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The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and the Delta Hospice Society are calling for a comprehensive review of Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAiD) legislation, citing increasing cases of coercion, confusion with palliative care, and a lack of protections for those who want nothing to do with the practice.

Speaking at a joint press conference on May 7, EPC executive director Alex Schadenberg said that although MAiD has expanded rapidly since its introduction, a full review of the law has never taken place.

“We are calling on the federal and provincial governments to provide a complete review of Canada’s medical assistance in dying law. The reason is simple: it’s never been done,” said Schadenberg.

The coalition fears the increasing integration of MAiD into Canadian health care is eroding trust in hospices and hospitals, especially for vulnerable populations. Both organizations say MAiD is incompatible with traditional palliative care, which aims to neither hasten nor postpone death.

“We support the World Health Organization’s definition of palliative care, which intends neither to hasten nor to postpone death,” Schadenberg said.

Canada’s MAiD law was expanded in March 2021 through Bill C-7, which removed the requirement that a patient’s death be reasonably foreseeable, eliminated the 10-day reflection period for those deemed terminally ill, and introduced a two-tiered system where non-terminal patients must wait 90 days, while the waiting period for terminally ill patients was removed.

The petition comes in the wake of increasing international scrutiny of Canada’s MAiD programs and laws. On March 21, 2025, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities urged Canada to repeal the provision allowing MAiD for those who are not terminally ill (known as “Track 2”). The committee also rejected proposals to expand MAiD access to mature minors, to allow advance directives for euthanasia, and to include mental illness as the sole underlying condition.

Schadenberg emphasized that a genuine review of MAiD must include all perspectives and take into account the personal stories that have emerged.

“I’m not saying [the review] should be focused on limiting the law or not,” he said. “Let the stories come out, and let people see without judgment how this law is working—and how it needs to change.”

He pointed to findings from Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner, which reported that poverty, homelessness, fear, and isolation were driving some people to request MAiD. Between 2018 and 2023, the province recorded 428 MAiD deaths that did not comply with legal safeguards.

“These 428 non-compliant deaths prove that the Carter decision [on which the legalization of assisted dying was based] is not being followed. There is no scrupulosity,” said Schadenberg. “This needs further investigation.”

Angela Ireland, president of the Delta Hospice Society, echoed the call for MAiD-free spaces and legal protections for Canadians who want traditional care at the end of life.

Often, in the therapy room, I ask clients about their family, and draw something called a genogram map. Part of my therapeutic framework is that we are influenced, shaped, wounded, loved, delighted in, and healed in our families of origin. As a therapist, families of origin also help me develop a fuller picture of the suffering of the client: their behaviours, thought processes, and ways of being. Internally, I develop more compassion and curiosity towards clients as well. 

I was recently struck by a truth that I read in a blogpost: “To evangelize the culture, we must first see our culture clearly”. There seems to be a parallel here with the above therapeutic practices: when we know where we are and where we stand, we begin to understand ‘the lay of the land’. This awareness will help us figure out more clearly how to move forward. 

The “lay of the land” at the parish level looks something like this: people are coming to church with their Christian significant others having no idea what is going on at Mass. People are sitting in the pews, going out of obligation – not love – for maybe 20+ years. At my parish, there are people showing up who are yearning to belong to some sort of community. Some are coming after years of religious searching and often asking the question, “what is my purpose in this life?”. Additionally we have broken families, single parents, and single people from countries at war are seeking refuge and freedom. 

Our culture is transitioning. Stores are open on Sundays. Families attending church together on Sundays is out of the norm.The assumption that those who choose to send their kids to Christian or Catholic schools are themselves religious is naught. Christian influence on culture is indeed fading; sometimes considered even an unintelligent way to engage with the world. I remember sitting in my Biological Psychology class where my professor stated publicly that if we were to have religious views of the human person, we would have no place in the world of Psychology. 

From Christendom to Apostolic Mission

The mode where the Christian imaginative vision influences society is called Christendom. We are no longer in this mode; instead, we have moved into something called the Apostolic Mode. I do feel that these separate modes are simply different ways to engage, not disengage. We cannot simply wait passively for Christendom to come back (where the secular vision parallels the Christian vision). 

In the Apostolic Mode, the Christian faith does not play a central role in society; in fact, Christianity feels more costly because it is often considered an outdated or indoctrinated way of thinking.

It was providential that the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s newly formed Mental Health Ministry launched with its new coordinator, Jane Waldock, just as news broke of the tragedy at the Vancouver Lapu Lapu Festival on Saturday, April 26.

“The Church has a place in supporting the mental health of the whole community,” Waldock told The B.C. Catholic, “and that really has been my focus from Sunday morning on.”

