Canadian Retailer Simons Removes Ad Featuring Assisted Suicide Issue

Peter Simons, president and CEO of Simons, poses for a photograph near a store in Mississauga, Ont., on Feb. 24, 2016. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press

Fashion retailer Simons removed a video from YouTube on Dec. 1 that featured a young B.C. woman whose death was medically assisted.

The ad was up for the month of November and did not promote Simons products, but rather a “powerful life lesson in the person of Jennyfer,” according to the company’s description of the video. That description was on a page that now brings up a 404 “page not found” error.

The lesson is, according to Simons, “beauty is everywhere.”

Company spokesperson Eric Aach would not say why the video was taken down, whether it related to the controversy around medical assistance in dying (MAiD).

“The All Is Beauty campaign has come to an end this week. Simons is now entering their annual holiday sprint,” Aach told The Epoch Times. “Given the campaign has come to an end, Simons won’t comment any further.”

MAiD became legal in Canada in 2016. Since that time, almost 32,000 assisted deaths have taken place in Canada, with more than 10,000 of them just in 2021, according to Health Canada’s annual report.

Canada’s MAiD law is among the most liberal in the world. It has drawn renewed scrutiny recently as MAiD is set to become available in March 2023 to people who suffer from mental illness and no other condition. On Dec. 1, the Canadian Association of Chairs of Psychiatry (CPA) called on the federal government to delay its expansion of eligibility.

The Simons video featured the real-life story of Jennyfer Hatch, a woman from Vancouver who died in October at the age of 37. She was emaciated by Ehlers-Danlos syndrome—a genetic condition that affects connective tissues—and other complications, reported CTV News who interviewed her before her death. She could not get support in B.C.’s healthcare system for the debilitating pain, she told CTV, but was approved for MAiD in a matter of weeks.

The Simons video is still available for viewing on a Twitter post and embedded in a Muse by Clio article.

It starts with a look into a hospital room, which then surreally floats away in the ocean. A young woman is shown amid scenes of beauty—making bubbles and tracing pictures in the sand on a beach, amid bright-coloured jellyfish, playing cello outdoors, dining with friends and family.

She repeats the words, “Last breaths are sacred. When I imagine my final days, I see bubbles, I see the ocean, I see music. Even now as I seek help to end my life, there is still so much beauty. You just have to be brave enough to see it.”

In another video originally posted with this one, Simons CEO Peter Simons comments on the company’s intentions. “We made the choice coming out of the pandemic to do something that has some importance, that has a deeper meaning,” Simons said, according to media reports that quoted the video before it was also taken down.

He continued, “We’ve taken the past two years to truly reflect on who we want to be as a company and have made the choice to use the privilege of our voice and platform to create something meaningful, something that is less about commerce and more about connection.”