The relationship between Health Canada and Dying with Dignity Canada

"It doesn’t cover every poll done by various other groups/organizations based on what I’ve seen over the years so not sure if it will seem biased?"

My latest ATIP from Health Canada regarding Dying with Dignity.

There is a Teams Meeting from Health Canada and the discussion was going to be on MAID (Page 18). On the agenda:

• "Can/should we point to other support/service pathways (e.g. palliative care, disability or mental health supports, etc.)" (One would hope that, of course palliative care would be discussed. The word "palliative" appears only once in the document. Was it discussed? Unknown.)
• "Seek feedback from a group called the MAID Network (reps incl. DWDC, Bridge C-14, MAID Family Network, CAMAP and ppi with first hand knowledge working with the public)" (There is no mention of getting feedback from anyone opposed to MAID. The MAID Network all support MAID.)

Page 28. Helen Long writes another letter to the Health Minister congratulating her appointment as Minister of Health. I've lost count as to how many letters she has written to Ministers. 

Page 11. Memo regarding the polling done. 

"The focus is mainly on Ipsos Reid polls commissioned by DWDC but it does cover some other polling especially where there may be contradictory views on certain issues. It doesn’t cover every poll done by various other groups/organizations based on what I’ve seen over the years so not sure if it will seem biased? (emphasis added)" (Even the bureaucrats wonder if the analysis of the polls is biased. And the analysis does cover all DWDC's polls.)

Page 51-62 Polls about MAID. Media monitoring and analysis: Out of the 12 page report, there is a total of about one and a half pages devoted to polls not as favourable to MAID as the rest of the polls (***see links below). All the rest of the polls are from DWDC.

Page 64: Email from Helen Long:

"As you know, Dying With Dignity Canada has a long history of interest in assisted dying, including advance requests. We hear continuously from people across Canada, in all walks of life, who have a lived experience related to the desire for an advance request, or who have a personal or professional interest in the issue. With the goal of helping to ensure that lived experience as well as professional expertise related to advance request is included in the process, I am providing you with a list of individuals and clinicians who are interested in being part of the consultation process. Each of them has indicated their agreement to have their name shared with Health Canada and its contractor(s) for the purposes of consulting on advance requests. Some of these Individuals are well known and may already be on your list but am sharing just in case:"

Long then includes a (redacted) list of 23 persons and 12 clinicians. I think we can assume that all of these names are supportive of MAID. Did Health Canada reach out to them? Unknown. Did Health Canada reach out to anyone who is not supportive of MAID? Unknown.

*** Choi et al: When medical assistance in dying is not a last resort option: survey of the Canadian public

Angus Reid and Cardus: Disability & MAID: Three-in-five concerned lack of adequate care may push vulnerable to consider assisted dying

ATIP takes 502 days and yields 9 pages of information

This ATIP to Health Canada took 502 days to respond to, yielded exactly 9 pages of so-called information, from a total document count of 285 pages. 

It is hard to comprehend how it can take so long to respond to an ATIP, when you release virtually no information.

Page 2-247 and 256-285 were all redacted (i.e. all subject to solicitor-client privilege)

Page 1 Someone contacts Health Canada to ask about getting in touch with Dying with Dignity. Which is pretty funny. As I have shown many times before, DWDC has a very cozy relationship with Health Canada. The fact that someone would actually contact Health Canada to ask for an interview with DWDC tells me that the lines are definitely blurred between these two entities.

From: Health Media

Sent: 2024-08-09 1:57 PM

To: XXXXXXXXX

Subject: RE: Interview with  XXXXXXXXX

Categories: Referred

Hi  XXXXXXXXX,

Dying with Dignity is a charitable organization and is not affiliated with Health Canada. I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to assist.

Their phone number is: 1-800-495-6156

Thanks,

Mark Johnson

Media Relations | Relations avec les medias

Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada

Government of Canada 

media@hc-sc.ac.ca | Tel: 613-957-2983

From: XXXXXXXXX

Sent: Friday, August 9, 2024 1:48 PM

To: HEALTH MEDIA SANTE (HC/SC)

Good day!

I'm just forwarding over this email I sent to the Dying with Dignity media line since I have not heard back yet.

I'm hoping we can get in contact with XXXXXXXXX  this interview.

Let me know if she is available.

Thank you,

From: XXXXXXXXX

Sent Friday August 9, 2024 8:20 AM

To: media@dyingwithdignity.ca 

Subject: Interview Request with XXXXXXXXX

Good Morning! I hope this email finds you well.

I'm XXXXXXXXX. I'm reaching out to see if we can book an interview with XXXXXXXXX. We are interested in talking about XXXXXXXXX. The interview will be live with XXXXXXXXX for 8-10 minutes. The time slot we are hoping to fill is 10:30am MDT (9:30am PDT). Let me know if that works for her schedule. Thanks and talk soon!

248-255 - yields some complaints from DWDC about Health Canada's survey on advance directives not being accessible outside of Canada. 

And this. Helen Long offers to give names of people to participate in the consultations:

I understand from the Minister's announcement that there will be a variety of ways to engage in the advance request consultations, including roundtables. As always, it is important to get the perspectives of those with lived experience. To that end, I wondered if you were looking for individuals who do have lived experience and might be able to contribute to this discussion? Let me know and if there is an opportunity, I would be happy to provide a list of individuals who could participate.

Does Health Canada take her up on this offer? There is no indication that they do. But if they did, that would certainly skew the results of the consultations.

Dying with Dignity raises $148,580 in one month

From Helen Long of Dying with Dignity Canada in an email. It makes me want to throw up.

