Assisted Dying: BC Hospice Society Offers ‘Do Not Euthanize’ Kit as Unprompted Offers of MAID Grow

Delta Hospice Society president Angelina Ireland sits with cancer patient Pat Gray of Chilliwack, B.C., on July 25, 2024. Gray passed away in October 2024. Photo courtesy Bronwyn Gray, Pat Gray's daughter

Amid news that some Canadians have been asked, unprompted, if they wish to seek euthanasia, a B.C. group has developed a “defence kit” for people to ensure they don’t get pressured into receiving medical assistance in dying (MAID).

The Delta Hospice Society (DHS) has designed a Do Not Euthanize (DNE) Defence Kit, legally vetted and distinct for each province and territory.

The kit includes a wallet-sized DNE card that includes the name of the cardholder and reads, “I require healthcare not ‘MAID.’ For more information contact: #1-800-232-1589.” The reverse side says, “I, (name here), have signed a Do Not Euthanize Advance Directive (DNE).”

Each DNE card includes a unique national registry number that’s registered on a secure database administered by the DHS.

In an interview, DHS president Angelina Ireland told The Epoch Times that the kit is proving “very popular,” noting that more than 1,000 people have already requested it and received it with “tremendous thankfulness.”

Cancer patient Pat Gray of Chilliwack, B.C., asked for the DNE kit after being offered MAID by her primary care physician. Gray, who has since passed away, recorded the incident in a statement which was shared by her family and obtained by The Epoch Times.

“When the doctor came for her visit, it was always in the morning to see how I was feeling. One day, she decided to offer me MAiD. I quickly said no and then showed her my bookmark that said, ‘With God all things are possible.’ She agreed with me and then added that God uses tools to help us, and MAID was a help for those in great pain,” Gray said.

“I felt sad that instead of offering hope for me, she wanted me gone.”

Ireland, who first encountered the Delta Hospice Society in her own battle with cancer, visited Gray prior to Gray’s natural death in October 2024. Ireland said she finds it “horrible,” “predatory,” and “completely unacceptable” that doctors present MAID to people who do not request it.

“Anybody who is diagnosed now with stage 4 cancer, that’s one of the first things that they’re telling them,” she said, adding that the medical system is “eager to introduce MAID to anyone and everyone.”

A 2022 paper by the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers titled “Bringing up Medical Assistance In Dying (MAiD) as a clinical care option” states that “physicians and nurse practitioners … have a professional obligation to initiate a discussion about MAiD if the person might be eligible for MAiD.”

However, the document also says, “Healthcare professionals must not discuss MAiD with a patient with the aim of inducing, persuading, or convincing the patient to request MAiD.”

The front (L) and back sides of the “Do Not Euthanize” card. Courtesy Delta Hospice Society

DNE Directive and Declaration

The DNE directive states, “I do not consent to any active intervention, by medicine or other means, that is administered or undertaken with the overt or covert intention of ending my life. This may include opiates, or other drugs, used to deliberately bring about my death.”

A declaration in the DNE kit, separate from the advance directive, is designed to prevent MAID conversations.

“If any health care employee, or any other person, speaks to me about ‘MAiD,’ I will consider it harassment and will not hesitate to take steps personally, or by way of my legal representative, to have such an individual who mentions ‘MAiD’ to me, either directly or indirectly, prosecuted for counselling to commit suicide contrary to Section 241 of the Criminal Code of Canada.”

The document states that no future mental or physical deterioration will be sufficient cause to bring up MAID.

Canada’s assisted death law, passed in 2016, is one of the most liberal in the world. The eligibility criteria has been steadily expanded, the latest being the government’s plan to extend eligibility to those suffering solely from a mental illness. That was set to come into effect on March 17, 2024, but has now been delayed until March 2027 to give the provinces and territories more time to prepare their health-care systems, such as to develop regulations and guidance on this new eligibility.

Two days before the government’s Feb. 1, 2024, announcement of the delay, the Conservatives issued a statement to urge the Liberals to abandon the expansion altogether.

MAID ‘Inappropriately Discussed’

A Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) report to Parliament issued in March 2023 confirmed four cases of what it described as “inappropriate conversations with veterans about MAiD,” saying all four incidences were “isolated to a single employee, and not a widespread, systemic issue.”

The investigation was triggered by a veteran who in July 2022 complained that his request for help with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress prompted a VAC case worker to suggest MAID.

Retired corporal and former Paralympian Christine Gauthier had also testified before the House veterans affairs committee on Dec. 1, 2022, that she was offered assisted suicide when she requested help from VAC to build a wheelchair platform lift at her home.

Then-Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay issued a statement and an apology on on March 10, 2023, the same day the VAC report was released. In a related news release, MacAuley stated that “what happened to these Veterans is totally unacceptable.”

In Canada, a patient who is not terminally ill can receive MAID after a minimum 90-day waiting period. However, those who are terminally ill can potentially receive the procedure the same day they offer consent.

According to Canada’s Fifth Annual Report on MAID, published Dec. 11, 2024, and covering the year 2023, 15,343 people received the procedure in 2023, accounting for 4.7 percent of all Canadians who died that year. This was a 15.8 percent increase from 2022. In addition, 75 percent of MAID recipients received palliative care, and cancer was the most common underlying medical condition, cited in 64.1 percent of cases.

According to a notice of civil claim filed with the B.C. Supreme Court on Dec. 13, 2024, a 52-year-old man with long-term mental illness and remediable chronic back pain received approval for assisted dying even though his pain was neither severe nor incurable—requirements to make him eligible.

The lawsuit alleges that the MAID legislative framework is unconstitutional and doesn’t offer adequate safeguards for those with “concurrent mental and physical illnesses.”

‘They’re Selling It’

Like the Delta Hospice Society, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) offers its own legal document online, titled “Life-Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care (Canada),” as well as a “Do Not Kill Me” card. EPC executive director Alex Schadenberg said he had received “lots of complaints” about MAID teams that visit palliative care homes one day per week.

“The MAID team will go from room to room to inform people that MAID is available to them. So they’re not only doing it, they’re selling it,” he said.

The anti-euthanasia advocate said people have told him that their loved ones in palliative care were offered MAID twice in the same day, and more often over longer periods.

“A woman in British Columbia called me up, for her elderly husband was in palliative care. … She called me up all angry, saying, ‘How do you get them to stop asking if we want MAID? We said no five times,” Schadenberg said.