Canada the Cruel

How are we distinguishable from these guys?:

Although the "Sterilization Law" sometimes functioned arbitrarily, the semblance of legality underpinning it was important to the Nazi regime. More than 200 Hereditary Health Courts were set up across Germany and later, annexed territories. Each was made up of two physicians and one district judge. Doctors were required to register with these courts every known case of hereditary illness. Appeals courts were also established, but few decisions were ever reversed. Exemptions were sometimes given artists or other talented persons afflicted with mental illnesses. The "Sterilization Law" was followed by the Marriage Law of 1935, which required for all marriages proof that any offspring from the union would not be afflicted with a disabling hereditary disease.

Only the Roman Catholic Church, for doctrinal reasons, opposed the sterilization program consistently; most German Protestant churches accepted and often cooperated with the policy. Popular films such as Das Erbe ("Inheritance") helped build public support for government policies by stigmatizing the mentally ill and the handicapped and highlighting the costs of care. School mathematics books posed such questions as: "The construction of a lunatic asylum costs 6 million marks. How many houses at 15,000 marks each could have been built for that amount?" ...

In 1935 Hitler stated privately that "in the event of war, [he] would take up the question of euthanasia and enforce it" because "such a problem would be more easily solved" during wartime. War would provide both a cover for killing and a pretext--hospital beds and medical personnel would be freed up for the war effort. The upheaval of war and the diminished value of human life during wartime would also, Hitler believed, mute expected opposition. To make the connection to the war explicit, Hitler's decree was backdated to September 1, 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland.

Fearful of public reaction, the Nazi regime never proposed a formal "euthanasia" law. Unlike the forced sterilizations, the killing of patients in mental asylums and other institutions was carried out in secrecy. The code name was "Operation T4," a reference to Tiergartenstrasse 4, the address of the Berlin Chancellery offices where the program was headquartered.

Physicians, the most highly Nazified professional group in Germany, were key to the success of "T-4," since they organized and carried out nearly, all aspects of the operation. One of Hitler's personal physicians, Dr. Karl Brandt, headed the program, along with Hitler's Chancellery chief, Philip Bouhler. T-4 targeted adult patients in all government or church-run sanatoria and nursing homes. These institutions were instructed by the Interior Ministry to collect questionnaires about the state of health and capacity for work of all their patients, ostensibly as part of a statistical survey.

The completed forms were, in turn, sent to expert assessors physicians, usually psychiatrists, who made up "review commissions." They marked each name with a "+," in red pencil, meaning death, or a "" in blue pencil, meaning life, or "?" for cases needing additional assessment. These medical experts rarely examined any of the patients and made their decisions from the questionnaires alone. At every step, the medical authorities involved were usually expected to quickly process large numbers of forms.

 

We're not:

Mr Fraser had just joined the growing number of Canadians — more than 10,000 last year alone — who have availed themselves of the world's most permissive government-assisted suicide programme. 

That figure, equivalent to 3.3 per cent of the total number of Canadians who died, was up 32.4 per cent on the previous year. 

So grimly generous are Canada's euthanasia laws, in fact, that while he'd had a difficult existence that included liver disease, an inability to walk and depression, Mr Fraser was by no means dying. 

Instead, he admitted that his poverty would prevent him from living a dignified life. Once regarded as completely taboo, euthanasia is becoming increasingly accepted around a world ever more keen to cater for the rights of the individual — including the right to decide when and how they die. 

It's a world that is also struggling to cope with the soaring cost of healthcare, making it more attractive than ever to encourage those who are a particularly heavy burden on the health system to consider cheaper alternatives. 

Such as ending their lives. With Canada extending its MAiD, or Medical Assistance in Dying programme, to the mentally ill and potentially even to children — and the Quebec College of Physicians calling for it to be legal to kill severely ill or disabled newborns — experts have compared the country's runaway euthanasia system to the Nazis' mass murder of 'undesirables' such as the disabled who were 'polluting' their Aryan gene pool.

That explains a lot, actually:

New polling data suggests nearly two-thirds of Canadians are unaware of the federal government’s plan to extend medical assistance in dying to people suffering only from mental illness.

 

It's not just killing people. It's outright selfishness, too:

Even as demand spikes for food banks and other charitable supports, a new report finds that Canadians are now donating less to charity than at any other time on record.

“The number of Canadians donating to charity — as a percentage of all tax filers — is at the lowest point in 20 years,” claimed the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute upon the release of its latest generosity index.

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You can’t feed and clothe the homeless without a permit, the City of Oshawa is telling a group of community volunteers.

The Ontario city’s bylaw enforcement division is threatening to fine organizers if they proceed with their “Christmas Stockings for the Homeless” event planned for Sunday afternoon at the city’s downtown Memorial Park.

The event is hosted by Communities for Freedom, a loose association of friends who met during the Freedom Convoy and wanted to “rebuild” their community.

On Sunday, they planned to distribute socks, underwear, feminine hygiene products and toiletries to upwards of fifty homeless people and provide a free turkey lunch with juice and hot chocolate.

A city bylaw enforcement officer emailed organizer Ashley Wickett Thursday afternoon to warn that the city “may issue Administrative Monetary Penalties to any or all individuals involved in the organizing of the event or distribution.”