MPs Hear Veteran’s Recollection of Call Where He Was Offered Assisted Death When Asking for Health Care

A Canadian flag sits on the uniform of a member of the Canadian Armed Forces in this file photo. The Canadian Press/Lars Hagberg

A veteran who was allegedly offered medically assisted death over the phone by a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) worker has released details of the controversial conversation, according to a witness testifying before a House committee looking into the matter.

Mark Meincke, a retired corporal, told the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs on Oct. 24 that the anonymous veteran who was allegedly offered unsolicited medical assistance in dying, or MAiD, by VAC reached out to Meincke with details of the controversial phone conversation. Meincke is currently the host of “Operation Tango Romeo: Trauma Recovery Podcast for Military, Veterans, First Responders, and Their Families.”

Meincke said the veteran did not record the initial phone call wherein he was offered MAiD, but he provided Meincke with recordings of two subsequent phone conversations he had with VAC wherein the government department apologized to the veteran for having offered him unsolicited MAiD.

“During his original phone call with the VAC service agent, somehow in that conversation he was told, ‘We’ve done it [MAiD] before and we can do it for you, and the one that we’ve done it for and has completed MAiD, we are now supporting his wife and two children,’” Meincke said.

In August, Global News first reported that a VAC agent allegedly offered unsolicited MAiD to the veteran, who was seeking medical treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury.

Legally, a patient must make a “voluntary request for MAiD that is not the result of outside pressure or influence” in order to be eligible for it.

‘Devastated’

According to Meincke, the veteran questioned the VAC agent over the phone about why he was being offered assisted death without having first expressed interest in it.

“She said, ‘Oh, just by the way, if up the road you have suicidal thoughts ... it’s better than blowing your brains out against the wall,’” Meincke said. “That is what he told me she said.”

Before the initial phone call, Meincke said the veteran had been “feeling good about life” and wasn’t struggling with suicidal thoughts.

“Post-phone call, he left the country because he was devastated,” Meincke told the committee. “It’s called sanctuary trauma—where the place you go to for help steps on your neck. And that’s what happened here.”

Several MPs asked if Meincke could provide them with the veteran’s identity and make the phone-call recordings public, but he refused.

Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay and the department’s deputy minister Paul Ledwell told the committee on Oct. 20 that the department’s investigation into the allegations is still ongoing while calling the incident “a single isolated situation.”

VAC Assistant Deputy Minister Steven Harris added that the controversial phone call was not recorded by the department since it was outgoing, from the agent to the veteran. Harris said only incoming calls to the department’s main call centre are automatically recorded.

Meincke told the committee on Oct. 24 that he believes the VAC witnesses on Oct. 20 gave “false” testimony about the phone-call recordings.

“I don’t believe the call was not recorded,” he said. “I don’t think it’s even possible. And even if that was true, somehow, there would be notes. There’s always notes.”

Conservative MP Blake Richards said during the committee meeting on Oct. 20 that it “seems odd” the phone call was not recorded.

“It seems to me as though just about every call we make to any large organization these days, there’s a recording of it,” Richards said.

“It’s odd to me that only a call to the general number would be recorded and none of the other interactions would be.”