Juno News - November 24, 2025Veteran association invites members to assisted suicide seminar
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Summary
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police Veterans Association is under fire from veterans after it invited members to learn about the government s assisted suicide program. The Liberal government has signaled that it will be launching new consultations to reintroduce failed censorship legislation. Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged over $1 billion in tax-funded spending to a global health fund for poorer countries.
Transcript
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A Royal Canadian Mounted Police Veterans Association is under fire from veterans
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after it invited members to learn about the government's assisted suicide program.
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The Liberal government has signaled that it will be launching new consultations
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Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged over $1 billion in tax-funded spending
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Hello Canada, it's Monday, November 24th, and this is the True North Daily Brief.
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We've got you covered with all the news you need to know.
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Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.
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A National Police Association is facing intense backlash after it invited an advocate
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to educate RCMP veterans on assisted suicide options.
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A Canadian war veteran, podcaster, and long-time advocate for veterans' mental health,
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Kelsey Sharon, put the Nova Scotia branch of the RCMP Veterans Association on blast
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after a 32-year-old police veteran leaked an email.
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The email advertised an assisted suicide talk to be hosted in an Anglican church.
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The RCMP Veterans Association of Nova Scotia has sent an email out today and they are having
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a doctor come into a local church to promote, push, and coerce veterans into assisted suicide.
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I just had this leaked to me by a 32-year RCMP veteran who is absolutely livid and so should you.
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There is an email address here and a phone number.
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I would show up and ask why is it acceptable to be dangling a carrot in front of veterans
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who already are struggling with mental health and now have a $4 billion deficit off of the new budget.
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How is this supposed to help other than push people to self-select and kill themselves?
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The email, sent out Thursday, was leaked to Sharon and published in a sub stack article she authored.
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It invites members to a free, open to the public presentation that, quote,
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may interest many and discusses the government's, quote, medical assistance in dying program.
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The speaker is Dr. Gordon Gubitz, the clinical lead for Nova Scotia Health's assisted suicide program.
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Gubitz also sits on the board for the Canadian Association of Maid Assessors and Providers,
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the organization that, quote, developed the MAID curriculum for clinicians,
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which frames government-approved suicide as a compassionate response to suffering and a therapeutic option.
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Sharon said Gubitz was not a, quote, neutral, independent medical educator,
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but a clinical gatekeeper for MAID and an ideological engine behind national MAID training.
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quote, Nova Scotia RCMP veterans invited a man whose job is to facilitate, provide, and promote nothing but death
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and whose organization teaches clinicians how to introduce MAID to patients who didn't ask for it, bring it up, or want it in their life.
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So, Alex, how did the organizers and some of the pro-assisted suicide groups rationalize hosting this seminar to RCMP veterans?
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The Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers and the RCMP Veterans Association did not respond to Trunor's request for comments on this story here.
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Please see the statement below from Helen Long, CEO of Dying with Dignity Canada.
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While Dying with Dignity Canada is not associated with the presentation being held at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church Parish with guest speaker Dr. Gordon Gubitz,
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we believe it is important for people across Canada to be aware of all of their end-of-life options, including medical assistance in dying.
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Canada has strict MAID eligibility and proper safeguards in place.
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They also said that the event being shared is a free public event intended to share information to those who choose to attend.
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Suggesting that an educational event is designed to target or coerce a specific audience is, at best, inaccurate, and at worst, irresponsible.
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It is a decision made by free and informed individuals.
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Nurse practitioners and physicians in Canada can discuss MAID in the context of end-of-life options,
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but it is the individual who decides how to proceed once they have been given all their health care options.
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Information about all health care matters should come from health care providers.
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Decisions about health care, the organization continued, including MAID, are personal and individual.
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I find that sort of strange because it does sound like these organizations,
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if the educational seminars that they're providing aren't helping people access MAID,
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then they really have no reason to exist in the first place.
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So I think that there is some level of coercion going on here.
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Otherwise, what would be the point of these events and these seminars?
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So I find that a little bit disingenuous, personally.
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The Liberals are once again attempting to pass their controversial censorship bill,
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launching new consultations after multiple failed efforts to regulate online content.
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Minister of Justice Sean Fraser told the Senate during question period
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that the new online tarred legislation won't be a, quote, copy and paste of its previous two failed bills,
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first introduced under the Trudeau government in 2021.
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Adding that the Department of Canadian Heritage has been tasked with making the necessary, quote, reforms,
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there is a consultation process that is now underway.
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The government's previous attempts to regulate the Internet have been thwarted by significant
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pushback from the general public and online content creators in particular.
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Fraser's comments were in response to Senator Christopher Wells,
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who said Canada still had much work to do in combating hate, in particular online.
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Wells, a proponent of online regulation, said, quote,
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In the previous parliament, the government tabled comprehensive legislation to combat online harms,
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including hate speech through the creation of the new Digital Safety Commission.
