Canada the Cruel

Emulating the worst examples of tyranny:

 Many Germans did not want to be reminded of individuals who did not measure up to their concept of a "master race" and were considered "unfit" or "handicapped." People with physical and mental disabilities were viewed as "useless" to society, a threat to Aryan genetic purity, and, ultimately, "unworthy of life." At the beginning of World War II, individuals with mental or physical disabilities were targeted for murder in what the Nazis called the "T-4," or "euthanasia," program.

The Euthanasia Program required the cooperation of many German doctors, who reviewed the medical files of patients in institutions to determine which individuals with disabilities should be killed. The doctors also supervised the actual killings. Doomed patients were transferred to six institutions in Germany and Austria, where they were killed in specially constructed gas chambers. Infants and small children with disabilities were also killed by injection with a deadly dose of drugs or by starvation. The bodies of the victims were burned in large ovens called crematoria.

Despite public protests in 1941, the Nazi leadership continued this program in secret throughout the war. About 200,000 people with disabilities were murdered between 1940 and 1945.

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Canada, which already has one of the world’s most permissive euthanasia laws, is set to explicitly allow euthanasia on the basis of mental illness alone next year. 

“Helping people with autism and intellectual disabilities to die is essentially eugenics,” Tim Stainton, director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship at the University of British Columbia told the AP. 

In 2021, Canada expanded its 2016 euthanasia law from allowing the killing of people with a foreseeable death due to terminable illness to those with chronic conditions and disabilities. The law also explicitly allows for euthanasia due to mental illness alone starting in 2024.

This aspect was delayed to allow time to draw up parameters for such requests for euthanasia to be fulfilled. Opponents of the measure are sounding the alarm bells, as euthanasia has grown 30% already.

A new Health Canada report, which was published in October, found that under the more liberal law, the practice of euthanasia jumped 30% from 2021 to 2022 alone. Additionally, the report found that 3.5% of people euthanized did not have a terminal diagnosis.

Dr. Sonu Gaind, psychiatrist-in-chief at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, told CBS News that although the percentage is small, the most disturbing aspect of the report is its dismissal of the significance of these deaths by euthanasia. 

“The proportion of MAID [Medical Assistance in Dying] recipients whose natural death was not reasonably foreseeable continues to remain very small compared to the total number of MAID recipients,” the report states.

Gaind said this “completely minimizes the numbers.”

She also criticized the report for its lack of data related to equity and diversity or marginalized populations. According to the report, that information will be included in the 2024 report.

“They’re saying that won’t be recorded until next year’s report,” Gaind said. “And yet, we’re still going ahead with further expansion.”