Will Dove 00:07 Canada leads the world in Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID). In 2021, the most recent year for which we have figures, over 10,000 people in Canada received MAID. That's more than any other country in the world. For comparison, the state of California, with assisted suicide laws and a population very close to ours, killed just over 400 In the same year. And it gets worse. In March of this year, it will likely become law that people who are suffering from mental illness, even just clinical depression, and qualify for MAID there are doctors and clinics in our country where assisted suicide is their entire practice. And people visiting food banks are now asking about MAID as a way out of being poor. Nicole Scheidl is the executive director of Physicians For Life, an organization dedicated to education and awareness of what one Twitter user called our death cult of a country. Nicole joins me today to discuss the problems facing our society in regards to suicide, and serious concerns about the fact that our government is now proposing that MAID be made available to what they call mature minors, children as young as 14 and likely without the consent or involvement of their parents. Nicole, welcome to the Show. Nicole Sheidl 01:34 Thanks a lot for having me. Will Dove 01:36 Now you are the executive director of Physicians For Life. Would you please tell us more about that organization and what they do? Nicole Sheidl 01:42 Sure, so Canadian Physicians For Life is a group of healthcare professionals, primarily physicians, who are committed to practicing medicine in the Hippocratic tradition. So our underlying foundation is that we do not think the intentional killing of our patients is an appropriate way to practice medicine. And we have over 4,000 members across Canada, and we are growing daily, which is great. We also focus a lot on education and support of medical students and residents who are training in medicine right now to give them a lot of the ethical formation and foundation that they may not get in medical school. Most medical schools now, they have a lot of information to cover. And they have dropped a lot of the bioethics and that ethical kind of framework that you hope your physician has. And so we fill in with our conferences and symposiums and mentoring programs, helping students learn those other skills to help them be really well rounded professionals. Will Dove 02:46 So first of all, 4,000 members across Canada, I'm assuming a lot of those are doctors they are probably not everybody. Nicole Sheidl 02:52 Oh, that's primarily physicians. Yeah. And then we also have medical students and residents, nurses, midwives as well, and other health care professionals, so pharmacists. We find that we're a bit of a big tent group. So there's lots of smaller organizations that are focused primarily on particular areas of medicine, or, you know, like, Catholic physicians, or Christian physicians or Muslim physicians, and we tend to be a big tent group. So physicians from all those different areas, or even physicians with no particular religious viewpoint, are part of our organization. Will Dove 03:30 Now, I had heard and I have no idea if it's true or not, I'd heard that in Canada, they're no longer being made to take the Hippocratic Oath is that -- Nicole Sheidl 03:37 -- that's correct. Yes, yes, that's correct. It's not part of the ceremony anymore, when medical schools bring in new students? Will Dove 03:49 And would you say that this is a part of that breakdown of teaching medical ethics? Nicole Sheidl 03:53 Absolutely, if you don't have a kind of a consistent ethic that you're focusing your training towards, it is very hard to create a coherent medical system. Will Dove 04:05 I've got to make an observation on this, Nicole, because when we had the Hippocratic oath, and when we had them teaching medical ethics, I think what we were doing was we were training doctors, not just in medicine, but in the very idea that their purpose is to help the patient to do what is best for the patient. And now we seem to have a sick care system that isn't now you ask. Sorry, there, I think we dropped out there, I think we hit a point that happens. I'm on Starlink. And maybe every half hour, 45 minutes, it drops out for 10 seconds. I was going along there and obviously I must have been frozen on your side or whatever. So I'm going to I'm going to start my question over here. Yeah. So I have to make an observation. And I want your thoughts on this because I think we've moved from this system in this country and I'm 57 years old. I can remember when I was young and it felt like at least the doctor was trying to help - they had this these ethics yes taught to them. They did the Hippocratic Oath. They came with a medic Old School with the idea that it was their job to help people. But now what we appear to have is a sick care system that is financed and controlled by the government and big pharma. And where doctors aren't being taught those ethics. And it's almost like they're seeing patients as, I don't know, almost like cattle, animals - disposable, if they just, you know, if the system allows it, and they want the lethal injection well, okay, go ahead. And now, that may not be what they really need. Nicole Sheidl 05:34 I think there is a problem in medicine. In initially, and through the years medicine has been an healing art, and there's been an art and a science to it. But as the technology increases, and we become more technological, in our approach to