Dignity. Compassion. Harm. Justice. Autonomy.

Listen long enough, and it can become difficult to understand how people who agree that human dignity matters, that suffering deserves a response and that medicine should not cause harm can reach conclusions that are almost perfectly opposed.

The usual explanation is that assisted dying is a battle between autonomy and the sanctity of life. One side believes people should be free to decide when their suffering has become intolerable; the other believes human life is sacred and cannot intentionally be ended. That description contains truth, but it obscures something more interesting happening underneath it.

The arguments don’t always begin in the same place.

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Before questions about eligibility or medical practice, before capacity assessments and definitions of intolerable suffering, there is a more basic question: Can intentionally ending a human life ever be morally permissible?

For someone whose answer is no, much of the assisted-dying debate has already been settled. Circumstances still matter. So do consent, suffering and the quality of care someone has received. But they cannot make an impermissible act permissible.

But even the yes contains a divide. For some, accepting assisted dying as morally permissible begins an ethical inquiry into the conditions under which it can be justified. For others, a competent person’s autonomous desire to die carries much greater ethical weight, and additional requirements may themselves demand justification. From that perspective, what one person calls a safeguard may look to another like an unjustified restriction on autonomy. The disagreement, then, is not only between no and yes. It also exists within the yes: between those who believe autonomy must be weighed alongside other ethical obligations and those who believe it should generally prevail.

My own entry into this debate came through one of those cases. My mother was 61 and was not terminally ill when she received medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in British Columbia in 2021. Three days earlier, she had attempted suicide. She was subsequently detained involuntarily in a psychiatric unit and released on the morning of Oct. 29. Approximately four hours later, she was euthanized.

Her death contains an ethical contradiction. One part of the health care system had recently determined that her desire to die warranted intervention. Another accepted that desire as the basis for an assisted death.

Whatever one believes about the morality of assisted dying itself, there are questions contained inside that sequence of events. What constitutes meaningful consent? How should capacity be understood following a suicide attempt? What obligations does medicine have when a patient asks to die? How should autonomy be weighed against medicine’s other ethical obligations?

Those questions eventually led me back to a word that appears everywhere in this debate.

Dignity.

I spent considerable time thinking about the word while writing The Other Side of the Straitjacket. One historical thread in the book concerns what happens when human worth becomes conditional. Nazi Germany’s persecution and killing of disabled and ill people relied in part on a classification of some lives as less worthy of living. The premise was not merely that some people suffered. Certain characteristics could make a human life less worthy of protection.

The idea I kept returning to was much simpler: dignity isn’t something a person qualifies for. A person does not become less dignified because she is disabled, dependent, cognitively impaired or unable to contribute economically. Human beings possess dignity because they are human.

That proposition can be theological. It doesn’t have to be. Versions of it run through secular philosophy, disability rights and the postwar human-rights tradition.

Yet dignity is also one of the words most closely associated with assisted dying. There, it can carry another meaning: self-determination, bodily control and the ability to decide which forms of suffering or dependence are compatible with the life one wants to live. Two people can therefore insist, with equal conviction, that they are defending human dignity while disagreeing about what should happen to the person at the centre of the argument.

That disagreement quickly becomes more than semantic. If dignity is inherent, then illness, disability and dependence cannot diminish it. But if dignity also encompasses self-determination, denying someone control over the circumstances of their death can itself be understood as an affront to dignity. The word hasn’t changed. The moral work we are asking it to perform has.

Something similar happens when the conversation turns to harm. Medicine has an obligation not to cause it, but that offers less guidance than it first appears to. Is the harm the intentional ending of a patient’s life, or can harm also lie in requiring a competent person to continue living with suffering they find intolerable? Once those possibilities are placed beside each other, “do no harm” stops functioning as an answer and becomes another question.

Suffering introduces yet another complication. If suffering is subjective, the person experiencing it has an authority that no physician or government can fully assume. But medicine has never treated a patient’s assessment of suffering as the only consideration governing what clinicians may do in response to it. Whether an autonomous request creates a corresponding medical obligation is itself part of the dispute. Medicine has traditionally recognized limits on what patient autonomy can require of a clinician; assisted dying forces the question of where those limits should sit.

That tension is particularly visible when disability enters the discussion. A prohibition can be described as discriminatory because it denies a disabled person access to a choice available to others. Expanding access can also be described as discriminatory if disability becomes a condition under which the state is prepared to facilitate a death that, in different clinical circumstances, might trigger efforts to prevent it. Both arguments appeal to equality, but one locates the injustice in denying access while the other locates it in offering less protection.

By this point, even compassion has become difficult to use without qualification. The person who believes death should never be intentionally caused may see compassion in staying with someone through suffering and refusing to abandon them to it. The person who believes assisted death can sometimes be justified may see compassion in accepting that there are forms of suffering another human being should not be forced to endure. Neither position makes much sense if the other is reduced to cruelty.

If the answer to whether intentionally ending human life can ever be morally permissible is no, these ambiguities do not disappear, but they operate inside a boundary that has already been established. Suffering matters. Autonomy matters. Justice matters. Compassion matters. None can make an intrinsically impermissible act permissible.

If the answer is yes, another disagreement emerges over how those ambiguities should be resolved. For some, autonomy must be weighed against beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and the obligations of medicine. For others, giving those competing considerations too much authority risks allowing clinicians or the state to substitute their judgment for that of a competent person. The argument has moved beyond whether assisted dying can be permissible to who gets to decide when it is permissible, and according to which values.

This is why separating theology from ethics is both useful and surprisingly difficult. Theology can establish a moral premise from which the ethical questions that follow are answered. But theology does not have exclusive ownership of that premise, just as secular ethics does not have exclusive ownership of autonomy, dignity or compassion.

An argument that human dignity is inherent may come from Christian theology, Kantian philosophy — which understands human worth as intrinsic rather than something earned through usefulness or circumstance — disability rights or human-rights law. A concern about autonomy may come from someone who supports assisted dying or someone who opposes it but believes deeply in patient self-determination. A physician can question what “do no harm” requires in an assisted death without invoking religion at all.

The difficulty is that none of these words announces which argument is hiding behind it. Dignity can mean that human worth is inherent, or that self-determination is integral to a dignified life. Justice can demand equal protection or equal access. Compassion can mean refusing to intentionally end a life or refusing to prolong suffering against someone’s wishes. “Do no harm” depends, rather inconveniently, on where we locate the harm.

This makes the usual division between supporters and opponents of assisted dying less useful than it first appears. Two people can agree that dignity is inherent and disagree about assisted dying. They can place enormous value on autonomy and disagree about its limits. They can agree that vulnerability matters and disagree about whether the greater danger lies in restricting a person’s choice or in treating a choice as autonomous when the circumstances surrounding it may have constrained it.

The reverse is possible too. Two people can look at the same assisted death and agree that it should never have happened, while disagreeing completely about why.

One may believe the act was wrong because intentionally ending human life is always wrong. Another may believe it was wrong because the conditions necessary to make an assisted death ethically defensible were not met. A third may ask whether, if the person was competent and acting voluntarily, any further justification was required at all.

The disagreement is no longer simply about assisted dying. It is about what makes a decision ethically legitimate in the first place.

That distinction becomes especially important when these questions move out of philosophy and into law. A pluralistic society cannot assume that everyone shares the same theology, but neither can it escape making moral judgments simply by calling them ethics. Every eligibility criterion and assessment standard contains a judgment about autonomy, suffering, harm, equality and the circumstances under which one value should prevail over another.

Perhaps this is why the assisted-dying debate can feel simultaneously repetitive and impossible to resolve. We keep returning to the same handful of words—dignity, autonomy, compassion, justice, harm—as though agreement on the vocabulary means we are discussing the same thing, when often we aren’t.

The more interesting question may not be which side of assisted dying someone occupies, but which premise they started with, what they mean by the values they invoke, and how those meanings change the conclusions that follow.

Map those arguments carefully enough, and the familiar line between the two sides begins to look considerably less like a line.

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I write and speak about mental illness, grief, trauma and the difficult questions surrounding assisted dying. Your support helps me continue researching, writing and bringing these conversations to audiences in Canada and beyond. If my work has resonated with you, buy me a coffee to help me keep going.

And if you’re interested in reading The Other Side of the Straitjacket: A Daughter’s Story of Mental Illness and Assisted Dying, it’s available here or can be ordered anywhere books are sold.

There were people who had known her as a child, people she worked with and travelled with, and people who had been there for our family when we needed them most. There were also people I never would have known if my mom hadn’t died. People I’ve met through advocacy, Parliament and the assisted-dying conversation. People who have supported me and helped carry her story much further than I ever imagined it would go.

Obviously, this book grew out of an incredibly difficult period in my life and in my family’s life. But what I couldn’t have known when all of this began was how many good things, and how many incredible people, would also come into my life because I chose to tell this story.

And while my name is on the cover, The Other Side of the Straitjacket was never my idea.

It began with my mom.

I was ten, sitting at our worn kitchen table, when she first told me about her dream: to write about mental illness from the patient’s perspective. To show the people behind the diagnoses. She spoke with a kind of quiet excitement, like she was letting me in on something she hadn’t said out loud before. She already had a title: The Other Side of the Straitjacket. The idea never left her. It surfaced over the years, in conversations, in her journals, in the way she saw people.

I told her I’d design the cover. We laughed, imagining the day she’d finally sit down and write it.

Over time, I began to see how deeply she connected with her patients, how those connections stretched across years, sometimes decades, and how they left imprints on her heart that never quite faded. Two patients, in particular, stayed with her. Not just because of their diagnoses but because of what they revealed about the human spirit, and eventually, about her own.

One was a man who described himself as an astral traveller. “Each night, while my body rests, my spirit leaves,” he told her. “I go where I’m needed.” He claimed to be mediating peace talks between Protestant and Catholic leaders. Not figuratively. Literally. At a long wooden table, in a candlelit room, helping repair centuries of hate.

At the time, Mom followed her training, marking it as a delusion and moving on. But years later, when she told me about him, she wasn’t dismissive. By then, she was already exploring spirituality herself: energy healing, meditation, reincarnation. When she spoke of him, it wasn’t as a patient to be managed, but as a teacher she hadn’t expected.

She was reflective, wondering aloud: “What if, in some inexplicable way, his spirit really was doing something meaningful? What if his sacred task was happening in a realm that most of us don’t dare to imagine?”

