Canada’s Medical Assistance In Dying Program Is An Express Train To Hell
MAID eligibility is expected to expand on March 17, 2027, to allow medically assisted euthanasia for those who only suffer mental illness.MAID eligibility is expected to expand on March 17, 2027, to allow medically assisted euthanasia for those who only suffer mental illness.Priest breaks hip — now Canada apparently wants him dead
Rev. Lawrence Holland fell in his bathroom on Christmas Day and suffered a hip fracture. While the 79-year-old Catholic priest went to a nearby hospital in search of help, health care workers at the facility apparently had a final solution in mind: state-facilitated suicide.
Since the Canadian federal government under ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau legalized medically assisted suicide nationwide in 2016, the so-called Medical Assistance in Dying program has been grossly liberalized.
'The moment you lose hope, the devil comes in.'
Initially, MAID applicants had to be 18 or older and suffering from a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" causing "enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable" to them. Now, persons struggling with anxiety, autism, depression, economic hardship, PTSD, and other survivable issues appear to be fair game.
Next year, persons suffering solely from a mental illness will also be eligible.
MAID — which Canada's Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer boasted in October 2020 would, with expanded access, "result in a net reduction in health care costs for the provincial governments" — is now among the leading causes of death in Canada, accounting for over 5% of all deaths in Canada in 2024.
"It's a false compassion," Rev. Holland told the B.C. Catholic, the Archdiocese of Vancouver's biweekly publication.
The hobbled priest claimed that a doctor and a nurse at Vancouver General Hospital, directly affiliated with the British Columbia Ministry of Health, offered him MAID while he was recovering from his hip fracture, which is hardly a terminal condition. The priest further claimed that both medical professionals knew he is a Catholic priest.
"I think I was very shocked," said Holland. "It is such a sensitive subject."
Rev. Larry Lynn, pro-life chaplain for the Archdiocese of Vancouver, said, "This must surely be among the most appalling examples of Canada’s coercive and insensitive euthanasia regime."
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Although he was left "kind of silent" for a moment when the topic of assisted suicide was first apparently broached, Rev. Holland emphasized to the doctor that he, a Catholic priest, was morally opposed to the practice.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that direct euthanasia is "morally unacceptable"; that such actions constitute "a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator; and that "even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted."
The Catholic Church has long campaigned against assisted suicide.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops noted in 2023, for instance, that "euthanasia and assisted suicide (MAID) have always been, and will always be, morally unacceptable because they are affronts to human dignity and violations of natural and divine law."
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has similarly and repeatedly condemned the practice, affirming that "we are dealing here with 'a violation of the divine law, an offense against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity.'"
Just last month, Catholic bishops in New York published a guidebook reiterating the church's moral teaching "that this practice is objectively immoral and must be avoided, despite the false veil of compassion with which it is sold." The state was apparently in need of a reminder given its recent adoption of a law legalizing doctor-assisted suicide.
Even when dealing with a patient from a "faith community" that's opposed to MAID, the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers still recommends that Canadian health care professionals make the pitch for assisted suicide.
After informing his doctor that he was opposed to assisted suicide, Rev. Holland recalled the doctor explaining that he "just wanted to make sure that, if a [terminal] diagnosis came up or not ... I knew the different services I had access to."
Rev. Holland told the B.C. Catholic that weeks later, a nurse also raised the matter of MAID with him.
A spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health, which runs the hospital, told the B.C. Catholic that "staff may consider bringing up MAID based on their clinical judgment, provided they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to do so."
Staff are also "responsible for answering questions when patients bring up the topic of MAID," added the spokesman.
Rev. Ronald Sequeria, the Catholic chaplain serving at Vancouver General Hospital, suggested there was something demonic about how MAID-pushers prey on suffering patients' despair — especially when suffering can be redemptive.
"The moment you lose hope, the devil comes in, in different personalities, and says, 'Do you want MAID? I don’t want people to suffer,'" said Rev. Sequeira.
"God makes us more pure, more strong, through the suffering when we offer it up," said the chaplain. "So we give hope — help them not to lose hope."
Rev. Holland drove home this point, stressing that enduring pain "can encourage growth."
"It can motivate you, it can open up new worlds, new vistas, new opportunities," added the priest.