Together, we raised $148,580 last month from 991 of the most compassionate people, and fully maximized the matching gift!

Compassionate? There's nothing compassionate about killing people who need love, support and probably palliative care, Helen Long. That people donate money to your poisoning lobby, who lobbies government non-stop -- there just are no words.

Priests and bishops who have spoken out against MAID

(If you know of a Priest or Bishop who has spoken out against MAID, please provide me with a link and I will update this entry to reflect that.)

Update May 6:

Archdiocese of Edmonton Hope & Dignity initiative was launched under Archbishop Richard Smith (now in Vancouver) and is strongly supported by Archbishop Stephen Hero. The poll that I referenced was part of the early planning for the initiative, rather than simply a stand-alone poll. And this: Guidelines for the Celebration of the Sacraments with Persons & Families Considering or Opting for Death by Assisted Suicide or Euthanasia

Priests for Life here and here.

Fr Mark Goring speaking from the pulpit (this seems me to be the most effective way to speak directly to Catholics).

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) acts as the collective voice, several high-ranking Canadian clergy and individual priests have been particularly vocal in their opposition to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Their advocacy often focuses on legal challenges, public statements, and pastoral warnings about the expansion of eligibility. [1, 2, 3]

Prominent Archbishops & Bishops

• Cardinal Francis (Frank) Leo (Archbishop of Toronto): In April 2026, he wrote directly to Prime Minister Mark Carney and Members of Parliament to advocate for Bill C-218, which seeks to exclude mental illness as a sole condition for MAiD. He urged a "free vote" on the legislation, calling for a "civilization that cares for those suffering and does not eliminate them".
• Archbishop Christian Lépine (Archbishop of Montreal): He launched a significant legal challenge in February 2024 against Quebec's end-of-life legislation. He argues that forcing Catholic palliative care centers like St. Raphael's to offer MAiD violates institutional freedom of conscience.
• Bishop Mark Hagemoen (Bishop of Saskatoon): Along with other Saskatchewan bishops, he issued a pastoral letter titled "Dying with Hope: Living and Walking Together" in April 2025. He has publicly criticized the "romanticized accounts" of assisted suicide in mainstream culture and advocated for increased mental health resources.
• Archbishop J. Michael Miller (Archbishop of Vancouver): He released specific guidelines as early as 2017 regarding the pastoral care of those considering MAiD, emphasizing that life is sacred from conception to natural death. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

Individual Priests & Pastoral Voices

• Fr. Larry Holland (Archdiocese of Vancouver): He shared a personal account of being twice offered MAiD by hospital staff while recovering from a hip fracture in 2026. He spoke out against the "coercive" nature of medical staff initiating these conversations with patients who have deeply held religious objections.
• Fr. Lynn (Vancouver): In interviews, he described the practice of medical practitioners proactively offering MAiD to vulnerable persons as "diabolical" and an attack on patient identity.
• Fr. William Ha and Bishop Gordon (Victoria): Participated in a panel discussion at St. Andrew's Cathedral in 2026 to discuss the "cultural shift" regarding human worth and the dangers of expanding MAiD criteria.
• Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk (National Catholic Bioethics Center): Though a bioethicist, he provides widely used commentary in Canada criticizing the "idolizing" of medical power and science over the sanctity of life. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Are priests and bishops educating Catholics about MAID?

An online survey conducted in Edmonton in 2023 by the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton tells us that 75.7 % of Catholics polled oppose MAID. Which means that 24.3 % either fully support MAID or are not sure what they support. 

Then there are polls done by Dying with Dignity Canada (Canada's poisoning lobby) in 2023. These results are even worse. They tell us that 83% of Catholics support MAID. (DWDC's repeated polls provide similar results.)

Regardless of the actual number of Catholics who support MAID, one is too many. The question we must ask ourselves is this. Are our bishops and priests educating their congregants about the reality of MAID and how Canada leads the world in killing its citizens? From the Edmonton survey and the comments from poll participants, we get these comments:

"At the same time, they [the respondents] want the Church to be firmer, clearer, and more vocal on their stance."

• “No one opposed this vocally. And the dead received a Catholic funeral. The priest knew MAiD had been used.”
• I feel Canadian Bishops and priests should be more outspoken on how unjust and sinful it is.”
• “Our lack of action speaks louder than our occasional tepid objection. We’ve reached the cold mathematics at the crossroads of history and a Loving living God who is the reality of Love and Justice bound perfectly. There’s a price to pay for our active deliberate omission, our failures in duty.”
• “The Catholic Church needs to take a strong, vocal stance against MAiD.I am surprised that it has not done more then it has. The bishops letter opposing MAiD is not enough.”
• “The church should be solid in their commitments and many Catholics are not aware of where the Church stands. In our day there is SO MUCH 'garbage' thrown at us we sometimes get very confused and muddled.”

There is also a lot of misunderstanding about MAID from Catholics: When asked who can ask for MAiD, their answers: 

• Anyone (mentioned at least 100 times) 
• Pretty much anyone
• Probably anyone. It’s another thing if they are granted help.
• Anyone can ask. 
• Terminally ill persons, some mental health reasons. 
• Now? Almost anyone. 
• Anyone 18 years old and older. 
• The individual 
• Almost everyone who is struggling with mental illness or medical illness
• Anyone with a physical or mental disability that ruins their quality of life

And these troubling comments from Catholics:

Here are instances of priests and bishops who have spoken out against MAID. This is all good but is it enough? I don't think it is, if we are to believe the polls.