The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that the Alberta Court of Appeal will soon release its decision in a case challenging whether speaking events can be censored on the basis of potential “psychological harm” to an audience, infringing Charter-protected freedoms of expression (section 2(b) and peaceful assembly (section 2(c).

This case stems from the University of Lethbridge’s January 30, 2023, decision to cancel a speaking event featuring Dr. Frances Widdowson, who has frequently challenged established narratives on Indigenous matters.

In written argument filed in 2024 the University claimed it cancelled the event, in part, because it had obligations under Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act to ensure a workplace free of “harassment” and free of hazards to “psychological and social wellbeing.”

Lawyers argue that these provisions (which might be described as a “safe spaces” law) compel employers to censor lawful expression under threat of fines or imprisonment.

Constitutional lawyer Glenn Blackett said, “Safe spaces provisions are a serious threat to Charter freedoms. Employers who don’t censor ‘unsafe’ speech are liable to be fined or even jailed. This isn’t just the government censoring speech, it is the government requiring citizens to censor one another.”

Given the University’s defence, lawyers asked the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta to allow an amendment to the lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the “safe spaces” laws. However, the Court denied the request. According to the Court’s apparent reasoning because the safe spaces law is worded vaguely and generally, it is immune from constitutional challenge.

Mr. Blackett says, “I think the Court got things backwards. If legislation infringes Charter rights in a vague or general way, infringements become impossible to justify – they don’t become Constitution-proof.”

Widdowson and co-litigant Jonah Pickle appealed the ruling to the Alberta Court of Appeal, which heard argument on Monday. A decision from the Court of Appeal is expected soon.

From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

Once again, a government report affirmed what every Canadian should know by now: People are being killed by euthanasia because they cannot access the care they actually need and in some cases are denied that care.

The “choice” that is left to them is a lethal injection. Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Death Review Committee’s (MDRC) latest report, “Evaluating Incurability, Irreversible Decline, and Reasonably Foreseeable Natural Death,” highlights this fact once again.

As Dr. Ramona Coelho, an advocate for people with disabilities and one of the most eloquent opponents of Canada’s MAiD regime highlighted in her analysis of the report, Health Canada dictates that a “person can only be considered incurable if there are no reasonable and effective treatments available (and) explicitly state that individuals cannot refuse all treatments to render themselves incurable, and thereby qualify for MAiD.”

However, the MDRC’s report cites cases that do not appear to qualify:

Consider Mrs. A: isolated, severely obese, depressed, and disconnected from care; she refused treatment and social support but requested MAiD. Instead of re-engaging her with care, MAiD clinicians deemed her incurable because she refused all investigations, and her life was ended.

Or Mr. B: a man with cerebral palsy in long-term care, he voluntarily stopped eating and drinking, leading to renal failure and dehydration. He was deemed eligible under Track 1 because his death was consequently considered “reasonably foreseeable.” No psychiatric expertise was consulted despite signs of psychosocial distress.

Or Mr. C: a man in his 70s with essential tremor, whose MAiD provider documented that his request was mainly driven by emotional suffering and bereavement.

In short, Coelho concludes, “Canada’s legal safeguards are failing. Federal guidelines are being ignored. The public deserves to know: Is Canada building a system that truly protects all Canadians – or one that expedites death for the vulnerable?” It has been clear what kind of system we have created for some time, which is why Canada is considered a cautionary tale even in the UK, where assisted suicide advocates violently and indignantly object to any comparisons of their proposed legislation and the Canadian regime.

The National Post also noted examples found in the MRDC’s report, noting that: “A severely obese woman in her 60s who sought euthanasia due to her ‘no longer having a will to live’ and a widower whose request to have his life ended was mainly driven by emotional distress and grief over his dead spouse are the latest cases to draw concerns that some doctors are taking an overly broad interpretation of the law.”

None of this seems to concern the federal government, much less law enforcement. Horror stories are simply not addressed, as if ignoring them means that they did not happen. Constant revelations of lawbreaking are met with silence. “A quarter of all Ontario MAiD providers may have violated the Criminal Code,” journalist Alexander Raikin warned last year in The Hub. “Does anyone care?” In fact, Ontario’s euthanasia regulators had tracked 428 cases of possible criminal violations – without a single criminal charge being laid.

“Canada’s leaders seem to regard MAiD from a strange, almost anthropological remove: as if the future of euthanasia is no more within their control than the laws of physics; as if continued expansion is not a reality the government is choosing so much as conceding,” Elaina Plott Calabro wrote in The Atlantic recently. “This is the story of an ideology in motion, of what happens when a nation enshrines a right before reckoning with the totality of its logic.”

There is an opportunity to stop the spread of Canada’s MAiD regime. MPs Tamara Jansen and Andrew Lawton are championing the “Right to Recover” Act, which would make it illegal to euthanize someone whose sole qualifying condition is mental illness. I urge each and every reader to get involved today.

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Jonathon Van Maren

Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National Post, National Review, First Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton Spectator, Reformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.