things, and if medicine becomes too much of a science and the art is lost, we lose the sense of the person as a human being. And so doctors can fall into the trap of looking at you and just seeing organ systems or diseases, or things to fix and not look at you as a whole person with a lot of other things going on other than just maybe your digestive system is not working correctly, or there you have a problem with your liver, or whatever. And so that is a real danger and a struggle that physicians have to deal with that they're not just looking at their organ systems, but they're looking at them as people. And I think that's where we as an organization, do our best work is helping physicians, see their patients as people and help humanize health care, because I think we have lost that humanizing aspect of health care. Some of it is because of the Big Pharma pharmaceutical companies who are, you know, they're interested in making sure their drugs are taken up by the doctors, and they're interested. I mean, they're interested in solving problems. But they're also interested and driven by profit. And so that can also skew the way they look at problems. We also have in this country, a single payer health system, everyone is constrained to go through a certain kind of healthcare system, you don't really have as many options as you might in other countries. We don't have private public parallel systems where you can kind of find what works best for you. And so it kind of is pushing everyone into a single box to approach it. And you're right, there are constraints on that system and there are pressures, and there's things that come into that system that are not necessarily patient-focused. Will Dove 07:38 All right, Nicole. I'd like to move on to the medical assistance in dying. Now, my viewers know I've been reporting on this, some of you, if you watch my news reports, you will know that in 2021, Canada led the world in medically assisted dying with over 10,000 of these procedures that took place in our country. And that's not per capita folks. That's total. So here we are a relatively small country in terms of population, and yet we euthanized more people in 2021 than any other country in the world. Of course, we don't have the statistics yet, for 2022 which, Nicole and I are doing this interview in January 23. But Nicole, you are far more knowledgeable on this subject than I am. So if you would please describe to our audience just exactly what's going on in our country, not just in terms of statistics, but stories, you're hearing the problems that you're seeing? Nicole Sheidl 08:26 So initially, when the criminal law was changed, and homicide, if you were a doctor or a nurse practitioner, you now could what would have fallen under homicide now is falls under medical assistance and dying or euthanasia that a doctor could or nurse practitioner could give a lethal injection. And so initially, it was supposed to be for someone who was near the end of death, you know, his death was reasonably foreseeable about six months out at the max. And then if that was the case, you could seek this kind of avenue. Then what happened in with Bill C7 was the government legislated a track two and so anyone over the age of 18, who had a grievous illness, so or something like a disability and they left it very vague. So it is way open to interpretation. Then you could seek euthanasia. And so we see people, I was just reading about a young man, he's in his 30s he's homeless in Barrie, and he's seeking medical assistance and die because he feels his life is hopeless. He's uh, he quote unquote, calls himself a loser and he just wants to take himself out of the system because he feels like he's a burden. We saw that recent example of a young man who was 23, who had type one diabetes and was found eligible for euthanasia and was scheduled and the only reason it didn't happen was his mother found the email from the doctor and made a big fuss and the doctor pulled out But if she hadn't done that she would have not known her son would have gone to that MAID house. That's what it's called right outside of Toronto. And that would have been, you know, she would have been told to come pick up his body. That's how she would have found out Will Dove 10:16 So I have to stop you there because you just said something I wasn't aware of yet - MAID house? Nicole Sheidl 10:21 Yeah. Will Dove 10:21 How common are these facilities in Canada? Nicole Sheidl 10:23 Well, it's interesting. There are some physicians in Canada that that is their practice. That's what they do. They euthanize people. And so they either make house calls or they have people come to their clinics that specialize in it, as far as I am aware of MAID house is the only so called house that specialized for that. But what's happened is you have activists taking over hospices and forcing them to instead of giving end of life palliative care, forcing them to become places where euthanasia happens. And so it's becoming a real struggle in our country. And there are a very - a handful, I would say of very enthusiastic physicians who feel that this is the best way to deal with many of the issues in our healthcare system is to euthanize patients. Will Dove 11:19 So once again, I have to ask a question, because you're a lawyer, and you just use the term forcing in regards to these hospices. And the activists and lawyers don't use that term loosely. So what exactly are they doing to force them into this path? Nicole Sheidl 11:35 Well, so a common or an example would be Delta Hospice, which was in Delta BC, it was run by a not for profit group. They had leased the land from the government and built a hospice, like raised millions of dollars, built it, it was focused on end of life care, they were very much against euthanasia in their hospice. The government decided that because they would not provide euthanasia, they would take over the hospice, kick out that overnight Board of Governors and then run it themselves, allowing euthanasia to take place. So what you're seeing is that the government will not fund your palliative care hospice if you're not allowing euthanasia to occur in your hospice. Will Dove 12:27 Okay. All right. You were telling us about some cases. 