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Does the government remain committed to reintroducing legislation to combat online harms,
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including the growing radicalization and proliferation of hate on the Internet and through social media?
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While it may not be a, quote, cut and paste framework,
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Fraser responded that Canadians should expect the Kearney government to, quote,
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take action, unquote, to address many of the same issues from the previous proposed legislation.
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So, Isaac, what were in those previous online censorship bills?
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And what were some of the major concerns on those bills from civil liberties advocates?
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Yeah, Alex. So when Sean Fraser talks about not doing a copy and paste bill,
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what he's referring to are two earlier liberal attempts, Bill C-36 and Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act.
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Bill C-36 was an earlier Trudeau-era proposal that would have created a kind of federal speech czar.
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It envisioned a new official with powers to effectively block access to websites deemed harmful,
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and it died on the order paper when the 2021 election was called.
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The more recent and much bigger package was Bill C-63.
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That bill tried to do several things at once, regulate large online platforms,
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create a new Digital Safety Commission and related bureaucracy,
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and at the same time rewrite both the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act
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to cover a wide range of harmful or hateful expression online.
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Civil Liberties Group's main concern was that it didn't just go after clearly criminal material
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like child exploitation or terrorism, it layered on vague new categories of speech offenses
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For example, Bill C-63 would have required social media companies to remove broadly defined
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harmful content or face steep penalties, which the Democracy Fund warned would push platforms
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to over-censor and could amount to mass surveillance and censorship.
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It also revived the old human rights hate speech regime, letting anyone file complaints over online
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posts and empowering a tribunal to order content taken down and levy fines up to $70,000.
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On top of that, the Criminal Code side of the bill was even more controversial.
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Legal scholars like Michael Geist and Emily Laidlaw pointed out that ordinary offenses could
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attract a potential life sentence if a judge found they were motivated by hate,
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and that people could face restrictions based on being reasonably expected to commit a future
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Critics said that comes perilously close to punishing people for what they might say in
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The proposed Digital Safety Commission, Ombudsperson, and Office would have concentrated rulemaking,
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enforcement, and quasi-judicial powers in a small group of government appointees.
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The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and other groups argued that letting one bureaucracy
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write the rules, police them, and act as a judge and jury undermines basic checks and balances.
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Finally, groups like the Democracy Fund, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, and public critics
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from across the spectrum, including even Margaret Atwood, argued that much of what the bill
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claimed to target is already covered by existing criminal law.
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Their position has been, if there are genuine gaps around things like child exploitation,
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those should be fixed narrowly, rather than using that concern as a vehicle for a much broader
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And one thing I'll add is that this might be something that people remembered, but former
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True North journalist Andrew Lawton asked Pierre Paliyev at a press conference about the hate
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And Pierre said something along the lines of, are we really expecting people like Justin
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And then he again referenced some comments Trudeau made during the convoy that were clearly,
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clearly hate speech against anybody who is not trying to be coerced into taking a vaccine.
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Taxpayers are on the hook for over $1 billion after Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged new funding
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to a global health fund ahead of the G20 summit in South Africa.
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The $1.02 billion commitment was announced Friday in Johannesburg by Cindy Timorjian,
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The funds will support the Global Fund's programming from 2027 through 2029.
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The Global Fund combats infectious diseases in the world's poorest countries by supplying
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mosquito nets, diagnostics, and treatment for malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV.
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Canada has supported the organization since its launch in 2002.
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Canada's G20 visit follows a stop in the United Arab Emirates earlier this week where the federal
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government announced a prospective $70 billion in future investments.
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Instead, UAE officials pledged potential funding for Canadian critical minerals projects,
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The $1.02 billion pledge aligns with Canada's historical support for global health efforts,
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but comes as inflation, housing costs, and spending restraint remain key domestic political concerns.
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Ottawa's continued international funding commitments have drawn criticism in light of federal program
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So, Alex, how does Canada's contributions compare with those of other developed countries?
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Well, first off, I'll preface this by just saying that I don't necessarily agree with this
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sort of globalist organization funding, especially, as you mentioned, during a cost-of-lutid crisis
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Canada's latest commitment of just over $1 billion, the Global Fund may sound enormous,
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and frankly, it is, but it's actually not the biggest contribution.
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The United States, historically speaking, was the largest contributor by far to these types
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I believe they've contributed over $4 billion in the last round.
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It's not clear if they're going to be contributing anything under the current administration in
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Germany and the UK have also scaled down, despite being typically heavyweights in this area.
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Canada, and so it looks as though, sadly, even though we struggle with things like healthcare
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and housing in Canada, Canada is having to take a bit of an interventionist, I guess you could
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say, approach on continuing to keep these organizations funded.
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And I can see why that doesn't necessarily sit well with Canadian taxpayers at a time like this.
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