The other was a man who thought he was a robot. He moved like one, spoke in mechanical tones, and made sound effects with his body: clicks, beeps, robotic inflections. When he pulled a comb from his pocket, moving with jerky, theatrical precision, and made fake gear sounds while fixing his hair, Mom laughed. The kind of laugh that escapes before you can stop it, a slip in her professional shell.

It startled him. For a split second, he froze. And then, slowly, he winked.

Just like that, the mask slipped.

To her, it wasn’t only a delusion. It was theatre. A performance. Protection. A way to navigate a world that hadn’t made space for him. And her unguarded laughter, that moment of weakness, became the doorway into his truth.

Stories like these shaped her. They shaped me too.

Where does delusion end and faith begin? I learned early that the line between the two is thinner than most people care to admit.

In the end, someone who had spent her life caring for patients could no longer make the distinction.

The last time my mom and I spoke about her writing The Other Side of the Straitjacket was two weeks before she died. I had absolutely no idea what was about to happen. I only knew she was struggling, and I was desperately trying to give her something to hold onto. Something in the future.

Two weeks later, she was gone.

In the months after she died, something began happening that I still don’t really know how to explain. My mom started showing up in my dreams. Not once, but repeatedly, and she kept telling me the same thing: write the book.

Depending on what you believe, you can make of that what you will, but eventually, I listened.

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There was a cruel irony in taking on the book my mom had imagined. She wanted people to look beyond a diagnosis and see the person underneath it. Decades later, she became the patient.

My mom was probably one of the most unlikely people I could have imagined this happening to. She had spent her career in psychiatric nursing. She understood mental illness and had cared for people during some of the most vulnerable periods of their lives.

Then, suddenly, other people were interpreting her behaviour, her suffering and her choices. After she died, her final weeks became medical records, legal criteria, news coverage and an argument about assisted dying.

But before any of that, she was just my mom.

In some ways, I came to understand my mom better after she died than I had while she was alive. After she was gone, I had access to records, journals, conversations and pieces of her history that I hadn’t had before. She had always been incredibly protective of my sister and me. Even when she was the one struggling, she kept certain pieces of herself just out of reach.

There was something incredibly painful about finally being able to lay all those pieces in front of me and see connections I hadn’t been able to see when she was alive. I finally understood things when there was no longer anything I could do with that understanding.

That changed what the book needed to be. I didn’t just want to tell people what happened to my mom. I wanted to understand her, and I wanted the reader to understand her too.

That question followed me through every rewrite, and there were a lot of rewrites. I wrote the book three times before it became the version that exists today. The title never changed, but its meaning expanded for me.

When Mom chose The Other Side of the Straitjacket, the other side meant the patient’s side. As I wrote, I began to see it as something more: an invitation to question what we think we know about mental illness, assisted dying, autonomy, grief and even the people we love.

If I was going to ask readers to do that, I had to be willing to do it too. I had to acknowledge where I had been wrong and be honest about my mom and myself. I wasn’t writing a book to tell people which side they should be on. I wanted to write a book that might make someone curious enough to look at the other one.

That became the book people were holding on Thursday night.

When I looked around the room at the launch, I was struck by how Donna was part of the reason all of us were standing in the same room. I don’t think I understood when I started writing this book that this would become part of the story too. That losing someone could create connection, and that one person’s story could keep moving outward long after they were gone.

Now people I have never met are reading about my mom. They’re messaging me about passages they’ve underlined and finding pieces of their own experiences inside something that began as ours.

I know not everyone who reads this book will agree with everything I have to say, and I don’t expect them to. What I hope is that they’re willing to be curious. That someone who thinks they already know exactly how they feel about mental illness or assisted dying might encounter something in these pages that complicates that certainty.

More than anything, I hope they see my mom as more than a case, a headline or an argument about assisted dying. I hope they see Donna.

When I was ten years old, sitting at that worn kitchen table, I told my mom that when she finally wrote The Other Side of the Straitjacket, I would design the cover. More than thirty years later, I did. I don’t think either of us imagined that I would also be the one to write the book.

The book she imagined is now here, carrying the title she chose and the cover I promised her.

I wish she could have been standing in that room to see it. I wish she could have seen the people her story has brought into my life and all the places the book she dreamed about is beginning to go. But maybe that isn’t quite the right way to say it, because I don’t believe my relationship with my mom ended when she died.

I believe that death is not the end of a relationship; it is the beginning of a different one. Grief teaches you that love, when it’s real, doesn’t need a body to keep going, the echo of one life carried gently by another.

I feel my mom with me when I speak out, when I hold space for someone’s grief, when I ask hard questions in rooms that would rather stay comfortable. She is gone in the physical sense, but she is everywhere I allow her to be.

Growing up, Mom told us she’d send us butterflies after she was gone. And she has. They appear in the smallest, most ordinary ways: a tattoo on a server’s arm, a logo on the side of a shoe, a flash of wings outside the window when I least expect it. Each time, I pause.

Whether it’s a coincidence or a connection is irrelevant. What matters is that these glimpses remind me she is still here, in ways that can’t be measured or explained, small, quiet moments that ripple outward, carrying her forward.

The Monarch butterfly, which famously migrates up to three thousand miles, reminds us that fragility isn’t weakness; it’s motion. It’s what keeps the air moving, what allows one small act to reach further than we imagine. It’s the invisible currents between us, connections strong enough to hold even when everything else gives way.

And in the end, everything that follows, the lives reshaped and what remains, waits on the other side.

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I write and speak about mental illness, grief, trauma and the difficult questions surrounding assisted dying. Your support helps me continue researching, writing and bringing these conversations to audiences in Canada and beyond. If my work has resonated with you, buy me a coffee to help me keep going.

And if you’re interested in reading The Other Side of the Straitjacket: A Daughter’s Story of Mental Illness and Assisted Dying, it’s available here or can be ordered anywhere books are sold.

I came to this issue not through ideology, but through experience. In October 2021, my mother died by MAiD in British Columbia after a rapid decline marked by severe weight loss, chronic pain, psychiatric deterioration, disordered eating, and profound hopelessness. My family believed these circumstances raised serious questions about vulnerability, capacity, and whether her desire to die reflected enduring autonomy or the distortions of untreated mental suffering.

The questions we asked in the aftermath changed the course of my life. What began as a daughter’s attempt to understand how this could happen evolved into years of investigation involving Freedom of Information requests, regulatory complaints, and what became Canada’s first police investigation into a MAiD death. That work eventually led me to testify before parliamentary committees on two separate occasions and to discussions with policymakers in the United Kingdom and Scotland. It also became the foundation for my forthcoming book, The Other Side of the Straitjacket: A Daughter’s Story of Mental Illness and Assisted Dying.

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What has struck me most over these years is not simply the polarization surrounding MAiD, but the increasingly narrow boundaries of acceptable discourse around it.

Every ethically serious medical practice should be able to tolerate scrutiny, especially one involving the intentional ending of human life. Yet in Canada’s MAiD debate, criticism is often treated less as a contribution to oversight than as a threat to the legitimacy of the system itself. Questions about safeguards are reframed as attacks on autonomy. Concerns about psychiatric vulnerability are dismissed as ideological opposition. Scientific uncertainty is presented to the public with a confidence that the underlying evidence does not always justify.

One of the clearest examples of this is the debate over the physiological effects of MAiD medications. Public discussion of this issue gained momentum following the work of Dr. Joel Zivot, an American anesthesiologist and expert in lethal injection pharmacology, who raised concerns during testimony before the Canadian Senate in 2021 as Canada was considering the expansion of its MAiD regime to include individuals whose natural death was not reasonably foreseeable. Zivot questioned whether the drug protocols used in assisted dying may, in some cases, lead to rapid fluid accumulation in the lungs—a condition known as pulmonary edema, which impairs oxygen exchange and, in severe cases, may produce a dying process he described as more akin to drowning.

His testimony raised an important question: how much do we actually know about the physiological effects of MAiD medications during the dying process?

Recently, I came across a Substack article from a MAiD advocacy platform criticizing military veteran and MAiD critic Kelsi Sheren for raising concerns about pulmonary edema during assisted dying. In dismissing those concerns, the authors wrote: “Perhaps the most common and harmful example is her claim that the MAiD medications cause fluid to build up in the lungs and cause the person to drown—which is completely untrue.”

I found that statement deeply troubling—not simply because I disagree with it, but because I possess evidence that directly challenges it.

Through Freedom of Information records, I obtained documentation of the precise medications and dosages administered to end my mother’s life. The protocol was neither unusual nor experimental. It matched the standard intravenous drug regimen recommended by the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP).

I also possess something extraordinarily rare in a MAiD case: an autopsy.

Because MAiD deaths are generally classified as expected deaths with a known cause, autopsies are seldom performed. As a result, post-mortem evidence examining the physiological effects of MAiD medications in real-world settings remains remarkably limited.

My mother’s autopsy documented pulmonary edema.

Whatever conclusions one draws from a single case, it leaves little room for absolutism.

I am not suggesting this proves pulmonary edema occurs in every MAiD death, nor that every patient experiences conscious respiratory distress. It does, however, establish an important point: pulmonary edema can occur after the administration of standard MAiD medications.

That makes the assertion that such concerns are “completely untrue” difficult to defend.

A more intellectually honest position would be to acknowledge that we do not yet know how often pulmonary edema occurs during MAiD, under what circumstances it develops, or what clinical significance it may carry, largely because the research simply has not been done.

I have attempted to engage directly with the authors of this Substack on this issue. I approached them in good faith, outlining the evidence in my possession and raising what I believe are legitimate questions about the physiological effects of MAiD and the troubling lack of meaningful clinical research in this area.

What I encountered was not curiosity, but defensiveness. And that, in many ways, captures the deeper problem.

Increasingly, I see advocacy groups, institutions, and stakeholders responding to questions about MAiD not by openly examining potential flaws in the system, but by protecting the system from scrutiny. The impulse is not to ask what might be missing from our understanding, but how confidence in the existing narrative can be preserved.

This is a pattern I know intimately. My family experienced it repeatedly after my mother’s death. Over time, I came to recognize this pattern as a form of institutional gaslighting. Not overt manipulation, but something subtler: selective framing, strategic omission, and unwavering certainty in areas where meaningful uncertainty remains.

The effect is profound. People begin to question what they witnessed, what they know, and whether their observations are legitimate—not because the evidence disproved them, but because the dominant narrative leaves no room for competing truths.