23 year old man with type one diabetes, we're fortunate his mother found the email. But that's the exception, not the rule. As far as I understand it. There's an awful lot of people out there who are getting a phone call saying 'so and so' is dead. And they didn't even know. Nicole Sheidl 12:47 Yes, yeah. So you have. I remember one fellow was writing, he was writing about his sister, who they found out two days before her scheduled euthanasia that she was going to die, there was nothing they could do to dissuade her. They had no opportunity to try and talk to the physicians about what was happening. And they just had to sit with her and wait for the physician to come in and give her the lethal injection. And he described how absolutely painful that was. And, and it is very devastating to families. There was, if you had seen the recent Fifth Estate story, there was two daughters whose mother had a concussion. And they were sure that she would not qualify for euthanasia. Her family physician did not think she would qualify for euthanasia. But she was able to get herself qualified. And they found out kind of at the last minute that she was that she had euthanized herself, they didn't know that she was going to do it. And it's just been so devastating to them, that they had no opportunity to intervene. And now they're left to try to pick up the pieces. Will Dove 14:03 Yeah, and it's been it's been well said, and many of you watching, you might not know somebody who's gone for medically assisted suicide. And it's, we're using a very polite term here, I won't use the term that I would call it. But almost all of us in the last couple of years with the stress our society has been under we know someone or know someone who knows someone who committed suicide. My wife and I heard from a friend over the Christmas holidays, who had lost not one, not two, but three friends to suicide in the space of a week. So what's been said about suicide, and I think this applies to the medically assisted as well. It doesn't make the pain go away. It just spreads it to other people. And that's where you were talking about. It's been devastating for this family to have to sit there when they couldn't dissuade her and sit there and watch this Doctor, kill her. Nicole Sheidl 14:54 Yes. Will Dove 14:56 And unfortunately, it's getting even worse because our government not only keeps her in Relaxing the rules, but they're actually actively pushing it. I have heard from multiple people in the last six months, who have been calling services of some kind, you know, they're veterans or they're calling health services, or they're calling for food assistance, or, and one of the things that the counselor on the phone is discussing with them is well, there is the option for MAID. So our government isn't just relaxing the rules. They're actively pushing this on people. Nicole Sheidl 15:29 Yeah, it's, it's very distressing. I, I'm glad you brought up the veterans angle. So Veterans Affairs is set up to support veterans. That's what their raison d'etre is, that's what they're about, right? They're supposed to help them get the support they need, particularly individuals, they've put their life on the line for the country. They've suffered and been injured because of that, and the country does owe them a duty to support them. And so you have veterans phoning, because they have PTSD, because they have mental illnesses, or they're challenged with things. And you have the service providers saying, well, we'll give you euthanasia instead. And that's just such a betrayal to those who have served our country. And that's extending now it kind of it's interesting, because David Lametti, the Justice Minister has said publicly that this is kind of a clean way to commit suicide and he seems to suggest that it's if you're suicidal, this is a better way to do that. And then it's better for everyone. But in fact, the evidence shows that countries that have legalized, assisted suicide, there are other forms of suicides have increased as well. So even if the, you know, people take their own lives, that will increase because you kind of create this suicide contagion, where people think that that's the way to solve their issues of discouragement or despair. Will Dove 17:05 As I'm sure you're aware, we there was a recent report that came out and I reported this on what am I Friday reports, folks of food banks, where people are showing up, and they're asking about MAID because it's become so difficult to be poor in this country. But let's be realistic about this, it's always been difficult to be poor. This has always been a challenge. And but now in our country, people are seeing that as a solution to being poor. Nicole Sheidl 17:38 And I think that the government is providing it or framing it as a solution, that it's the solution to suffering, that