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The term euthanasia literally means “good death.” The word is constructed from the Greek eu (good) and thanatos (death) — the same root that inspired the name of the Marvel villain Thanos, whose vision of “balance” required mass death.
The language itself tells you everything. Dress death up as “good,” and you can begin to sell it to failed socialist medical systems as a desirable cure-all.
Euthanasia, often called “doctor-assisted suicide,” has been thrust back into public view by developments in countries like Canada and Spain. What we are seeing is not compassionate medicine. It is the quiet normalization of despair.
A culture that cannot tell its weakest members, 'Your life is worth living,' will eventually tell them, 'Your death is preferable.'
Consider the case of Noelia Castillo in Spain.
Castillo, just 25 years old, had endured profound suffering. As a minor, she was in mental health care. As an adult, she was the victim of sexual assault multiple times. After a suicide attempt following the second assault, she was left paralyzed from the waist down. In that condition, she requested euthanasia.
Her father pleaded with the courts to deny the request, arguing that her mental health made such a decision unsound. The courts disagreed. The state approved her death.
A young woman, failed repeatedly by those entrusted to care for her, was ultimately offered death as the solution.
Even more troubling, British pianist James Rhodes publicly appealed to her to reconsider, offering to cover her medical costs. His plea underscores what the system refused to admit: Castillo did not need death; she needed care.
And Castillo herself admitted as much. In an interview, she essentially asked: If I cannot access health care, am I then entitled to access death care?
That question exposes the entire moral collapse. She was denied meaningful treatment in her socialist system but granted state-funded death as the solution to her suffering.
The Canadian example
If Spain reveals the logic of euthanasia, Canada demonstrates its trajectory. In Vancouver, Miriam Lancaster went to the emergency room for back pain. Instead of being treated, she was offered medically assisted suicide.
Death does cure back pain. It cures everything by eliminating the patient. Failed socialist medicine jumped at the chance to raise its cure statistics.
Thankfully, Lancaster refused. She later received proper treatment and went on to continue traveling the world. Had she accepted the offer, a solvable medical issue would have become a state-sanctioned death and she would have been “cared for” right into the grave.
Then there is the case of Jennyfer Hatch, a 37-year-old Canadian woman suffering from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a painful connective tissue disorder. Hatch became the face of a euthanasia promotional campaign titled "All Is Beauty," a three-minute film celebrating her final days before medically assisted death.
Let that sink in: a commercial for suicide.
And yet Hatch admitted privately that she chose euthanasia not because her condition was untreatable but because obtaining adequate medical care in Canada’s system was too difficult.
The myth of 'compassionate' systems
We have long been told by progressives that socialized medicine would deliver universal care, eliminate wait times, and treat every patient with dignity. Instead, it is increasingly offering a different solution: eliminate the patient.
The logic is brutally simple. If you cannot heal the sick, you can always reduce the number of sick people. These socialists saw the story of Thanos as a “how to.”
People have always been capable of taking their own lives. A system that merely facilitates suicide adds nothing of value. It does not heal; it does not restore; it simply institutionalizes despair. It admits it offers no meaning in life to those who suffer.
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What is a good death?
At the heart of this debate is a deeper question: What do we mean by a good death?
For modern secular societies, the answer is increasingly clear: a good death is a painless one. It is an escape from suffering.
But this definition collapses under scrutiny.
First, it ignores the most basic philosophical question, one raised memorably by Hamlet: “What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil?” If death is not the end, if judgment awaits, then euthanasia is not an escape but a gamble of the highest stakes. It the solution urged by demons looking forward to claiming another soul.
Second, it misunderstands the nature of a good life.
A life free from all pain is not a noble life. It is not the life we admire, nor the life we aspire to. Our stories, our heroes, and our deepest intuitions all tell us the same thing: Meaning is forged through suffering.
Imagine a hero who, one-third of the way through the story, says, “This is too hard. I think I’ll end my life to avoid the suffering ahead.” That is not a hero. It is a failure.
Suffering, rightly understood, is not meaningless. It teaches perseverance, discipline, and faith. It refines character.
As Scripture teaches, “Add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance …” (2 Peter 1:5-6).
A pain-free life is not the highest good. A life shaped by truth, virtue, and endurance aimed at eternal life of knowing God is our chief and highest good.
