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Health

52-year-old grandfather the latest Canadian to choose euthanasia while waiting for cancer treatment

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8 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

Dan Quayle’s wife believes that she could still have her husband today if he’d gotten the treatment he needed. In fact, wait times for cancer patients in Canada who are literally dying while waiting for treatment keep getting worse.

On October 7, 2023, Dan Quayle – a British Columbian, not the former vice president of the United States – turned 52. He was hoping to be told that he could begin chemotherapy after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It was not to be. “After 10 weeks in hospital, Quayle, a gregarious grandfather who put on his best silly act for his two grandkids, was in so much pain, unable to eat or walk, he opted for a medically assisted death on Nov. 24,” the National Post reported. “This was despite assurances from doctors that chemotherapy had the potential to prolong his life by a year.” 

Throughout the agonizing wait, his family “prayed he would change his mind or get an 11th-hour call that chemo had been scheduled,” but were instead told consistently by the hospital that they were “backlogged.” The family is speaking out now “following the stories of two Vancouver Island women who went public with their decisions to seek treatment in the U.S. to avoid delays in B.C.” – and Dan’s wife believes that she could still have her husband today if he’d gotten the treatment he needed. In fact, wait times for cancer patients who are literally dying while waiting for treatment keep getting worse. 

When Dan Quayle died by lethal injection, he still hadn’t been given a timeline for when he might get chemotherapy. It reminds me of the posthumously published obituary written by a Winnipeg woman who chose to die by assisted suicide after being refused the treatments she needed: “I could have had more time if I had more help.”  

Indeed, one of the reasons Quayle felt that a lethal injection was his only option is because he didn’t have the financial resources to get help that was available elsewhere – but as a price. “If we had more money, we could have gone to the States,” his wife told the National Post sadly. “But we’re just regular people.”   

She is likely referring to the two Vancouver Island women who decided to go public with their own experiences with the BC health care system. Global News published one story with the headline “B.C. woman gets surgery in U.S., says wait times at home could have cost her life” about Allison Ducluzeau, who paid $200,000 for surgery in the United States after she was told by a BC oncologist that she was not a candidate for the treatment that saved her life. After successfully getting treatment in the U.S., she recently got married – and is appalled by how she was treated in BC. In fact, she wasn’t offered life-saving treatment – but she was offered assisted suicide.  

“There’s a lot of promises I’m hearing,” she told Global News. “But, you know, we need boots-on-the-ground action right now. What can you do to shorten these wait times? How can you prioritize cases so that people with aggressive stage four cancer get seen by someone and when they do get seen, they get offered treatment and not MAID like I was the first time?” 

Another woman, 43-year-old Kristin Logan of Campbell River, was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer – but faced a three or four month wait for treatment in British Columbia. She went to Washington State for chemotherapy, instead – she could afford it because the treatment was covered due to her dual citizenship and veteran status. When the health minister responded to her case by saying that the system “doesn’t always get it right,” she responded with fury: “To suggest that the system merely ‘doesn’t always get it right’ is a gross understatement, bordering on denial. Our healthcare system isn’t tripping over minor hurdles; it’s plummeting off a cliff. We’re not dealing with ‘occasional misses’; we’re grappling with a chronically diseased system where inefficiency and neglect have become the norm.” 

What does this mean? It means that people are dying on waitlists – and while they suffer, often horribly, they are offered assisted suicide when they are their most vulnerable. And if the Trudeau Liberals get their way, in March of next year the floodgates will open and assisted suicide will also be available to those suffering with mental illness. Waitlists for mental health assistance and psychiatric care are even longer – I know people who have waited for years merely for an appointment. Many Canadians simply do not have access to this care. And so not only will Canadians die on waitlists; many will be offered assisted suicide while they are on waitlists, and many will, out of desperation, say yes.  

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Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.

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Red Deer

2024 Hospital Lottery presents major prizes

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Officials from the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation have presented the top prize for the 2024 Red Deer Hospital Lottery.

The Grand Prize Dream Home package is valued at $1,072,624, including furnishings by Urban Barn. The key was presented to the winner, Maxine Rumohr of Sylvan Lake.

When informed that she was the grand prize winner, Rumohr said winning the home is a “dream come true.”

“This is a nice dream that I hope I don’t wake up from,” said Rumohr when she heard the news.

The bungalow by Sorento Custom Homes features 2,796 sq ft of finished living space and has four bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a large, covered deck with vaulted ceilings. Among its features are a large primary suite with ensuite and soaking tub, a basement entertainment area, a walk-in butler’s pantry, main floor laundry, and a stone clad gas
fireplace.

Manon Therriault, Foundation CEO, expressed appreciation at the prize presentation. “We are incredibly grateful to the hardworking team at Sorento Custom Homes for bringing us a truly breathtaking Dream Home again this year,” Therriault said, speaking of the Red Deer Hospital Lottery’s biggest supporter. “Enormous thanks as well to our dedicated volunteers. All of Central Alberta benefits from the dedication of this tireless group of individuals who give so generously of their time each year.”

This year’s proceeds from the Hospital Lottery and Mega Bucks 50 will provide funding for critically needed equipment for several units at Red Deer Hospital.