That principle matters profoundly in medicine, where progress has never depended on the defence of existing assumptions, but on the willingness to question them. Medicine advances because clinicians and researchers remain open to anomalies, willing to investigate uncomfortable evidence, and humble enough to acknowledge the limits of current knowledge. Ethical systems should demand no less of themselves.

That is why the growing defensiveness surrounding MAiD concerns me. Any system empowered to intentionally end life carries an extraordinary burden of accountability. Public trust in such a system cannot rest on polished messaging or categorical reassurance; it must be earned through transparency, rigorous scrutiny, and a genuine willingness to examine where safeguards may fail.

What concerns me most is not disagreement, nor even criticism. It is the gradual normalization of a culture in which difficult questions are treated as threats rather than as necessary components of ethical oversight. Once that happens, the goal subtly shifts. The priority is no longer understanding what is true, but preserving confidence in what is already believed.

That is a dangerous place for medicine—or for any institution entrusted with irreversible decisions—to operate.

I would trade anything

to go back six hours.

No—twelve.

Give me twelve.

I’d find a way to reach you.

I’d show up.

I’d knock until my knuckles bled.

I wouldn’t leave.

I didn’t even get a last call.

No warning.

No moment to say wait.

Just a before

and an after.

I keep trying to bargain

with something—anything—

the universe, God, time itself.

Take anything.

Take years off my life.

Take my sleep, my breath—

just give her back.

This can’t be permanent.

This can’t be real.

There has to be a version of today

where you’re still here

and I just took a different path

to get to you in time.

I would tear reality open

to find it.

How could you leave us like this?

10 days since you left us

I scroll through our messages

like I might find something new.

Some hidden meaning,

some warning I missed,

some version of you

asking me to stop you.

But everything looks so… normal.

Like life didn’t know

it was about to end.

I keep thinking—

if I had said the right thing,

at the right moment…

Would you still be here?

Or was I always too far away

to reach you?

How could you leave us like this?

30 days since you left us

They call it “assisted.”

They call it “peace.”

They call it “choice.”

But none of those words

sit right in my chest.

Because it feels like something else.

Something I’m not supposed to say out loud.

It feels like being abandoned

with a permission slip.

How could you leave us like this?

365 days since you left us

A year of learning

that grief doesn’t soften—

it just changes shape.

I can laugh now.

I can breathe most days.

I can say your name

without completely unravelling.

But the question—

it stayed.

It grew roots.

It lives in the quiet moments,

in birthdays,

in ordinary Tuesdays.

And I finally understand something

I didn’t want to know:

There is no answer coming.

No explanation big enough

to hold this.

Just a question

with nowhere to go.

How could you leave us like this?

On December 5, 2025, MPs opened debate on Bill C-218, the latest effort to halt the planned expansion of medical assistance in dying to people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness. The expansion has been built into federal law since 2021, when Parliament broadened MAiD beyond end-of-life cases and set a delayed timeline—initially 2024—for adding eligibility for mental illness. That deadline was later pushed to 2027 after repeated warnings from clinicians, disability-rights advocates, and a federal review committee that Canada still lacks the standards and safeguards needed to assess these requests safely.

This isn’t the first attempt to reverse course. An earlier bill, introduced by MP Ed Fast, sought to repeal the mental-illness expansion but was narrowly defeated in the House of Commons. Bill C-218 now brings the question back to Parliament, offering MPs another opportunity to decide whether the expansion should proceed or be stopped entirely.

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Below is the speech delivered at the press conference ahead of the debate, along with the full video of the event.

Good morning. My name is Alicia Duncan, and I am here today as the daughter of Donna Duncan—who died through Canada’s medical assistance in dying regime, becoming the first MAiD death in history to trigger a police investigation.

A single moment changed the course of her life. A concussion in February 2020 marked the beginning of her mental and physical decline. Over the next twenty months, her symptoms worsened. She became anxious, depressed, and paranoid, turning to the medical system for answers. But test after test revealed nothing. Her weight was dropping drastically with no clear explanation—and with it, her hope of recovery.

When she brought her MAiD request to her longtime physician, he refused to assess her, believing she wasn’t engaging with treatment. But under the law, he was required to refer her to someone who would.

We would later learn from her medical records that she was consuming roughly 800 calories a day—so frail that the two clinicians who assessed her, nurse practitioner Shawn Young and Dr. Grace Park under the Fraser Health Authority, interpreted this as a “reasonably foreseeable” death. Her MAiD procedure was scheduled for two days later.

But my sister and I saw what the assessors did not, and in a last-ditch attempt to save her life, we provided evidence to a provincial court judge—who halted her MAiD appointment to allow for a psychiatric assessment.

When our mom learned her death had been postponed, she attempted to end her own life and was placed on a temporary involuntary hold in the very psychiatric unit she once managed. She had spent her career as a psychiatric nurse, caring for people in crisis. But when she needed care, psychiatrists deemed her capable—despite every indicator of the opposite—and released her, knowing she was returning home to pursue MAiD. Four hours later, my sister and I received texts from her common-law partner: she was gone.

There was no chance for a final conversation. We said goodbye to her frozen body in a crematorium, the IV used to inject the MAiD drugs still in her arm—inches above the incision from her suicide attempt days earlier. That image became the source of flashbacks, later diagnosed as post traumatic stress disorder.

In the weeks that followed, we searched for answers. What we found was a system with no mechanism for accountability. Her records were contradictory. Another recent overdose attempt had never been disclosed. Self-diagnosed conditions were written as clinical fact.

When we brought this evidence to the police, they opened an unprecedented investigation in Canada’s MAiD history. But Fraser Health refused to release the MAiD assessment records, even to investigators. The Privacy Commissioner upheld that refusal. The only person legally entitled to request the documents that might reveal whether her assisted suicide was lawful was my mother. And she was dead.

Her death compelled our family into advocacy. It has carried her story to the federal committee reviewing Canada’s assisted-suicide laws in 2022, where policymakers confronted the ethical terrain her case laid bare. And earlier this year, it carried that story into parliamentary rooms across the United Kingdom, where lawmakers are studying Canada as a test case as they consider legalizing assisted suicide there. What our family lived through stands as evidence of a law expanding faster than the safeguards meant to keep people safe.

Four years later, we still do not know whether the law was followed. Not because the truth is complicated, but because the system is designed to prevent families—and even police—from finding out.

Her case showed there is no requirement for a practitioner to verify a diagnosis for a MAiD assessment. No burden of proof. No consequence when errors end a life. No access to records. No appeal. There is no meaningful oversight.

And now, in fifteen months, Canada is scheduled to expand assisted suicide to those whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness. Yet leading experts warn: mental illness cannot be declared irremediable. There is no test, no scan, no metric that can say a person’s recovery is impossible.

Autonomy—the word we hear so often—does not survive in a system where the alternatives are untreated suffering, homelessness, poverty, extensive waitlists for specialists, emergency room closures, or disability payments that do not cover rent. Autonomy collapses when people are forced to choose between pain and death because care simply does not exist.

But consider this: if restricting MAiD is viewed as a violation of human rights, then denying Canadians timely access to care must also be understood as a violation of their human rights.

My mother’s life—and her death—reveals something we can no longer ignore: a country that cannot reliably provide care cannot responsibly provide death as its substitute.

In the coming months, MPs will vote on Bill C-218. If passed, its impact will be profound: it will permanently halt the upcoming MAiD expansion, sending a message that people living with mental illness deserve a meaningful standard of care.

To Canadians listening: your voice matters. Call your MP. Visit their office. Tell them what this issue means to you. Because if someone you love is ever in a moment of crisis and approved for MAiD—with no legal recourse to protect them—this moment may come back to you with a question you cannot undo: what if I had spoken up?

And to Members of Parliament: you are not casting a vote on ideology. You are casting a vote on whether mental illness is met with treatment and dignity—or with a state-sanctioned death…and whether stories like my mother’s become rarer, or more common.

History will not remember the talking points or the politics of this moment. It will remember the lives saved or lost because of the choice you made. If Canada is going to defend the right to die with dignity, then we must first defend the right to live with dignity.

Thank you.

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Through a Freedom of Information request, internal government documents were revealed. These show a deliberate effort to keep questionable MAiD deaths out of the hands of law enforcement.

In a November 2023 memo addressed to Stephen Brown, BC’s Deputy Minister of Health, officials warned that:

“Overly strict or severe use of referrals… may discourage physicians or nurse practitioners from providing MAiD despite high demand.”

The memo recommended the creation of a “weighted criteria model” to internally assess infractions and decide which cases, if any, should be reported to police.

Let’s pause here.

In almost every other area of government oversight, such as policing, social work, education, or financial auditing, systems are in place to ensure independent review. However, in BC’s MAiD system, the same individuals responsible for compliance are also helping to steer the program’s expansion.

Sara Bergen serves as both the Director of MAiD for British Columbia and the leader of the MAiD Oversight Unit, which is responsible for overseeing implementation and strategic direction, as well as managing the review of MAiD cases for compliance.

This merging of operational leadership and oversight authority raises serious concerns about transparency and accountability.

Bergen was also a featured speaker at the 2025 Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP) conference. The organization has played a central role in normalizing MAiD as a standard part of healthcare. Its members regularly appear in media, write policy guidance, and provide training to new assessors. CAMAP has strongly supported expanding eligibility criteria, including for those whose sole condition is a mental illness, a change set to take effect in 2027.

So when the Director of Oversight is also being platformed by the movement pushing for expansion, we have a serious conflict of interest.

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I have followed this system closely for years and have become an advocate for stronger safeguards in Canada's assisted dying regime because I had no choice.

My personal connection to this issue runs deep, and what I have seen is profoundly disturbing.

My mom died by MAiD in British Columbia in October 2021, just hours after being released from an involuntary psychiatric hold following a suicide attempt.

She had no terminal diagnosis.

The decision felt rushed, opaque, and entirely outside the scope of what the law intended.

We believed something had gone terribly wrong.

As the executor of my mom's estate, I was granted access to her medical records by her general practitioner immediately after her passing, but what shocked us was that her MAiD assessments, which should be included in her medical records, were missing. If MAiD is considered part of someone’s healthcare, we didn’t understand why they were omitted from her healthcare record.

So we requested her MAiD assessment records directly from Fraser Health to see if there was something we had missed. Our only concern was to ensure her death was lawful, and we hoped the assessment records would fill in the missing pieces.