will just get rid of the sufferer. And now they're looking March 17. It's supposed to be available to those whose sole condition is mental illness. So if you're depressed as of March 17, then you could have euthanasia. So then the question is, Who do you decide gets suicide assistance? And who gets suicide prevention? Who's making that decision and on what basis? Well, there, I would bet, if you are wealthy and you have connections, you would get suicide prevention. And if you are marginalized or poor, or you have a disability, you would get suicide assistance. Will Dove 18:30 Yes. And I forgive me if I'm getting this fact wrong, folks. This is something else I reported. I have a lot of statistics that go through my head. I believe that we reported recently that it was calculated that the government expected to save well over $100 million in health care by simply killing people. Nicole Sheidl 18:48 Yes, yes. So the parliamentary budget office put out an assessment. In before Bill C7 passed about how much money they thought the healthcare system would save by people ending their lives sooner. They thought that statistically, in 2021, it would be 2.1% of deaths would be by euthanasia. We know that deaths in 2021, more than 3% were by so we're well past the numbers that they initially recorded in terms of how many people they thought would take this path. And so it is a way for the government to solve some of the very challenging problems in healthcare. Will Dove 19:35 And let's talk briefly about those 10,000 Plus that 3% Because as you and I were discussing before the interview, there's very good reason to believe that number is actually low. Nicole Sheidl 19:47 That's correct. So we don't really keep very good statistics. There's not really any oversight on Euthanasia deaths in Canada. In some provinces, what they're supposed to report the deaths to the Coroner No, but there's no oversight mechanism to make sure things were done properly. There's been no criminal investigations into euthanasia deaths gone wrong. So even if you report it to the police, if you think that it was not done properly, and it was actually, because if it's not done properly, it's murder. Like, really, it doesn't fall within the part of the criminal code that says it's allowable, then it falls within the part of the criminal code that says it's homicide. And so when it's not done properly, the police should be investigating. And typically they're not. And they just one of the problems is it's kind of a fog, right? There's no good statistics, there's not really good reporting, you don't really know why. And so it's really hard to go back and see were these deaths appropriate or not. Will Dove 20:51 And you were telling me, prior to the interview, that there's at least one jurisdiction in Ontario, where they're not even marking these as medically assisted deaths, that they're putting on different causes of death. Nicole Sheidl 21:06 Correct. So in Ontario, the College of Physicians and Surgeons tells the doctors that they are not supposed to put down on the death certificate, that the person died from lethal injection. So they don't put like -- so what really kills the person is that cocktail of drugs that they use on them to kill them. That's not what they're supposed to put down. They're supposed to put down the reason why the person sought euthanasia. And so when it was 'death was reasonably before foreseeable', you could say, well, this cancer was going to kill them. And so that's what I'm going to put down on the death certificate. Now when they're seeking euthanasia because of poverty because of homelessness, because they're relying on a food bank. Because they have type one diabetes, like those things don't kill a person. You don't die from frailty, you don't die from arthritis. But those are the reasons people are being euthanized now. Will Dove 22:05 And I have to point out, and I'm sorry, I was, I was under the mistaken impression, we were discussing this prior to the interview. And this is just one area. But in Ontario, you're saying the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is putting this rule out. So that means that the entire Ontario population is being subjected to this potential misreporting. And Ontario, I believe this the number is something like 17 plus million people, which means that's almost half the population of our country. So while we can't possibly draw any numbers, Nicole, we have to draw the conclusion that that 10,000 plus figure, it might not just be low, it might be 1,000s low. Nicole Sheidl 22:44 It's not going to be accurate. Will Dove 22:46 Absolutely. But now, of course, as everyone knows who's watching this, it gets worse, because now our government is pushing to have medically assisted suicide available to children as young as 14, and babies up to one year. Nicole Sheidl 23:05 That's correct. So back in 2018, the government commissioned the Council of Academies, Canadian academies to look at three different areas. So euthanasia for mental illness, mature minors, and advanced directives where you could sign off that you want it to be killed at a certain point in the future. And all those reports came back negative like they did not say yes, this is a good idea, you should go ahead, they listed all the reasons and in particular, around mental illness, the psychiatrists, the vast majority of psychiatrists are against extending euthanasia to mental illness, they know that you cannot tell that someone's not going to get better. Right? You can't, it's just