In response to the carnage, the Archdiocese quickly published best practices for supporting trauma victims, along with lists of resources for those struggling in the wake of the tragedy. Parishes across the region also held memorial Masses for the deceased.

Beyond the immediate crisis, Waldock said the launch of a mental health ministry is timely. Nearly three in four members of Canadian congregations report either struggling with mental illness themselves or have a close relationship with someone who does.

“There has been a felt need for a long time,” she said. “Pope Francis has said that mental health ministry is essential. The goal is to help all of us be aware of what mental illness is, what supports good mental health, and to overcome the stigma that keeps people from reaching out to our parishes for help.”

The ministry won’t provide therapy but will focus on training parishioners to listen well and to welcome into parish life those facing mental health challenges.

Waldock, who has a background in psychology, is a licensed PRH (Personality and Human Relations) educator. She helped lay the foundations of the ministry alongside Father Brian Duggan, who provides counseling services for the archdiocese and Sister John Mary Sullivan, a licensed family therapist and director for the archdiocese’s Ministry and Outreach office, and felt called to step into the coordinator role as the initiative took shape.

She is also certified as a mental health first aid facilitator and will soon offer a one-day course to equip participants with a basic toolkit for responding to mental health situations—and for maintaining their own mental wellness.

At the institutional level, Waldock hopes to see at least one parish per deanery become a local hub for mental health ministry. These parishes would organize outreach and educational initiatives for surrounding communities.

The ministry’s mission is rooted in three key principles: awareness, accompaniment, and advocacy.

Waldock says the stigma that surrounds mental health and those struggling with it is a core problem. People who need it often won’t seek help because of shame or lack of understanding.

Some of the problems are cultural, and Waldock admits that within the Church, there has been a long-standing, vocal skepticism towards psychologists and psychiatrists. “The formation of a mental health ministry, headed by lay people, goes a long way to normalizing mental health care within the local Church,” said Waldock.

It’s been seven years since Fiona Dalton moved to Canada from the United Kingdom to take the position of CEO and president of Providence Health Care, and she still recalls her shock during a tour of Providence sites at how seniors were housed.

She told of seeing a particular Providence hospital’s long-term care unit. “I just felt physically ill,” she said. “This is where we keep our seniors? We look after people and this is their home? In a space where there are four people in one room and it’s not even big enough to have your own wardrobe with your own clothes in?’”

Dalton shared the memory in her remarks at a May 30 blessing for the start of construction of the $207 million St. Vincent’s Heather Long Term Care Home in Vancouver. Excavation is scheduled to begin this summer, with the 13-storey 240-bed home expected to open in late 2028.

Dozens of Providence staff, First Nations representatives, construction representatives, and guests gathered for the ceremony, with Archbishop Richard Smith taking part in one of his first public functions since being installed two weeks earlier.

A unifying theme ran through speakers’ remarks: the Indigenous and religious history that had brought everyone together for the blessing, and the care, dignity, and connecting of generations that will be emphasized at the new residence.

Dalton recalled how seniors suffered so badly during the pandemic. The physical environment in which seniors were kept was “not good enough for the people that I love,” she said. “That means it’s not good enough for anyone.”

It became apparent to Providence “that we collectively need to do something better,” she said. “We knew that it would be easy for the world to kind of move on after the pandemic and have other priorities, but this would remain a priority for us.”

The priority of care and compassion is the same one that religious sisters brought to health care, said Paul Brown, chair of the Providence Health Care Society.

Brown noted that the First Nations ground awakening ceremony that began the site blessing “reminds us of the sacredness of this land, the importance of relationship, and the responsibilities we carry as we begin this work,” said Brown.

“The legacy of Catholic health care in Canada is a testament to the dedication of religious women who provided compassionate service to those in need long before the establishment of our universal health care system,” he said. The Sisters of Charity of the Immaculate Conception from New Brunswick played a key role in founding the original St. Vincent’s Hospital in the 1930s, he said, on the same site where the new residence will be built.

A father is the scaffolding around the growing structure of his child.

I first heard this analogy from Dr. Maria Fedoryka in the Humanum video series. She explained that while a mother’s genius is to create a space for a child to exist with unconditional acceptance, a father’s genius is to be “scaffolding,” — the “solid structure within which a person can flourish.”

My father was a tall, solid man who was often happy and sometimes scary (6’4” with an Irish temper). When I rode on his shoulders, I felt fearful, but also in awe. Being lifted that high gave me a new perspective. Fathers push security boundaries to encourage children to reach further, discover more, and venture beyond comfort. When kept in check, those “scary” qualities comfort children and assure them their father is in control.