At the same time, my sister and I filed formal complaints with the College of Physicians and Surgeons, believing they would investigate the concerns we raised.

However, when we received responses, Fraser Health claimed our request was not in our mother’s interest, despite my legal role as her executor. The College told us it was a criminal matter. It felt like a coordinated effort to avoid responsibility.

Following the college’s advice, we began poring through the medical records we did have. We studied the Criminal Code to learn the nuances of the law. We had no idea which track she had even been approved under.

What we found, or rather, what we did not find, confirmed our worst fear:

Her death, as best as we could understand, did not meet the legal requirements.

With our binder of evidence in hand, including printouts, timelines, diagnoses, and notes from her doctors, we presented it to the police. They reviewed the records, and finally, we got an answer we desperately needed: The major crimes unit was opening an investigation.

It was the first time in Canadian history that a MAiD death was being formally reviewed by law enforcement.

For a moment, we had hope.

But after months of investigation, the case was forced to close. Fraser Health refused to release the MAiD assessment records, even to the police. We were stunned. The police told us that if we found additional evidence, the case could be reopened.

We hired one of the top law firms in Canada and submitted legal requests to Fraser Health, as well as the MAiD Oversight Unit, to access the records. Again, we were denied.

Next, we filed a formal complaint with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of BC (OIPC). We waited a year and a half for an inquiry. When our concerns were finally accepted into the formal process, we spent another three months engaging in legal submissions.

Ultimately, they upheld the decision to withhold the records. The only person who could request the records was my mom, and she was dead.

It felt like a cover-up. As if we were being punished for going public, especially since other families, who had heard our story in the meantime, had reached out to tell us that other health authorities had provided assessment records at their request.

And this is what makes the new FOI findings so disturbing. After everything we experienced, to now see written proof that officials are actively working to keep questionable deaths from being investigated?

It feels like a gut punch, and I cannot help but take this personally.

Because it is personal. My mom’s death should have been a red flag, a case study, a moment for pause. Instead, it became a closed file. Not because the evidence wasn’t there, but because the system is designed to avoid scrutiny.

This is not what oversight looks like.

And when the outcome is death, silence should never be an option.

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Speaking at the July 9, 2025, press conference hosted by MP Tamara Jansen in support of Bill C-218.

Why Bill C-218 Matters

Canada’s MAiD law requires that a person have a grievous and irremediable medical condition. A planned expansion would include people whose only diagnosis is a mental disorder.

But mental illness is not irremediable. It is often episodic, fluctuating, and highly responsive to context, including access to care, housing, trauma support, and social connection.

There is no medical test that can predict whether someone will never recover. Even the Canadian Psychiatric Association has said:

“There is currently no established standard for determining irremediability in mental illness.”

Yet this is the standard MAiD requires.

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This Isn’t About a Cure. It’s About Care. Mental illness can be profoundly painful. I know this firsthand. After my mom's passing, I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and ADHD. Like so many others, I was drowning in grief and disconnection, and I’ve since spent years accessing therapies and supports that helped me not just survive, but begin to heal.

Through psilocybin-assisted therapy, ketamine treatments, EMDR, neurofeedback, breathwork, sound therapy, and ongoing traditional counselling, I’ve experienced real shifts. These weren’t magic solutions; they were part of a long, often difficult process of reclaiming meaning and building a life again.

And I’m not alone. With the proper support, whether that’s psychiatric care, trauma therapy, housing, community, or new healing modalities, people do recover. Or they gain the tools and connection to live meaningful lives alongside their pain.

However, many people still face barriers to accessing this type of care. Waitlists are long. New therapies are often unaffordable. Community-based supports are inconsistent nationwide. We haven’t done the work of building a system that truly meets people where they are.

To expand access to assisted death before we’ve ensured access to real support sends the wrong message. It tells people their pain is permanent, instead of reminding them that help is possible, and that their lives are still worth investing in.

We Can’t Pretend This Is Safe. Supporters of the expansion say the process will be cautious, rigorous, and fair. But we are expanding access to death in a clinical grey zone, with no standardized way to determine if a mental illness is truly irremediable, and in a country where most people can’t access timely, equitable mental health care to begin with.

The Pattern Is Already Emerging. Proponents often claim that MAiD in Canada is working safely. But troubling stories continue to emerge.

Veterans have been offered MAiD instead of treatment for PTSD. People with disabilities have reported applying for MAiD because they couldn’t afford basic supports or housing. Individuals with chronic pain, poverty, or trauma histories have died, not because no options existed, but because none were made accessible.

These are not one-offs. They reflect a pattern: when care is absent, death begins to look like a solution.

What Bill C-218 Would Do

Bill C-218 would amend the Criminal Code to clarify that:

A mental disorder, when it is the sole underlying condition, does not qualify as a grievous and irremediable medical condition under MAiD.

This would not affect people who qualify under the existing MAiD law.
It would not remove rights from those facing end-of-life decisions.
It would simply draw a necessary boundary around a high-risk expansion where certainty cannot exist.

It would say: in Canada, we do not offer death to people in psychological pain — especially not when care is still out of reach.

What You Can Do

Find your Member of Parliament
Click here

Email them this letter
You can copy and paste the letter below into an email. Personalizing even one sentence can make an impact.

Letter Template

Subject: Please Support Bill C-218 – Stop the Expansion of MAiD for Mental Illness Alone

Dear [MP’s Name],

I am writing as your constituent to urge you to support Bill C-218, which would amend the Criminal Code to clarify that a mental disorder is not considered a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” for the purposes of MAiD eligibility when it is the sole underlying condition.

Mental illness is not irremediable. By nature, it is often episodic, treatable, and unpredictable. There is no test or clinical standard that can reliably determine when someone with a mental illness will never recover. Even the Canadian Psychiatric Association has acknowledged that no consensus exists on how to assess irremediability in mental illness. In this context, the risk of error is unacceptably high.

Mental health trajectories are highly individual and can change over time, even after long periods of treatment resistance. The risk of offering death to someone who may have improved — or who simply needed better support — is too great. When certainty is impossible, safeguards must be absolute.

This expansion means that people with mental illness — regardless of their specific diagnosis, circumstances, or access to care — will no longer be protected by the law. These are not people who are dying. Many are living with treatable conditions and facing suffering shaped by poverty, isolation, trauma, or systemic failure. They are not being offered death because medicine has failed — they are being offered death because the system has.

That is not autonomy. That is quiet coercion — shaped by a lack of care, not a lack of capacity. Even when full recovery feels out of reach, people deserve support, connection, and dignity — not an early death sanctioned by policy failure.

Bill C-218 establishes a clear and necessary safeguard:

• That mental illness, as a sole underlying condition, does not meet the legal threshold of irremediability

• That suicide prevention must remain the priority in psychiatric care

• That Canadians deserve support, not state-sanctioned death

I urge you to:

• Support Bill C-218

• Protect the integrity of our MAiD laws

• Invest in the systems people need to survive — not policies that quietly allow them to disappear

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
[Your Full Name]
[Your Address]
[Your Postal Code]
[Your Email / Phone Number, optional]

We don’t need to believe everyone will recover to believe that everyone deserves care. That suffering should be met with support, not silence. That life is still worth protecting, especially when it’s hard.

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DWDC specifically targeted an article from the fringe outlet InfoWars as an example of disinformation. But let’s be honest: this isn’t about InfoWars. It’s about growing public discomfort with how far and how fast Canada’s MAiD regime has expanded — and how organizations like DWDC are working to control the narrative.

I’ve been accused of fear-mongering, but fear isn’t always irrational — it can be a signal. And right now, people across Canada are sensing something deeply off.

This article breaks down:

• What the brochure is and why it struck a nerve

• What DWDC actually supports (beyond the press releases)

• How advocacy-funded polls are being used to manufacture consent

• A point-by-point rebuttal of DWDC’s public “myth-busting” claims

1. The Brochure and the Backlash

A brochure about Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) and minors began circulating online, and it struck a nerve.

DWDC was quick to disavow the document, stating it wasn’t theirs and calling it “insidious disinformation.” But the truth is — the reason this brochure went viral had less to do with where it came from, and more to do with how believable it felt.

Why? Because Canadians are already witnessing:

• MAiD approved for non-terminal chronic conditions

• Advocacy for assisted death in cases of mental illness (coming March 17, 2027)

• Ongoing support for expanding access to mature minors

DWDC’s outrage feels performative when they’ve lobbied for nearly every expansion MAiD has seen. The public isn’t reacting to a pamphlet — they’re reacting to a pattern.

2. DWDC’s Carefully Worded Denial

DWDC claims:

“DWDC does not advocate for MAID for individuals under the age of 18 who are suffering from a mental illness.”

But they do support MAiD for mature minors aged 12–17 — with only partial parental involvement.

“We recommend that the informed consent of a competent parent or guardian be required for eligible minors 12–15 years of age inclusive, and that MAID assessors be required to consult a competent parent or guardian for eligible minors aged 16–17.”

Let’s pause.

“Consult” does not mean “approve.”

A 16-year-old could still proceed with MAiD even if their parent objects — if deemed competent by an assessor. In Canada, children over 12 already have medical autonomy in many health care settings. Extending that framework to include MAiD is not far-fetched.

3. Who Paid for the Poll?

DWDC often cites polling data to justify MAiD expansion. A June 2023 Ipsos poll they commissioned claimed:

• 84% support the Carter v. Canada decision

• 78% support removing the “reasonably foreseeable death” requirement

• 80% support MAiD for mental illness

But let’s be clear: DWDC paid for the poll.

It wasn’t independent. It was a tool for narrative shaping. Question wording, euphemistic framing, and selective reporting all contribute to manufactured consent, not informed debate.

This isn’t unique to Canada.

In the UK, Dignity in Dying, an organization with a shared mission, has employed the exact same strategy. In March 2024, they released polling claiming that 75% of the public supported legalizing assisted dying, with just 14% opposed. But as in Canada, those results collapse under scrutiny. The terms used — like “assisted dying” or “dying with dignity” — lack precision and often mislead respondents.

A UK poll by Care Not Killing revealed the consequences of this euphemistic language:

• Only 60% correctly understood “assisted dying” meant being given lethal drugs to die

• 52% thought it meant refusing treatment (which is already legal)

• 17% thought it referred to hospice care

• And support plummeted from 73% to 11% once people were given the counter-arguments

So when advocacy groups cite overwhelming public support, the question isn’t just what the numbers are — it’s how they were manufactured, and who paid for them.