not scientifically precise to say, Oh, you have a disease of mental illness that you're never going to recover from. And so therefore, euthanasia is appropriate. That's just not possible. And they just see this as a complete destruction of their practice of medicine. I know psychiatrists who have patients already who are saying, I'm not going to get treatment, because I know that in a few months, I'll be able to be euthanized, and I'm so suicidal right now, that's all I'm holding on to, right? So when someone is has suicidal ideation, and that's what they're focused on. You, you need to help them see the light at the end of the tunnel, you don't need to cut their lives off. Will Dove 24:36 Yes. And the statistics tell us that the majority of Canadians at some point in their lives will go through a period of clinical depression. I've been through it myself during my cancer treatment, and is the nature of depression to fool the mind into thinking it's never going to get better. But it does, it does get better. And so if we continue on this path towards what one Twitter user called our 'death cult of a country'. And as you already pointed out, the medically assisted suicide is not lowering the non MAID suicide rate, it's raising it. It's creating this culture of suicide. So what happens when this just becomes the norm, and people in general suffer depression, I mean, find me a teenager who doesn't go through a period sometime in their teenage years, when they're feeling down and feeling like they don't fit in and feeling that their lives are never going to work out. I mean, 10,000, this, this effect could be the tip of the iceberg. Nicole Sheidl 25:35 Absolutely. I mean, I know from personal experience, I've just walked that path with my teenage daughter, I'm very thankful we had good medical care, she is come out the other side of that now. And the laws were not in place where she could have made that choice. But there was lots of times when I took her to the hospital, and I had to trust the physicians there that they were going to have her best interests at heart and help her get better. But in the future, I could see that parents would be very nervous about taking their teenagers who were struggling with mental illness to the hospital, because they wouldn't know what they were getting themselves into. And I know one psychiatrist has told me he had parents come and say, will you help our daughter? Or will you kill her? Like, we want to know before we engage you as her physician? What is your outcome for her? Like, what's your vision for her, and he was actually completely shocked that that was what they were thinking. But the way this is going, we are going to completely undermine the trust in the medical system. Will Dove 26:43 And one question, I have to ask Nicole, because you would be the person to know, as most of my viewers already know, we're getting into this, this transgender movement where children as young as 14, can go talk to a counselor, and they'll be assigned to a gender reassignment physician. And not only are the parents not notified, but in many cases, the adults involved aren't allowed to notify them. And so do you see this age lowering to, as they call it, to call it mature minors? Is if there was such a thing? Do you see that going in the same direction, where we could potentially run into a situation where a parent is going to get a phone call from a clinic or hospital saying come pick up the body? And that's the first thing they've heard about their child being suicidal? Nicole Sheidl 27:28 Absolutely, I think that we have a very thin view of autonomy here, that's being played out. And we don't. And we're not taking into account the relationships. I mean, we all live in relationship, and we're connected with each other. And when we ignore that, and say, well, we're going to make a medical decision for a child without taking into account or context, their family situation, their support system. That is very problematic. And I think we've seen it play out in other areas, and it will certainly play out here. And certainly, I know that Sick Kids in Toronto has already developed a protocol for how they will handle it. And they are seeing that children would be able to make those decisions without parental involvement. Will Dove 28:16 Now, you had mentioned that in March, the law is going to come into a place that people can get this for being depressed. Mental illness. Where are we at in terms of this lowering of the age? Nicole Sheidl 28:29 Yeah, so just on that, so March 17 -- Right now, the law is there and there was a sunset clause that it would come into effect on March 17. Just before Christmas, the Justice Minister said oh, we're gonna pause that. Now, the house doesn't come back to actually do business until the end of January. They have less than six weeks to get the law through. I'd be surprised if they were successful in pausing that law. So for now, I would expect it to go forward March 17. They are looking then at considering expanding for mature minors. They're looking at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Quebec has called for a consideration of euthanizing infants. So any child up to the age of one, that I guess the parents and the medical system decide, it's appropriate to euthanize them would be euthanized. Now, that's a proposition or a proposal by the College of Quebec to consider but Quebec has been a bit of a leader here. I mean, they were it was their judge in Quebec and the Truchon decision that expanded euthanasia