The real crisis
The rise of euthanasia is not ultimately about medicine. It is about worldview.
Societies that reject God are left with no ultimate purpose, no transcendent hope, and no reason to endure suffering. When affluence fails and suffering remains, the only consistent answer left is escape.
A culture that cannot tell its weakest members, “Your life is worth living,” will eventually tell them, “Your death is preferable.” From hating God, the culture naturally moves to hating neighbors. It is a moral collapse described in Romans 1:31. The people become heartless and ruthless.
A better hope
The answer to suffering is not death. It is redemption.
Only a worldview grounded in the reality of God can make sense of suffering without surrendering to it. Only Christ offers not merely relief from pain, but restoration, meaning, and eternal hope. He can heal our physical pain, but more importantly, he can forgive our sin and restore our communion with God.
The growing acceptance of euthanasia should force us to confront the emptiness of the alternatives.
If death is our only answer, then we have already lost. But if life has meaning, then suffering is not the end of the story.
And that is the difference between despair and hope.
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Last week, Scotland resolutely rejected assisted suicide. Alberta announced major new legislation to protect individuals from the practice.We must resist a culture that redefines death as dignity
Just weeks after New York legalized physician-assisted suicide, a tragic case out of Canada should stop Americans cold.
Kiano Vafaeian died under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program. He was 26. Reporting suggests his family was not notified beforehand. After a severe car accident at 17 derailed his plans, he struggled with physical and mental health challenges. He also lived with Type 1 diabetes and lost vision in one eye.
Will we measure human worth by convenience, health, and achievement? Or will we defend human dignity from conception to natural death?
His family is devastated. His mother told reporters, “We never thought there would be a chance that any doctor would approve a 22- or 23-year-old at that time for MAID because of diabetes or blindness.” But one did.
And the system isn’t slowing down. Canada is on track to surpass 100,000 assisted-suicide deaths before the program reaches its 10-year anniversary — a staggering number for what was sold as a narrow policy for the terminally ill.
The left calls this “compassion.” But once a society treats life as conditional, moral boundaries blur fast.
Kiano’s mother issued a warning every lawmaker should hear: “We don't want to see any other family member suffer, or any country introduce a piece of legislation that kills their disabled or vulnerable without appropriate proper treatment plans that could save their lives.”
None of this should surprise us. A culture that treats abortion as the solution to inconvenience will eventually treat death the same way. The pro-life movement has warned for decades that when a society declares life disposable before birth, it becomes easier to declare it disposable after birth too.
Once suffering — even ordinary suffering — becomes the test of whether life is worth living, the list of “acceptable” deaths expands. The disabled. The depressed. The chronically ill. The elderly. Canada is already living that logic, and the United States is starting to flirt with it.
But life and hope don’t come from despair. They come from courage — the kind displayed by mothers like Kiano’s who refuse to let hardship write their children’s endings.
That courage still shows up every day. Last month, on the first day of the Lenten 40 Days for Life campaign, the first baby saved was on Long Island, New York. A mother arrived at an abortion facility intending to take abortion pills. After encountering volunteers peacefully praying outside, she chose life.
That decision points to a truth pro-lifers see constantly: Hope outweighs despair.
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History is full of people born into hardship who built families, communities, and civilizations. Our ancestors endured wars, poverty, disease, and loss — and still understood that life was not the problem to be solved.
Today, our culture sells a darker story. It tells young people suffering makes life meaningless. It tells women children are burdens. It tells the sick and elderly their worth depends on productivity and independence. It teaches people to fear dependence more than they fear death.
If difficulty becomes the standard for deciding who deserves to live — or even be born — eventually no one qualifies.
The West is already sliding into what sociologists call a “demographic winter”: collapsing birth rates, shrinking populations, and cultural exhaustion feeding a doom spiral. A civilization that stops believing life is a gift stops creating it — and starts finding reasons to end it.
That’s why assisted suicide isn’t just an end-of-life policy debate. It’s a civilizational question. Will we measure human worth by convenience, health, and achievement? Or will we defend human dignity from conception to natural death?
We cannot let Canada’s hopeless logic take root here. Nationally — and in every state — we must fight for life at every stage. We should work for fewer families grieving like Kiano’s and more families celebrating.
When life becomes conditional, no life is safe. When life is received as a gift, even in the hardest moments, hope wins.
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