4. DWDC’s Myth vs. Fact — What They Don’t Say

Final Thoughts: Public concern isn’t fear-mongering.

We’ve been told that fear is the problem — that concern over MAiD’s direction is rooted in disinformation, not fact. But fear isn’t always irrational. Sometimes, it’s a signal that something’s gone too far, too fast.

The viral brochure about MAiD for teens hit a nerve because it didn’t feel far off — it felt like the next step. And in many ways, it is. “Mature minors” are already part of the policy conversation. DWDC’s own recommendations outline how children as young as 12 could one day qualify, with nothing more than parental “consultation” — not consent — required.

That’s not conspiracy. That’s the actual trajectory we’re on.

If MAiD is truly about compassion and dignity, then its policies must also reflect transparency, accountability, and restraint — especially when children are on the table. Because when safeguards weaken and oversight fails, public concern isn’t fear-mongering.

✅ What You Can Do

📣 Share this post — especially with friends, colleagues, and elected officials who believe this is still about terminal illness.

📬 Subscribe to stay informed about the ethical, legal, and political dimensions of MAiD in Canada.

📨 Write your MP and demand:

• National oversight of MAiD assessors

• Transparent data on approvals and denials

• Protection for minors and people with mental illness

💬 Join the conversation: Have you or someone you know been impacted by MAiD policy? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

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⚠️ Trigger Warning: This post contains graphic details related to suicide, euthanasia, and medical trauma. Please read with care. If you are struggling, know you are not alone.

Last month, I stood in Parliament in the United Kingdom and Scotland and spoke the words I wish someone had said before Canada passed its assisted suicide law.

I travelled to London and Edinburgh to speak to MPs, media, and advocates about what happens when laws intended for the terminally ill start quietly expanding, until people like my mom, who was not terminal, are approved to die.

But this message isn’t just for the UK.

It’s for every country currently weighing the language of so-called “dignity” laws. From U.S. states debating expansion, to regions of Australia where access has already begun, to countries watching this trend unfold in real time.

In this video—filmed during my visit—I share my mother’s story, the devastating consequences of Canada’s law, and the hidden dangers lurking behind vague terms like “intolerable suffering” and “reasonably foreseeable death.”

My mother, Donna Duncan, was a psychiatric nurse. She was not terminal. But because she was self-starving, had become frail, and was mentally unwell, she was deemed eligible to die. We had 48 hours’ notice before the procedure. We called the police. We got a judge to intervene. She was placed under a 48-hour psychiatric hold. And then—four hours after her release—we got a text: she was dead.

That’s what safeguards look like in practice.

And now I’m watching the UK draft legislation with eerily similar language: ambiguous definitions of “terminal,” subjective interpretations of “intolerable suffering,” and blind faith in overburdened systems. You're being told that this bill is safe. Compassionate. Restrained.

So were we.

Within five years of Canada legalizing assisted death for the terminally ill, our laws expanded. First, to include people with chronic illnesses. Then, mental illness alone. Next up: mature minors. Already, Canadians with anorexia, PTSD, hearing loss, and Type 2 diabetes are being approved—many without ever trying treatment. Many, like my mom, were simply in crisis.

We now have over 65,000 deaths by euthanasia in Canada. Nearly half of those choosing MAiD cite loneliness or feeling like a burden as their reason for dying. That isn’t dignity. That’s despair.

This isn’t a slippery slope argument. It’s a documented trajectory.

In this video, I talk not just about my mother’s story, but about what this system is doing to families, to trust in healthcare, to vulnerable populations. I describe how no clinical trials have been conducted on the drugs used to end lives. I talk about the pulmonary edema discovered in my mother’s autopsy—fluid-filled lungs consistent with drowning—and how no one can tell me whether she died peacefully, or in silent agony.

This is the other side of the “compassionate choice” narrative. It’s the one most people haven’t heard, and many families are too traumatized to share.

If our story moved you, I urge you to ask harder questions. Because once this door opens, you don’t get to decide who walks through it.

With resolve and love,
Alicia Duncan

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Instead, Canada barely blinked.

In its recent report, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities issued a damning indictment of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program, specifically the expansion of Track 2, which allows non-terminal individuals, often those with disabilities, to access assisted death. The committee didn’t mince words. They called for the repeal of Track 2 entirely and recommended the establishment of an independent federal oversight body to investigate complaints.

Their reason? Too many people are requesting death because they’ve been abandoned by the very systems meant to support them. Lack of accessible housing. Inadequate mental health care. Poverty. Gender-based violence. Chronic underfunding. In short, death is being offered where dignity and support should be.

The report validated and infuriated those raising red flags for years.

My mother didn’t have a disability, but she did die through MAiD in 2021. To this day, I still don’t know whether she was approved under Track 1 or Track 2 because the health authority has refused to release her assessment records. Not to me. Not to the police during Canada’s first-ever criminal investigation into a MAiD death.

That investigation was forced to close because the records were withheld.

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Imagine being the daughter of someone who died through state-sanctioned death and being told you don’t have the right to understand how it happened. That’s where I live now: In questions, no one will answer.

So when I hear claims that further oversight is unnecessary, or worse, a violation of doctors' autonomy, I can't help but ask the question that lives at the heart of this debate:

What do MAiD providers have to fear from oversight?

If the system is working well, if doctors are following the law, making careful assessments, and ensuring every patient is truly informed and supported, then oversight should be welcome, standard, and built in.

Instead, grieving families like mine are met with silence, obstruction, and sealed files. And those who raise concerns are often painted as extremists or anti-choice. But this isn’t about ideology. It’s about transparency, trust, and the fundamental right to know how and why our loved ones died.

The UN’s report echoes what disability advocates in Canada have said all along: that MAiD, in its current form, operates without proper safeguards and oversight and reflects dangerous underlying assumptions about which lives are worth living.

And yet, as Track 2 expands and the proposed 2027 inclusion of mental illness as a sole criterion looms, calls for pause are brushed off. Ellen Wiebe, one of Canada’s most prolific MAiD providers, even claimed that implementing the UN recommendations would amount to stripping rights from women, people of colour, and disabled people.

But here’s the thing. Ensuring people aren’t choosing death because they’re unsupported isn’t oppression. It’s the bare minimum of an ethical society.

We should all want to know that our systems are acting with care and accountability. That when someone chooses MAiD, they haven’t been cornered by despair, misdiagnosis, or bureaucratic neglect. That every other option—real, accessible, sustainable options—was offered and explored first.

Oversight doesn’t undermine autonomy. It protects it.

I can tell you firsthand that when the system fails, families are left not only grieving but also questioning, wondering, and fighting to understand what happened. If there is nothing to hide, open the files, cooperate with oversight, and invite accountability.

If MAiD providers are doing everything right, why does oversight feel like a threat?

Let the light in. Let the truth speak.

Author’s Note:
I’m a daughter, an advocate, and someone still searching for answers. My mother, Donna Duncan, died through MAiD in 2021. I have spent years trying to access her MAiD assessment records, including during a police investigation that was ultimately shut down when the health authority refused to cooperate. This piece is not written from theory. It’s written from lived experience, grief, and an unrelenting belief that truth and transparency matter. You can follow my journey at www.aliciaduncan.com and learn more about my upcoming memoir, The Other Side of the Straight Jacket.

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As I take my seat in the back row of the modest hall—folding chairs arranged neatly before the stage—I scan the crowd of approximately 100 attendees. The demographic is strikingly homogenous: older, white, and, as the evening will reveal, overwhelmingly in favour of MAiD.

Prior to the event, I wrote to the Forum’s organizers, questioning their decision to host a speaker whose stance on MAiD is not just supportive but actively expansionist. I outline my concerns about the event’s lack of balanced representation, highlighting my personal stake in the matter: my mother, Donna Duncan, died through MAiD under questionable circumstances, leading to the first police investigation into a MAiD-related death in Canada. That investigation was ultimately closed when health authorities refused to release key assessment records.

My letter asks whether the Forum has taken steps to ensure a diversity of perspectives, whether a moderator will challenge Dr. Wiebe’s views, and whether issues of oversight and legal accountability will be discussed. Their response is brief, almost dismissive:

“We don’t allow speeches, but instead have 90-minute Q&As where the opinions of our guests can be questioned, even challenged. Our audiences are highly educated and perfectly capable of forming their own opinions.”

And so I decided to attend.

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An Uneven Stage

Dr. Wiebe sits on stage alongside a mediator who, in his introduction, clearly states his pro-MAiD stance. There is no counterbalance—no ethicist, legal expert, or medical professional to offer a different perspective. The audience, comfortable and expectant, seems more interested in reaffirming their views than in engaging in true debate.

As Dr. Wiebe begins speaking, she adopts a casual, almost lighthearted tone. She jokes about spouses who “don’t want to let go” and recounts her first MAiD case, in which she had to practice administering an IV because she was out of practice. The audience chuckles along with her anecdotes. When discussing the resistance of some palliative care providers to integrating MAiD, she rolls her eyes. The gravity of what is being discussed—the intentional ending of human lives—is glossed over with unsettling ease.

An Unexpected Reaction

I have spoken at the highest levels of government. I have participated in documentaries, podcasts, and public forums about MAiD. And yet, as I stand to ask my question, something unexpected happens. My body betrays me. My heart pounds, my skin dampens with sweat, and a wave of nausea rolls over me. I have spent years advocating for transparency and accountability in the MAiD process, yet this is the first time I have been in a room with a provider. My reaction is visceral—a reminder of the trauma that still lives within me. I was diagnosed with PTSD after my mother’s passing, and at this moment, I feel its grip tightening around me.

I steady myself and address Dr. Wiebe directly.

“In a recent New York Times interview, you denied ever regretting a MAiD provision. Yet in October 2024, a BC judge halted the assisted death of an Alberta woman after you approved it, despite multiple Alberta doctors denying her request. In December 2022, a man received MAiD while on a day pass from a psychiatric unit. His family alleges his death was unlawful and has filed a lawsuit naming you and your clinic. Given that a court intervened to stop a MAiD death and legal action has been taken against you, do you still stand by your claim?”

She laughs.

“Did I actually say that?”

Her response is offhand. She brushes aside the cases, saying,

“I wasn’t allowed to defend myself then, and I’m not going to do that here today either.”