As I grew older, my father’s structure was still there for me but in new ways. When I was a young adult, we fought about my curfew and I rashly moved out with a university classmate. My father let me know he did not agree with my decision (he was right about that — I moved home two months later), but when he visited my apartment, he brought a toolbox he’d put together for me and he patched up all the holes in the walls. He left me the toolbox. His support was love.

A child observes what his father has built his life on. He sees the very person of the father as a model of how to live. That is why, when the child gets older and recognizes the father’s faults, he may be devastated, thinking that everything he believed was false.

In reality, the father does not make the scaffolding intentionally. He does not carefully erect it by teaching the child to do certain things which are helpful and then to avoid others that are not. The father, in fact, IS the scaffolding. Not just what he wants to present to the child, not just what he wants to teach the child, not what he gives the child or what he says to the child, but his entire being (personality, character, body, actions) forms the structure within which a child flourishes — or struggles.

When young, the child stands inside this scaffolding, observing its construction, beauty or ugliness. This structure answers, for good or for bad, all the child’s big questions: Does life have guiding principles? What’s worth caring about? What is a man? How should I treat others? Whether intentionally or not, the father provides answers through his person. The child makes life decisions based on these observations.

Masculinity provides this gift, states Fedoryka.

In Chapter 10 of the Second Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul turned his attention to the intruding missionaries.

Father Thomas Stegman, SJ, explained: “Paul begins by presenting himself as a soldier in God’s army in the battle to bring about Christlike obedience within the community (10:1–6). He explains that his God-given authority is for building up the Corinthians (10:7–11). Finally, he sets forth what constitutes proper missionary boasting (10:12–18). All the while, Paul contrasts himself with the intruding missionaries.”

St. Paul wrote, “We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).

Catholic author Stephen Ray commented: “‘Proud obstacle’ can be understood as wrong thoughts and faulty arguments that are entrenched in the mind against God. Sometimes these may be rational arguments; other times they might be sentiments or emotions that are ‘caught’ from other people like one catches the measles. It is often easier to knock down a fortress of timber and stone than it is to destroy a stronghold of mental lies and deceptions.”

Christians are engaged in spiritual warfare. The sacrament of Confirmation seals us as soldiers of Christ. St. Paul used military terminology with the words: “being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete” (2 Cor. 10:6).

St. Paul wrote, “Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ’s, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ’s, so also are we” (2 Cor. 10:7).

St. John Chrysostom said, “Paul criticizes not only the deceivers but the deceived as well, for they are also accountable for their actions. Furthermore, he rebukes each one in the way which is most appropriate to their case. Those who imagine they belong to Christ must consider who Paul belongs to. If the answer is also Christ, then they must listen to what he has to say to them.”

Regarding the authority of St. Paul, the fourth-century Ambrosiaster pointed out that “Paul takes advantage of his authority only to the extent that he glories in the progress of believers, so that his power may be conducive to salvation and not self-aggrandizement.”

St. Paul “did not boast beyond the power that was given to him, nor did he claim any authority in places where his preaching had not been heard.”

St. Paul states: “For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends” (2 Cor. 10:18).

St. John Chrysostom commented: “Paul did not claim this for himself but left it to the Lord. Paul is modest, but not to the point where he neglects to tell the truth about himself.”

If the best metric for judging a comedy show is the amount of laughter, then Stand Up for Jesus was an undeniable success. It also might hold a key to understanding what constitutes Catholic comedy.

Held at St. Francis de Sales Church in Burnaby, the recent comedy night was the result of months of work by organizer Jo-Anne Duchscherer and her budding group of six amateur stand-up comics.

“If you have rotten cabbage, please do not throw them!” Duchscherer told the approximately 80 attendees. “This is not Elizabethan times — this is not the Globe theatre.”

She added quickly, “We do, however, accept donations of perishable items!”

All six comedians started taking stand-up lessons last year, and apart from a trial run in 2025, the May 30 event marked their inaugural public performance.

The comedy ministry was initially pitched to pastor Father Mark McGuckin when he was at Duchscherer’s parish, St. Joseph in Port Moody. The venture received episcopal approval from Archbishop J. Michael Miller last spring.

In an interview after the show, Duchscherer told The B.C. Catholic the goal of the ministry is simple: “To raise up holy fools for Jesus.” The holy fool is a medieval archetype popular in Eastern Christianity for embodying a closeness to God despite an unserious, often silly, disposition.

Duchscherer said her Catholic faith has always inspired her to embrace joy, which for her involves performing live comedy. She has been taking stand-up comedy classes and performing for over a decade.

Asked why she proposed the ministry, she simply quoted a line from St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae: “Relaxation of the mind from work consists in playful words or deeds.”