Other prize winners present included Carolyn Pelerine of Cochrane, Alberta, who walked away with the $303,600 Mega Bucks 50 prize, as well as the winner of the Tree Hugger Tiny Home prize package valued at $163,798, Mary Vincent of Red Deer.

Red Deer Hospital Lottery 2024 Winners Fact Sheet

– 26th year of the lottery
– Built by award-winning Sorento Custom Homes
– Valued at $1,072,624
– Located at 16 Emmett Crescent, Red Deer
– Bungalow with 2,796 square feet of finished living space, four bedrooms, 2.5 baths
– Winner: Maxine Rumohr of Sylvan Lake, Alberta

Tree Hugger Tiny Home Prize – (includes accessories from Urban Barn)
– Valued at $163,798
– Winner: Mary Vincent of Red Deer, Alberta

Mega Bucks 50
– 50/50 raffle – Total jackpot of $607,200
– Winner of $303,600: Carolyn Pelerine of Cochrane, Alberta

Early Bird Prize
– $20,000 CASH
– Drawn May 16, 2024 at 2:00 pm
– Winner: Frieda Doz of Edmonton, Alberta

Second Chance Early Bird Draw
– $10,000 CASH
– Drawn June 6, 2024 at 2:00 pm
– Winner: Wendy Howe of Castor, Alberta

Additional Prizes
– Total value of all prizes was over $1.29 million, including dream home and tiny home
– Prizes included
o Cuisinart air fryer and Barista coffee maker (6), GoPro HERO 12 (5), Asus Vivobook Flip 14” laptop (10), DJI Mini 2SE Drone Flycam (4), Dyson V8 cordless stick vacuum (10), Goal Zero Sherpa 100AC power bank (5)

Proceeds
– Proceeds from Red Deer Hospital Lottery and Mega Bucks 50 contribute to acquiring critically needed, state-of-the-art equipment in several units at the Red Deer Hospital. This year’s lottery will fund equipment like a phototherapy system to allow parents to hold and soothe their infant while undergoing phototherapy, a cardiology case cart to monitor cardiac rhythms during stress testing, and other equipment to provide excellent care for patients at the Red Deer Hospital.

About Red Deer Regional Health Foundation

The Red Deer Regional Health Foundation is a fundraising organization for Alberta Health Services Central Zone, with a mandate to raise and disburse funds for programs, services, and the purchase of medical equipment.

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Alberta

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith promises bill protecting rights to refuse vaccines is coming

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The plan is to introduce an amended Bill of Rights this fall that includes protections for individuals’ personal medical decisions.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has promised that the province’s Bill of Rights will be amended this fall so that there are protections added for people’s personal medical decisions that most likely will include one having the right to refuse a vaccine.

Smith’s promise to add protections for personal choice on vaccinations comes because of the COVID jab mandates put in place for a time in Alberta under former Premier Jason Kenney.

Speaking to Albertans at a recent town hall in Bonnyville, Smith said that the COVID crisis resulted in many people being discriminated against for their own medical decisions and that “it shouldn’t have happened.”

Smith, who leads the United Conservative Party (UCP), said that she believes “every person has to be able to do their own assessment, their own health assessment, to be able to make those decisions.”

The original plan by Smith was to add protections for one’s vaccine status directly Alberta Human Rights Act (AHRA). However, this plan was nixed after she was advised by Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel chair Preston Manning that this was not the right legislation for an additional protection.

Instead, Smith promised that a better “law” dealing directly with vaccine status will be forthcoming.

On Monday, Smith confirmed on X that an updated version of the Bill of Rights is coming.

“It’s time. Let’s get this done,” she wrote.

Last year, Smith, as reported by LifeSiteNews, promised to enshrine into “law” protections for people in her province who choose not to be vaccinated as well as strengthen gun rights and safeguard free speech by beefing up the provincial Bill of Rights.

On Smith’s first day on the job and only minutes after being sworn in, she said that during the COVID years the “unvaccinated” were the “most discriminated against” group of people in her lifetime.

She took over from Kenney as leader of the UCP on October 11, 2022, after winning the party leadership. The UCP then won a general election in May 2023. Kenney was ousted due to low approval ratings and for reneging on promises not to lock Alberta down during COVID.

Smith promptly fired the province’s top doctor, Deena Hinshaw, and the entire Alberta Health Services board of directors, all of whom oversaw the implementation of COVID mandates.

Under Kenney, thousands of nurses, doctors, and other healthcare and government workers lost their jobs for choosing to not get the jabs.

While Smith has not said much regarding the COVID shots since taking office, she has allowed her caucus members to have broad views when it comes to known safety issues related to the jabs.

UCP MLA Eric Bouchard hosted a sold-out event titled “An Injection of Truth” that featured prominent doctors and experts speaking out against COVID vaccines and mandates.

“Injection of Truth” included well-known speakers critical of COVID mandates and the shots, including Dr. Byram BridleDr. William Makis, canceled doctor Mark Trozzi and pediatric neurologist Eric Payne.

The COVID shots were heavily promoted by the federal government and all provincial governments in Canada, with the Alberta government under Kenney being no exception.

The mRNA shots have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children.

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