The audience erupts into applause.

A Chilling Exchange

Next, my friend and fellow advocate, Kelsi Sheren, poses a question about the lack of clinical studies on the drug combinations used in MAiD. She cites research showing that up to 0.2% of patients experience intraoperative awareness while fully paralyzed—meaning that 60 to 120 Canadians may have been conscious and unable to communicate distress during their deaths.

Dr. Wiebe’s initial response is startling:

“I can’t guarantee a peaceful death.”

Then she pivots, describing the dosages used and doubling down on the necessity of paralytics to ensure a smooth process. This contradiction is too glaring to ignore.

I interject:

“But they are paralyzed, so you wouldn’t know.”

The audience boos me.

I turn to face them.

“Shame on you all for booing me,” I say, my voice steady despite the lump in my throat. “My mother died by MAiD. She could have been one of those 60 to 120 people.”

The room falls silent. Dr. Wiebe continues, unfazed, assuring the crowd that the deaths she provides are peaceful. The audience applauds once more.

In a particularly striking moment, a retired veterinarian stands up to compare human MAiD to animal euthanasia, saying that death in animals is almost instantaneous. Dr. Wiebe responds with a clinical detachment that chills me:

“The drugs we use for animals are more effective, but they aren’t approved for humans. In people, death takes about three minutes.”

Three minutes. I bite my tongue, knowing that, in some cases, it takes over 100 hours.

The discussion lasts about 90 minutes, during which I listen to one-sided rhetoric and claims I know to be false. Audience members then stand up to praise Ellen and her work. I feel like I’m watching followers in a cult worship their leader. It’s eerie, and I feel nauseous.

The Forum Ends, But the Conversation Continues

As the event concludes, the room empties out. A few attendees approach me—not to argue, but to listen. A former McGill anthropology professor, a local funeral director who shares that her funeral home has seen over 50 MAiD deaths, and a handful of others linger to discuss what has just unfolded. The forum organizers and mediator approach me to apologize for the audience’s reaction. We speak briefly about our mutual pursuit of truth.

Final Thoughts

This event was not a discussion; it was a reinforcement of belief. There was no real attempt to address the ethical concerns, legal challenges, or mounting evidence that MAiD’s expansion has outpaced proper oversight. The audience was comfortable in their convictions, buoyed by laughter and applause, while those who raised difficult questions were met with derision.

I leave Salt Spring Island with a heavy heart but a renewed sense of purpose. Transparency in the MAiD process is not just a policy issue—it is a moral imperative. Despite the jeers and dismissive laughter, I will keep asking the hard questions.

Because the lives lost to this system deserve more than an easy answer and a round of applause.

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How could I know for certain what she was thinking?

The truth is, no matter how much research I did, I couldn’t. And that was the problem.

Her recommendation? Rewrite the book from my perspective.

At first, it felt daunting. But now, the words are flowing in a way they never did before. The first manuscript was my mom’s story. This version is mine—and in many ways, it mirrors my own transition from grief into advocacy.

I spent so long trapped in a trauma loop, ruminating on my anger, trying to understand why my mom made the decision she did. Writing from her perspective helped me process. It softened me. And now, it’s guiding me into a new chapter—one that includes hospice volunteering, grief support, and full-time advocacy.

In my latest newsletter, I share more about:

• The book rewrite that’s changing everything

• How grief work has led me to end-of-life support and advocacy

• A sneak peek at the grief workshops I’m developing

• My upcoming trip to the UK to speak in Parliament about assisted dying safeguards

If you want to read more, you can check out the full newsletter here.

And if you don’t want to miss future updates, sign up for my newsletter to follow along as I navigate this journey of grief, healing, and change.

Grief complicates everything. Even the purest love, the kind that feels steady and unshakable, can become tangled after loss. Because losing someone doesn’t end your relationship with them; it changes it. And sometimes, it makes it more complicated than ever.

But grief isn’t just about death.

We grieve when relationships end, even when we know they weren’t right for us. We grieve when we lose a version of ourselves, whether through illness, trauma, or simply growing into someone new. We grieve for futures we thought we would have, for friendships that faded, for the life we imagined but never got to live.

Grief is what happens when love and loss collide. And no matter what kind of loss you’re carrying, it demands that you hold space for two conflicting truths:

• I love what was.

• I have to learn how to live without it.

For those of us left behind—whether by death, by distance, or by life unfolding differently than we expected—that contradiction can feel unbearable because love should have been enough. Because we weren’t ready. Because we still had things to say.

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I know this weight well. When my mom died, it felt like a fog had settled over me. For the first two years, I waded through the heaviness, unsure if I would ever feel light again. I did everything you’re “supposed” to do. I let myself grieve, I found ways to honour her, and I learned how to carry the loss without being swallowed by it.

And somewhere in that process, I found something I hadn’t expected. A way forward.

Finding Meaning in the Wake of Loss

Grief doesn’t end, but it shifts. And eventually, I realized that I didn’t just want to live with my grief—I wanted to do something with it.

For me, that meant advocacy. I started speaking out about MAID, transparency, and the failures in the system that impacted my mother’s death. I wanted to create change so fewer families would experience what mine did.

But advocacy is just one path.

For some, healing comes through creating something new: a project, a piece of art, or a ritual that keeps their loved one close. For others, it’s found in supporting others through their pain, offering comfort, holding space, and reminding people they aren’t alone. Some find meaning in volunteering, teaching, or building community. Others find it in quiet moments, in the simple act of carrying their grief with love.

Right now, my journey has led me to support others through grief. I’ve started learning how to hold space for people in their loss through grief support, hospice volunteer training, and creating spaces for healing. That’s what has helped me, but your path might look entirely different.

And maybe your grief isn’t about death at all. Perhaps it’s the loss of a relationship, a version of yourself, or a future you thought was unquestionable. That grief is just as real. And it deserves space, too.

There is no right way to heal. But if you’re looking for somewhere to begin, here are a few things that helped me when I was deep in the fog:

• Give yourself permission to grieve in the way that makes sense to you. There’s no timeline, no “correct” way to mourn. However, your feelings are valid.

• Let go of the idea that you have to understand it all. You might never have the answers you crave. Sometimes, healing isn’t about understanding; it’s about learning to live alongside the unknown.

• Find ways to connect with what you’ve lost. If it’s a person, that might mean rituals, memories, or simply saying their name out loud. If it’s a part of yourself, it might mean honouring where you’ve been while making space for where you’re going.

• Let grief move through you in its own time. There will be days when it feels unbearable. And then there will be days where it softens, just a little. Trust that it won’t always feel like this.

Turning Grief Into Something That Supports You

For me, grief became a call to action. But for you, it might be something entirely different.

Some will fight. Some will create. Some will hold space for others. Some will simply survive.

There is no single path through grief, but there is always a way forward.

Whatever it looks like for you, know this: your grief matters. Your love matters. And the way you choose to carry it will shape the world you walk through.

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You are at a pivotal moment in history. You are being asked to decide whether to legalize assisted dying through the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. This is not a small decision. This is a moment that will define the values of your country for generations.

At this very moment, your public bill committee is reviewing evidence from experts and witnesses and filtering through hundreds of amendments before the final vote. You are assured that this bill is narrow in scope, applies only to the terminally ill, and has built-in safeguards to prevent abuse.

If only that were true.

As someone who has seen first-hand what happens when these laws expand, I urge you to look beyond the promises being made. Do not judge this bill only by its immediate impact but by the precedent it sets.

If you believe safeguards will prevent this law from expanding, I invite you to look at Canada.

We started where you are now. And now we are somewhere you swore you would never go.

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Canada’s Slippery Slope – Would You Vote for This?

I ask you to place yourself in the position of a legislator not just today but in five, ten, fifteen years.

Each of you has someone you love dearly. A child, a parent, a sibling.
Imagine them facing a difficult health challenge. Would you approve assisted dying for them?

Let’s walk through the stages of how Canada’s assisted dying laws have expanded. If you vote for this bill, ask yourself: Where would you draw the line?

Stage 1: Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill (2016 – The Original Law in Canada)

A loved one has terminal cancer.

• They are in excruciating pain despite palliative care.

• Doctors say they have less than six months to live.

• They beg for assistance in dying because they want to pass peacefully.

Would you approve MAID?

(This was the original scope of MAID in Canada—only for those at the end of life.)

Stage 2: Assisted Dying for Chronic Illness & Disabilities (2021 Expansion)

A loved one has a chronic illness or disability.

• They are not dying anytime soon, but their condition causes suffering.

• They could live for decades with proper care and support.

• They feel that life is too difficult to continue.

Would you approve MAID?

(In 2021, Canada removed the requirement for “reasonably foreseeable” death.)

Stage 3: Assisted Dying for Mental Illness Alone (Approved for 2027)

A loved one has bipolar disorder but cannot afford medication.

• They were diagnosed as a teenager.

• If they had access to proper care, they could stabilize and live a fulfilling life.

• But they don’t qualify for government support, so they feel trapped in an endless cycle.

Would you approve MAID?

(Under the current plan, Canada will expand MAID to include mental illness alone in 2027.)

Stage 4: Assisted Dying for Alzheimer’s & Dementia (Advance Directives Proposal)

A loved one has Alzheimer’s.

• Years ago, they signed an advance directive requesting MAID if they ever lost cognitive function.

• Now, they no longer recognize their family but tell you they are happy.

• They laugh, enjoy music, and appreciate small moments despite their illness.

• The law says they cannot revoke their past decision because they are no longer of sound mind.

Would you approve MAID?

(This is actively being debated in Canada—should people with dementia be euthanized based on past wishes, even if they no longer consent in the moment?)

Stage 5: Assisted Dying for Children (Approved for 2027 in Terminal Cases, Expansion Likely Beyond That)

Case A: A Terminally Ill Child (Age 14) – This Will Be Legal in Canada in March 2027

• They have terminal cancer and are in extreme pain.

• Doctors say they will not live past six months.

• They ask for MAID to avoid further suffering.

Would you approve MAID?

(As of March 2027, terminally ill mature minors will be eligible for MAID in Canada.)

Case B: An Autistic Child (Age 14, But Not Terminally Ill) – Only a Matter of Time

• They have autism and depression, but they are not terminally ill.

• They struggle with sensory overload, social anxiety, and suicidal thoughts, but they could live a full life with the proper support.

• Their parents are exhausted, and the doctor suspects the child feels like a burden, but no one can prove it.