to those who are not dying. Will Dove 29:43 Don't you think that that right there is an extremely dangerous precedent, an infant obviously cannot give informed consent? So once we have this concept that somebody else can decide that a doctor should kill you? Where does that stop? Nicole Sheidl 29:59 Well, that you've hit the nail right on the head because this whole framework was set up as that. Well, if you consent to it, then it's okay, right? If you've somehow consented to your death, then it's not really murder. It's consensual, and that somehow makes it all right. Once you start euthanizing people who cannot consent? And infants certainly cannot, then you've taken away that foundational piece that you said was so important. And so then you're right, there's no reason why anyone could not be euthanized, given whatever framework the government thinks is appropriate. Will Dove 30:39 Alright, Nicole, I always like to end my interviews on a note of hope, because we were discussing some very dark stuff. But I am certain that physicians for life has plans for how we can stop this, how we can raise awareness, how we can fight back against it. Please tell us your thoughts on that? Nicole Sheidl 30:55 So I would say one of the things that's been most encouraging over the last six, eight months, is the media that started to pay attention. People like yourself, other media have started to write stories and talk about that. And I think awareness is the biggest thing. I really believe that because people were so focused on COVID, and everything that that meant, it took up so much brain space for so many of us, and just coping with that, that the euthanasia laws were able to expand without appropriate consideration, or people even being aware. And I know, there were lots of physicians that were not even aware about the expansion of euthanasia. And so I think it's really important that we talk about it, and that we let our MPs know that we're not happy, and we do not agree. And we're starting to see, you know, we've worked really hard on Bill C7 to try to stop it. And we did start to hear from the Liberal caucus that they were - that there were many members of the Liberal caucus who are not happy. And I think it's really important that that continues to happen that we continue to tell our government officials that we're not happy with this expansion, and we don't want it to continue. And I do believe that there could be a pause. And there could be a rollback of a euthanasia for people who are not dying, because it's not appropriate to kill the sufferer instead of trying to relieve their suffering by actually giving them real help. Will Dove 32:32 Yes. And I think that we as a society, there's two shifts we're going to have to make in our thinking. One is against a very fallacious idea that I certainly grew up with that, you know, there's no such thing as mental illness, you're just weak. Well, that's ridiculous. Mental illness is just as real as physical illness is. And we have to be providing these people with help, because just about everybody will encounter at some point in their lives. And the other thing is an avoidance of talking about this subject. Once again, when I was young, suicide was taboo. You didn't talk about that. Even if you knew somebody who'd done it, you didn't talk about it. But we have to keep these lines of communication open, and especially with our kids. If your children don't feel they can come and talk to you - and this is - I've raised two kids, you've raised kids, you were talking earlier about this issue you went through with your own daughter. Folks, the most important thing you have to do as a parent, as your children are moving into their teen years, is to transition from being the authority to being their friend and confidant. If you come down on them, whenever they come to you with something of a sensitive nature, they're going to stop trusting you. And then you are going to be the last person to know when they decide to take their own lives. You have to be the first person to know that they have an issue. And to do that you have to be their friend, you have to be open, accept they're ready to listen. Nicole Sheidl 33:53 Yeah, and I, I totally agree with you, being a trusted resource, being the person that they can rely on makes a huge difference that they feel like they can come to you and that you're paying attention. Will Dove 34:06 Nicole, often I ask my guests for final thoughts. And this is a very heavy subject, which you have been deeply involved in. If you had some final messages for our audience, what would they be? Nicole Sheidl 34:18 So one of the things that I see over and over again, for people who are seeking euthanasia is they feel a sense of despair, they feel disconnected and that no one cares. And so I think the way that we can each make a difference individually in our own lives, is to keep our eyes out for people that are struggling and let them know we care and be a friend to our friends. And I think that will go a long way to changing the culture in this country. Will Dove 34:45 Nicole, thank you so much for your time and for your efforts on our behalf. And thank you so much for working to raise awareness for this because I agree that education and awareness is by far the best thing that we can do. The more people who know what's going on, the more people will vote for politicians who will oppose this and will roll this back to something far more reasonable Nicole Sheidl 35:05 Thank you so much I really appreciate the conversation