Care Not Kill Campaign Reaches Milestone of 100,000 Flyers Distributed
In March, we launched the updated Care Not Kill campaign, with a focus on the deadline of March 2023 when the government will expand euthanasia to those with mental illness.
So many of you have responded and joined the campaign out of concern for the direction Canada is heading. Over 100,000 flyers have now been distributed across the country, with tens of thousands more on the way. We have been blown away by the response!
We have loved hearing from many supporters how they have been encouraged and excited by the response they’re getting to our Care Not Kill flyers. We often deal with polarizing issues, so it is a blessing to learn how many Canadians are on the same page when it comes to concerns about euthanasia.
ARPA supporters have had the opportunity to interact with Canadians while handing out flyers and have found that most are genuinely concerned about the expansion of euthanasia to those with mental illness. Those receiving the flyers have responded overwhelmingly positively, indicating that they didn’t know this was happening and they do not think it’s right.
If you’d like to join in, order your flyers today (they’re free!) and distribute them on your own or with others to add to the growing awareness in Canada around the issue of euthanasia. Go to carenotkill.ca for more information.
Joint Parliamentary Committee wraps up for the summer
On the political advocacy side, ARPA staff have had the opportunity to respond to the formation of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, a joint committee made up of Senators and MPs. Their task is to review euthanasia in Canada, study recommendations for including mental illness as a qualification and investigate further expansion, including access for minors. Both ARPA Canada and the Care Not Kill campaign were able to submit briefs to this committee for their consideration, and we are thankful for several supporters who also took the time to write and send a submission to this committee.
The committee also studied a recently-released report from a panel of experts appointed by the Trudeau government to provide recommendations around regulating euthanasia for mental illness. In their report the experts state: “In permitting MAiD, society no longer requires everyone to accept that life is a benefit in all circumstances. When it is, and when it is not, is a question for the individual requester according to their values and in those circumstances permitted by law.” In other words, euthanasia is defensible for virtually anyone for virtually any reason at all. The philosophy behind this shocking statement is something we have been warning about since euthanasia was first legalized.
At the end of June, the parliamentary committee published an interim report on their findings, confirming many of the conclusions of the Trudeau expert panel.
The Conservative members of the committee also published their dissenting (disagreeing) report. We were pleased to see them echoing our calls to postpone the expiration of the sunset clause in March 2023. They conclude their dissenting report by saying, “Legislation of this nature needs to be guided by science, and not ideology. We have been warned by several experts that [expansion]…will facilitate the deaths of Canadians who could have gotten better…such an outcome is completely unacceptable and preventable.”
On the other hand, pressure against the expansion of euthanasia has been mounting. News articles both from Canada and abroad have been voicing concern with the accelerating pace. We pray that we can still make a difference by continuing to get the message of the Care Not Kill campaign to Canadians.
