 because we're in a mental health crisis. Now, instead of helping people with the tools that we
00:20:43.540 have to help them, they would just prefer to kill them, you know what, because it's cheap, it's $400
00:20:50.020 to kill someone. And now they just have doctor death coming once a week, and they line people up,
00:20:56.580 and they just kill them. Well, I'll tell you a hospice bed, for example, it would probably, you know,
00:21:02.500 we could do it probably cheaper. But if the government's doing it 1200 bucks a day, a day,
00:21:08.260 right? So we know we see through like the Wizard of Oz thing that that's what's going on, right? We know
00:21:16.260 who wants euthanasia, people who don't want to be a burden, people who are afraid of losing control of
00:21:22.740 their their lives, people who are anxious, who are depressed, okay, that's that's mental health issues.
00:21:29.300 So they're trying to push death upon people with mental health issues. That's not a loving,
00:21:36.980 kind or compassionate response. That's a nihilist response. And we expect more from the government,
00:21:45.140 from the people that we elect to represent us than that.
00:21:48.180 Well, especially if you look at some of the numbers, I mean, it's one thing to talk about medically
00:21:54.260 assisted dying to someone who's in chronic pain, who's in their 90s, who just might say, you know,
00:21:59.060 my life, I've lived a good life, I've lived a fulfilled life. And to your point, I don't want
00:22:02.580 to be a burden. But when you're talking about the mental health crisis in our country right now,
00:22:06.660 it's largely afflicting young people, you know, teenagers and people in their 20s and 30s,
00:22:12.020 we just read a report that said 70, 69% of journalists report feeling anxiety and depression.
00:22:17.940 And the thing about depression and other disorders like bipolar disorder is you have good days
00:22:22.420 and bad days. And so if you ask someone on the very worst of the worst days, the lowest of the
00:22:27.300 low, do you want to end your life? At that point, you know, it might seem like a like a realistic
00:22:32.820 option, without thinking about the fact that things will get better, there's light at the end of the
00:22:36.660 tunnel, and there are things to live for. And it's such a sad point in our society where, to your point,
00:22:42.500 you know, the most vulnerable people in our society are just being offered this, this this way out.
00:22:48.580 Well, Angelina, I find this issue so troubling. And, you know, I know that there's there's a variety of
00:22:55.700 opinions out there. But I really do appreciate what you're doing and the voice that you're providing
00:23:01.940 for all this. For Canadians who don't know much about what's going on and want to get more involved,
00:23:07.860 what do you what do you recommend for them? Yeah, you know, I mean, after after they literally took
00:23:12.420 our assets, and tried to destroy us with the national activists who came after us, and you
00:23:18.180 know, you know, we've been through the we've been through the wars here on the on the front line for
00:23:22.340 the last two and a half years, not only against government, against activists, no opposition party
00:23:28.180 in this country supported us. They all closed the door on us when we tried to speak to them.
00:23:33.700 So what we what we know now is that we need to protect ourselves. This is where we've come to
00:23:39.220 at this moment, they're not coming to help you. So in an attempt to help protect people,
00:23:44.740 our organization, the delta hospicesociety.org has opened up a national palliative care hotline.
00:23:52.340 So 1800 232 1589. So but eight days a week, Monday to Friday, sorry, eight hours a day,
00:24:00.580 five days a week, we ask you to call us. If you have questions, if you have concerns,
00:24:06.020 we're there to help you find places where your loved ones can go that perhaps they could be safe.
00:24:11.940 You know, we'll have those conversations with you. If you need counseling, we'll arrange counselors for
00:24:16.420 you that aren't going to just affirm your your euthanasia and suicidal intentions. We will prop proper,
00:24:22.980 you know, counselors. So you know, we've done that number one, number two, we have created for every
00:24:29.060 province in this country, a DNA, a do not euthanize advanced directive. And we will give that to you,
00:24:37.620 we ask you to come and be a member for $10 of the Delta Hospice Society. And we will give you an
00:24:43.780 advanced directive that's been produced by a lawyer that basically says, I do not want to be euthanized
00:24:50.580 if at any point in my sickness, I asked you to kill my kill me, it's because it's a cry for help.
00:24:57.300 We do not approve of a facility unilaterally deciding to not treat us anymore, who turns off
00:25:04.660 our oxygen, our air and our nutrition. There's a clause in there that says if you do that, I will
00:25:10.260 have my representative sue you. So you know, these are the things that ordinary people need to be
00:25:16.500 empowered with. Because we need to keep our people safe. We need to keep our home safe.
00:25:23.220 And Delta Hospice Society wants to partner with you to ensure that you can at least feel some sense of
00:25:32.100 peace, and some sense of protection. So become a member delta hospicesociety.org. And we'll get you set
00:25:40.820 up.
00:25:42.020 Well, that's really wonderful. I really encourage all of our true north viewers to look into that and get
00:25:47.140 involved sounds like a great initiative. And I'm very disappointed that even conservative
00:25:51.940 politicians aren't working with you or aren't willing to stand up against this bizarre
00:25:58.820 bullying that's happening towards your organization, and the sort of broader trend of pushing medically
00:26:04.900 assisted death upon people who are mentally ill. I think that's a very sad sign of the times and
00:26:10.180 and another sign, like I said, off the top, that our society is sick, and that we're suffering from
00:26:15.940 severe societal decay. So Angelina Ayrton, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining
00:26:21.300 the show. It was great talking to you today. Thank you, Candace.
00:26:24.740 All right. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.
00:26:38.180 I'm Candace Malcolm, and I was Christian. Looking so old at my skill with my master
00:26:50.900 a little bit, I need to be prepared for my master's skill.
00:26:53.140 I'll see you today, that was a great- Kimberly.
00:26:57.060 I want to listen to Olaf Holand Driven then.
00:27:00.020 Now, my mother woke up all the time when I were starting to see me.
00:27:03.300 經 carp� laufen