• The child asks for MAID, saying they will never fit into the world.

Would you approve MAID?

(In Canada, an autistic woman was recently approved for MAID due to mental distress. Her family fought in court to stop it, but the judge later ruled that she had the capacity to consent. If adults with autism can access MAID, how long before minors follow?)

Case C: A Child with a Mental Illness (Age 12, Suicidal Depression) – Also Just a Matter of Time

• They have struggled with mental illness since age 10.

• Therapy and medication haven’t worked yet, but they haven’t tried all treatment options.

• Their parents believe their suffering can be managed, and they are fully supported and have access to care.

• However, they recently saw a TikTok video about a “peaceful death.”

• A nurse spoke to them about assisted dying privately—without their parents’ knowledge.

Would you approve MAID?

(MAID for mature minors with mental illness is not yet legal, but if history is any indication, the expansion is inevitable.)

Once You Start, You Cannot Stop

Many of you may believe this bill is different—that the UK will maintain safeguards.

You will not.

• Legal challenges will set precedents. Once MAID is legal for some, courts will rule it discriminatory to exclude others.

• Cultural acceptance will normalize euthanasia. What begins as an exception will become routine healthcare.

• Doctors will push for expansion. The most enthusiastic providers in Canada argue that patient autonomy overrides all other concerns.

• Countries that pass assisted dying laws never keep them contained.

If you approve assisted dying for terminally ill adults today, you will be voting for assisted dying for children with depression tomorrow.

This is not speculation. This is happening in Canada. This is what you are voting for.

Will you still vote yes?

Respectfully,
Alicia Duncan
Advocate for Transparency and Ethical Rights in Euthanasia

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MAID was initially introduced as a compassionate option for terminally ill patients in unbearable suffering. However, as I shared in this interview, the reality of its application in Canada today is far from its original intent. The system has expanded well beyond those with terminal conditions, raising serious concerns about safeguards, accountability, and our value on human life.

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The Expansion of MAID: A Dangerous Precedent

One of the most alarming aspects of Canada’s MAID legislation is its rapid expansion. No longer reserved for those at the end of life, the eligibility criteria have broadened to include individuals with chronic illnesses, disabilities, and soon, even those suffering solely from mental illness. There have even been discussions about extending MAID to mature minors—an issue that remains highly controversial and deeply unsettling.

Throughout our conversation, I highlighted how the system has failed to protect the vulnerable. We discussed cases where individuals who could have benefited from financial, social, or medical support were instead offered death as a solution. When death becomes easier to access than basic care, we must ask ourselves: What does this say about our society’s priorities?

The Painful and Inhumane Process of MAID

Many assume that MAID offers a peaceful, dignified end. However, as I revealed in this interview, reality is often quite different. Research into the drugs used in the procedure exposes a disturbing truth—one that challenges the narrative of a ‘gentle passing.’ In some cases, the process is drawn-out, painful, and far from humane. Yet, these realities remain largely hidden from public awareness due to a lack of postmortem assessments and minimal oversight.

Without thorough investigations into each case, how can we ensure that MAID is carried out ethically and safely? How do we prevent coercion, misdiagnosis, or the failure to explore every possible alternative before making an irreversible decision?

The Need for Alternative Therapies & Proactive Mental Health Care

One of the most essential takeaways from this conversation was the necessity of looking beyond MAID as the only solution. We discussed the need for alternative treatments, including new and emerging therapies for chronic pain, depression, and trauma. Instead of offering death as the answer, we should be focusing on providing hope, healing, and support for those who feel they have nowhere else to turn.

The discussion also touched on the broader topics of suicide prevention, trauma recovery, and finding meaning in suffering. Too often, conversations around end-of-life choices neglect the potential for personal transformation and healing, even in the face of immense pain.

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Why This Conversation Matters

Speaking out about MAID is not about denying choice—it’s about ensuring that choice is truly informed, ethical, and safe. It’s about protecting the vulnerable and advocating for a system prioritizing life over death. If we do not engage in these difficult discussions now, we risk creating a future where the right to die is easier to access than the right to live with dignity.

I invite you to listen to this deeply important conversation and join me in questioning the direction Canada is heading with MAID legislation.

I’d love to hear your thoughts—leave a comment below or share this with someone who needs to be part of the conversation.

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This brings us to the age-old question: What’s the difference between persuasion and coercion?

At first glance, persuasion seems harmless, even positive. It's the art of argument, debate, and influence—the ability to change someone's mind through reason and appeal. We see persuasion everywhere: in a well-crafted advertisement, a compelling TED Talk, or a friend convinced us to try a new restaurant.

Coercion, on the other hand, carries a darker connotation. It involves force, threats, or undue pressure. It removes real choice from the equation, often leaving people feeling like they have no viable alternative.

But here’s where things get complicated: persuasion and coercion exist on a spectrum, and in today's world—especially in marketing and social influence—it's not always easy to tell where one ends and the other begins.

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Marketing as a Form of Influence

Marketing is built on persuasion. Every advertisement, influencer post, and sales pitch is designed to guide consumer behaviour. Some of this is relatively benign: a commercial showcasing a new product or a celebrity endorsement for a favourite skincare brand. However, modern marketing has evolved far beyond simple product recommendations.

Companies and influencers now use psychological manipulation to create an illusion of choice while subtly steering consumers toward a predetermined outcome. Some of the most common tactics include:

1. Scarcity and Urgency

Have you ever seen a "limited-time offer" countdown clock on a website? Or an influencer warning their audience that a product is "almost sold out"? Scarcity marketing makes us feel like we have to act fast, or we’ll miss out—exploiting our fear of regret.

2. Social Proof

Humans are wired to follow the crowd. Brands leverage this instinct by showcasing testimonials, influencer endorsements, and 'viral' trends to create the illusion that everyone is buying a particular product. If enough people are doing it, it must be good… right?

3. Emotional Exploitation

Effective marketing doesn’t just sell products; it sells feelings. We don’t buy a luxury car for its wheels—we buy it for the status and confidence it promises. We don’t subscribe to a wellness app for the exercises—we buy into the aspirational lifestyle it represents.

This is where the ethical dilemma arises. When does persuasion stop being about presenting options and start becoming coercion?

When marketing exploits insecurities, uses social pressure, and removes the perception of real alternatives, it’s no longer about free choice. It's about manufactured consent—a decision made under psychological pressure rather than genuine autonomy.

And this issue isn’t just about shopping habits. It extends far beyond consumer culture.

When Persuasion Becomes Life-Altering: The Case of MAiD in Canada

Marketing tactics aren’t just used to sell handbags and software subscriptions. They can also shape public perception, normalize controversial policies, and make certain choices seem inevitable.

This is precisely what’s happening with Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).

At its core, MAiD is framed as a compassionate option—an act of autonomy for those facing unbearable suffering. But just like in marketing, how this choice is presented, promoted, and systemically reinforced raises the question: Is this true choice, or is it coercion in disguise?

1. Physicians as Influencers

In Canada, doctors are now required to present MAiD as an option. This means that even if a patient hasn’t expressed interest, the doctor must bring it up or risk losing their licence to practice.

Much like influencers subtly shape consumer behaviour, doctors—who hold immense authority over their patients—are being placed in a position where they normalize death as just another treatment option.

Imagine going to a doctor for chronic pain and, instead of focusing solely on treatments that improve quality of life, they also offer death as an alternative. Even if they don’t mean to pressure the patient, the mere act of suggesting it shifts the psychological landscape of the conversation.

Would we feel differently if a financial advisor were required to suggest bankruptcy as a first-line option alongside debt repayment plans?

Would we feel differently if a therapist were required to mention suicide prevention hotlines but also say, “Or, you could just end your life”?

2. Social Proof and Aspirational Framing

Organizations like Dying with Dignity Canada present MAiD as an empowering, peaceful process. They highlight stories of 'brave' individuals who chose to die, using language that aligns closely with aspirational marketing—words like control, dignity, and choice.

But what they don’t promote are the stories where MAiD wasn’t peaceful.

• Cases where individuals changed their minds but felt too far into the process to stop.

• Situations where families felt blindsided by a loved one’s sudden decision.

• Reports of prolonged, distressing deaths rather than tranquil passing are described in promotional narratives.

Much like influencer marketing, only the idealized version of the experience is shown—not the whole picture.

3. Scarcity and Fear-Based Messaging

Another way marketing manufactures consent is through scarcity messaging—convincing people that acting now is better than waiting.

We see a disturbing parallel in MAiD when patients are told:

• “Your condition will only get worse.”

• “You should decide while you still have capacity.”

• “Do you really want your loved ones to suffer watching you decline?”

While these statements may be true, they function similarly to high-pressure sales tactics. They create urgency where a person might otherwise want time to reflect.

In some cases, patients who sought supportive care—like better housing, disability benefits, or mental health treatment—were instead offered MAiD as a “solution” to their suffering.

This is no longer about presenting MAiD as one option among many. It’s about funneling people toward it because the alternatives have been stripped away.

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Coercion Disguised as Choice

When companies use psychological tactics to make us buy something we don’t need, the worst consequence is wasted money.

But when similar strategies are used to normalize state-sanctioned death, the stakes are much, much higher.

Persuasion becomes coercion when:
✅ Alternatives are systematically removed (like lack of access to palliative care).
✅ An authority figure presents the option in a way that shapes perception (like doctors being required to offer MAiD).
✅ Social proof and storytelling are selectively used (like MAiD advocacy showing only peaceful, controlled deaths).
✅ Urgency is manufactured (like patients being told to decide before they lose capacity).

This isn’t just about how MAiD is framed, presented, and marketed—it’s about recognizing that a system built on persuasion and coercion should have no place in end-of-life care. When choice is an illusion, the only ethical path forward is to end it.

Because when the choice to die is easier than the choice to live—
When death is offered before meaningful care—
When we use the same psychological tactics as influencer marketing to promote assisted death—

We need to ask ourselves: Is this really autonomy, or have we just convinced ourselves it is?

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Healing isn’t a destination. It’s not something you complete or check off a list. It’s a process, one that unfolds in layers, sometimes gently, sometimes all at once. If you’re in the early stages of grief, trauma, or deep transformation, it can feel impossible to know where to begin.

I remember that feeling well. After my mom’s passing, I felt trapped between wanting to heal and not knowing how. I wanted to move forward but also feared what that meant. Would healing mean forgetting? Would it mean letting go of my mom? Would it mean the pain would disappear and, with it, the last connection I had to her?