Anyone is capable of writing good jokes, says Duchscherer, and she tells her students to look for the Catholic stories in their lives. “We’ll take those stories and break the funny out of them.”

At Stand Up for Jesus, the stories were as wide-ranging as the performing comedians, who represented a diverse generational cross-section of Catholic life.

Valerie Murdocco offered jokes about her 32 years of marriage, including a tongue-in-cheek explanation for her conversion to Catholicism from her strait-laced Protestant upbringing: “Gambling, wine and dancing? I’m in!” she said to appreciative laughter.

A trio of younger Catholics, Kenneth Haggerty, Emily Robichaud and Daniel Williams, joked about young life in the Church and the ills of millennial and Gen Z life in general.

Robichaud, a crowd favourite, drew considerable laughs after a series of jokes about joining the CWL as a young woman.

The event was a clear success, and other pastors are considering offering Stand Up for Jesus in their parishes.

While wading through the disenchanted swamp of modernity, the approach of Father’s Day offers a chance to reflect on how children and fatherhood re-enchant the world like few things can.

It’s not just that children bring an explosion of wonder, enthusiasm, and imagination to every moment, but the experience of building a relationship with a person who lacks all the pretensions and hang-ups associated with adulthood will explode your perception of human value—and all value—if you let it. (Clarification: this is a good explosion.)

So much of the modern world’s concept of personhood and human value is wrapped up in productivity, competence, and, by consequence, economics. My children are neither productive nor competent, and they bring me no money to speak of (unless you count that time my daughter gave me a quarter she found on the sidewalk).

Children are, by their very nature, bumbling and curious and time consuming … Actually that isn’t quite right. They don’t consume my time, they fulfil it. They don’t give value to my life, they give it meaning.

These aren’t simply semantic distinctions, they are clarifications about the nature of human worth. They are clarifications about the nature of reality.

Economic and material language is the great hidden serpent of our age. Without thinking too hard we have invited it into our homes, places of worship, and political institutions, where it whispers slow death and decay, framing our conception of human value with implied economic calculus.

Saying my children “consume my time,” or that they are “valuable,” may seem harmless enough. They reflect observable phenomena: I have only so much time, and when I spend (Ack! “Spend:” there it is again!) time with my kids, that time is technically used.

Likewise, “Consumption” seems like an adequate turn of phrase to describe this occurrence, except the word exists in a larger linguistic context. It is usually used to describe the way in which commodities (and, more recently, content—another disgusting modern perversion) are used in market environments. If the go-to reference point I have for my time is its relationship to money, real or imaginary, what am I really implying by “my kids consume my time”?

Language is not a value-neutral tool. It forms the substrate of our reality. Practically speaking, things don’t exist for us if they can’t be named. There is a cognitive linguistic phenomenon in which people’s perception of colour is limited by the words their language has for various colours. African tribesmen who have no word for orange find it near impossible to distinguish between red and orange. Their language restricted their perception.

The Athenians worshipping an unknown god suffered a similar fate.

Fr. Mark-Mary talks about how to live your best life (but in a Catholic way).

 When we read the lives of the saints, we could be inclined to think that they were way more holy than us, and that they had these extraordinary gifts that made it easy for them to become saints. It’s easy to think that becoming a saint is an unrealistic goal. But the truth is, the saints were just like us. They just chose to live differently, and we can too. 

“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). 

A lot of the time, in trying to judge whether we’re living a life centered in Christ, we compare ourselves to those around us, especially nonbelievers. The problem with this is that, just as it says in Romans 12, we’re not called to be good or better by the world’s standards. We’re called to be saints. And to be saints, it’s going to require an outlook that doesn’t compare ourselves to those around us, but to strive for the perfection of Heaven. 

How can we do this? The answer is a little different for everyone, but it all consists in following the life of Christ, and living in accordance with his teachings. Things like committing ourselves to daily prayer, avoiding sin, performing works of charity; all of these things allow ourselves to transcend this world and reach for the eternal. Everything we do to strengthen our relationship with Christ gets us one step closer to being saints. 

The saints were people who saw this life on earth as an opportunity to better themselves for the sake of the Kingdom. It’s something that each of us can consciously choose to do every day. The beauty of this approach is that, the more we surrender ourselves to the Lord in little ways, the easier it becomes to surrender in larger ways. Powerhouse saints like St. Francis and St. Clare didn’t just magically surrender every part of themselves to Christ; it all started with little things like saying a morning offering every morning, or refraining from gossiping, or volunteering at their local charity. And this is what we are all called to do. 

Instead of judging the success of your life by looking at those around you, look instead to the Church and the lives of the saints, and ask yourself “What more can I do to give my life to Christ?” We aren’t called to be conformed to the world, but to transform it through our faith and our witness.