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

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 0.87

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 0.99

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 0.96

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, 0.95

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 0.98

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. 0.95

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 0.88

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 0.97

00:20:50.020 to kill someone. And now they just have doctor death coming once a week, and they line people up, 0.90

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 0.64

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 0.67

00:26:04.900 assisted death upon people who are mentally ill. I think that's a very sad sign of the times and 0.99

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

Juno News - June 15, 2022

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

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