What I’ve learned is that healing doesn’t erase grief. It doesn’t mean we “move on.” Healing means making space for everything: grief, love, anger, joy, without being consumed by any one emotion. It means learning how to carry our loss in a way that honours it while allowing ourselves to keep living.

Wherever you are on your journey, here are some first steps to begin the process of healing.

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1. Give Yourself Permission to Heal

This might sound simple, but for many people, it is the hardest step. Sometimes, we hold onto suffering because it feels like the only proof that what we lost matters. Sometimes, we believe that healing dishonours our grief.

Healing is not forgetting. It is not abandoning your pain or your love. It is choosing to take care of yourself in the midst of loss.

2. Create a Daily Practice of Stillness

Grief can feel overwhelming, like a storm we can’t escape. But even in the midst of it, we can create moments of stillness.

Find five minutes each day to sit in silence, breathe, and check in with yourself. Whether it’s meditation, journaling, prayer, or simply closing your eyes and letting your emotions surface, this daily practice will help you tune into your needs instead of pushing them away.

3. Let Go of the Timeline

There is no “right” amount of time for healing. Grief doesn’t follow a schedule. It’s not linear, and it doesn’t fit into neat stages. Some days will be lighter, and others will be unbearably heavy.

Allow yourself to experience grief in waves. Give yourself permission to have joyful moments without guilt. There is no deadline for feeling whole again and no expiration date for your pain.

4. Seek Support in a Way That Feels Right for You

Not all support looks the same. Some people find comfort in therapy. Others connect through spiritual practices, grief groups, or movement-based healing like yoga or breathwork. Some find solace in nature, art, or writing.

Find what works for you. If talking feels impossible, start by listening to a podcast, an audiobook, or a guided meditation. If being around people feels overwhelming, explore one-on-one support. Healing is personal, and there is no single “correct” way to do it.

5. Find Moments of Connection

One of the hardest parts of grief and trauma is the isolation that often comes with it. Even when surrounded by people, it can feel like no one truly understands.

Seek out moments of connection, whether it’s a heartfelt conversation with a friend, attending a grief circle, or even feeling the collective energy of a concert or community event. Being in spaces where you feel seen and understood can be one of the most healing experiences.

6. Be Open to Unexpected Healing

Sometimes, healing happens in ways we never planned for. It might come in the form of a stranger’s kindness, a song that speaks to us, a dream that feels like a message from beyond, or an experience that shifts our entire perspective.

For me, integrative ketamine therapy was one of the tools I discovered. It opened the door to understanding grief in a way I never imagined. Looking back, the process felt like I had a team to help me build a new road, and it taught me that I can find ways to access this whenever I want by showing up for myself regularly. This can look like meditation, setting boundaries, going to a concert, walking, gardening. It showed me that healing doesn’t mean losing connection with my mom but rather transforming that connection into something new.

I have also come to understand that just because someone is no longer here in the physical world doesn’t mean they aren’t still with us. My mom often visits me in dreams. I call these our “meetings” because they feel so real as if we met physically. I wake up from these meetings and forget that she is gone for a moment. They often have no real purpose… we might be sitting together and sharing a cider in Ireland, a trip we had booked but never got to take. Other times, she asks me to buy something on her behalf, a gift from her to me.

She also sends me butterflies. Sometimes, they appear in the smallest ways: printed on a shirt, on a poster behind someone in a Zoom call, when I need a reminder that she is still here or that I’m on the right path.

Be open to them still being with you, even if it’s not in a way you expected. Grief asks us to redefine the relationships we once had. It invites us to see that love doesn’t die, and connection doesn’t end; it just transforms.

7. Honour Your Grief Without Letting It Define You

Grief is a part of you, but it is not all of you. Healing means making space for grief while also making space for everything else: joy, curiosity, growth, and even love.

It’s okay to laugh again. It’s okay to dream again. It’s okay to build a future, even with grief beside you.

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Your Reflection

Wherever you are in your healing journey, know you are not alone. This process is not about getting rid of pain but learning how to carry it differently. Which of these steps feels most aligned with where you are right now?

Let me know in the comments… how are you making space for healing in your life?

With love,

Alicia

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Watch the preview here.

Why This Series Matters

In this segment, I share the heartbreaking story of my mom’s over-the-phone MAiD assessment, which ultimately ended her life. Her medical records stop just four hours before her death, raising critical questions about transparency, oversight, and protections for vulnerable individuals.

As someone deeply committed to advocating for better safeguards and accountability, I’m proud to contribute to this important series. UnVeil TV confronts uncomfortable truths about how MAiD is being administered in Canada and asks the hard questions about systemic failures and ethical gaps.

The series will explore:

• How Canada’s healthcare system increasingly prioritizes MAiD over access to proper care and support.
• The lack of oversight and transparency in the assessment and approval processes.
• Personal stories, like my mom’s, that reveal the devastating human cost of policy gaps.

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This series is not just about raising awareness; it’s about starting a movement for change.

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Join the Conversation

This is the beginning of a vital dialogue about life, death, and the systems we trust.

• Should Canada’s MAiD policies be reformed to ensure better safeguards?
• What steps can we take to protect vulnerable populations?

Feel free to reply to this post or comment with your thoughts. Together, we can push for meaningful reform and a system that values every life.

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Don’t miss updates about this series and other advocacy efforts. Subscribe to my Substack to receive:

• Updates on the UnVeil TV series as it’s released.
• Advocacy news and resources to help you join the conversation.
• Exclusive reflections and stories about navigating grief, systemic change, and finding purpose.

Watch the first five chapters now at unveiltv.com, and let’s keep this conversation going.

Stay tuned for the full series—coming soon from UnVeil TV.

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When my mom passed, I could no longer avoid it. But instead of meeting my grief, I found myself trapped in something deeper and darker: PTSD.

I was haunted by flashbacks that disconnected me from the world. Even the simplest moments, like sitting with my partner, would be interrupted by vivid images of my mom’s frozen face. The place I stood when I learned she had died became an energy vortex that paralyzed me every time I walked near it. Night after night, I was tormented by nightmares of people dying in front of me, unable to save them. Even sleep, my one escape, had turned against me.

The flashbacks were so consuming that I felt betrayed by the world around me. How could life keep moving forward when mine had stopped? One day, while driving, I imagined my car veering off the road. I didn’t want to die, but I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if the pain stopped?

It was in that moment that I realized I couldn’t live like this anymore. I had to stop running from my pain.

Facing Grief Through Alternative Therapies

In my search for healing, I discovered ketamine therapy. Through a Vancouver clinic, I began a six-week protocol that included preparation sessions, three ketamine treatments, and integration counselling with doctors, nurses, and clinical therapists.

During these sessions, I found something I never expected. Ketamine gave me the space to step outside of my pain and access a deeper understanding of life and grief.

I realized that this life, bound to a physical body, is only part of our existence. At our core, we exist in a state of joy and love. We come to Earth to experience everything a physical body can offer: dancing, laughing, making love, touch, hugs, deep sorrow, pain, grief, trauma, and everything in between. These experiences, even the painful ones, are part of the beauty of being human.

Ketamine also helped me see that we all innately know how to connect to this source of joy and love. There is no single way to access it, but some may find it through meditation, prayer, plant medicine, breathwork, or collective energy.

I’ll never forget a moment at a concert a few months after my final ketamine session. As the crowd sang together, the collective energy brought me a wave of joy and love so intense it mirrored the feelings I had experienced in therapy. It was a profound reminder that this connection is always within reach, anytime and anywhere.

The Fear of Grief

Looking back, I realize that what I feared most about grief wasn’t the pain itself; it was the way it demanded transformation. Grief changes you. It reshapes how you see yourself, the world, and your purpose. It isn’t something you “get through.” It becomes a part of you.

I also learned that grief doesn’t follow neat stages or a timeline. It isn’t something you check off a list. You can feel joy and anger, sadness and gratitude, all at once. These emotions aren’t contradictory. They are part of what makes grief such a profound and complex experience.

By finally embracing my grief, I found that it wasn’t something to fear. It wasn’t there to break me. It was there to teach, transform, and guide me toward a deeper understanding of myself and the world.

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Actionable Steps for This Week

If you are facing the fear of grief, here are some steps to help you begin embracing it:

1. Consider if this post might be your sign. Is this the moment to stop running from your pain and take the first step toward healing?

2. Begin a daily practice of connecting with yourself. This could include meditation, journaling, prayer, breathwork, or even moments of stillness where you sit with your emotions. Start small and allow the practice to grow.

3. Seek out moments of collective energy. Whether attending a live event, joining a supportive community, or simply spending time with loved ones, connection can remind us of the joy and love that still exist.

4. Explore therapeutic options that feel aligned with your needs. If traditional methods haven’t worked for you, consider alternatives like ketamine-assisted therapy, plant medicine, or trauma-focused therapies.

Your Reflection

Grief asks us to be brave, to face the emotions we fear the most, and to allow them to change us. But in doing so, it offers us something in return: it connects us to the deeper truth of who we are and what it means to live.

Thank you for letting me share this part of my journey. I hope it helps you find the courage to face your grief and embrace the transformation it brings.

With love,
Alicia

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Watch the preview here:

Why This Series Matters

As someone deeply immersed in advocacy for transparency and ethical safeguards, I’m proud to contribute to this important series. It confronts critical questions about how Canada’s healthcare system prioritizes MAiD over proper access to care and specialist support, often leaving vulnerable populations without alternatives.

The series will explore:

• Systemic failures in healthcare leading to an over-reliance on MAiD.

• The lack of meaningful oversight and safeguards for vulnerable individuals.

• Stories that highlight the human cost of these policy gaps.

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Join the Conversation

This is just the beginning of a powerful and much-needed dialogue. Share your thoughts:

• Do you think Canada’s MAiD policies are ethically sound?

• What changes would you like to see in the system?

Feel free to comment below or reply to this post. Let’s work together to push for meaningful reform and better protections for those most at risk.

Stay tuned for the full series—coming soon from UnVeil TV.

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Don’t miss out on this groundbreaking series's updates, insights, and behind-the-scenes content. Subscribe to my Substack to receive:

• Updates on the UnVeil TV series as it’s released.

• Advocacy news and resources to help you join the conversation.

• Exclusive reflections and stories on navigating the intersection of grief, advocacy, and systemic change.

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