Illustration from Robert Munsch classic I Will Love You Forever

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Children’s writer Robert Munsch, diagnosed with dementia, has decided to end his life through euthanasia and has been approved to receive the lethal injection.

Famous Canadian author Robert Munsch has announced that he plans to end his life through euthanasia after being diagnosed with dementia.

In a September 14 interview with the New York Times, 80-year-old Canadian writer Robert Munsch revealed that he has been granted permission to be euthanized as his mind begins to deteriorate due to dementia.

“I’ve had a good life,” he reflected. “I’ve told my stories. Now I want to decide how it ends.”

Munsch is beloved to Canadians for his more than 70 children’s books, including The Paper Bag Princess, Love You Forever, Thomas’ Snowsuit, and Angela’s Airplane.

He has also received a Juno Award, induction into the Order of Canada, a star in Canada’s Walk of Fame, and has two public schools in Ontario named after him.

In 2021, Munsch was diagnosed with dementia, leading him to lose the ability to perform tasks such as riding a bike and driving. Munsch lamented that he wonders if in a year he lose all his mental facilities and become a “turnip” – a denigrating reference to the disabled.

Munsch noted that he can feel his creativity slipping “further and further away.” He added that he plans to end his life “when I start having real trouble talking and communicating. Then I’ll know.”

Sadly, Munsch is hardly the only Canadian to believe that ending his life through euthanasia is the only solution to suffering. In a recent podcast interview, Cardinal Timothy Dolan revealed that euthanasia is not only the “cheapening of human life,” but also removes the power of redemptive suffering.

He revealed that while his mother suffered for a long time in the hospital, she valued her life and would not have ended it prematurely.

“God’s ways are not our ways,” he explained, noting that sometimes suffering can seem pointless but God always has a greater plan.

Similarly, Bishop Joseph Strickland explained that “True compassion does not eliminate suffering by eliminating the one who suffers. Rather, it means walking with the sick and dying and offering authentic palliative care, emotional support, and spiritual accompaniment. It is in these moments – when we are most vulnerable – that we must be reminded that our worth is not measured by our health, our productivity, or our independence, but by the fact that we are beloved children of God who are made in His image and likeness.”

The dangerous effects of a euthanasia culture are visible in Canada, where patients are waitlisted for health care but have ready access to euthanasia.

The most recent reports show that euthanasia is the sixth-highest cause of death in Canada. However, it was not listed as such in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.

According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by euthanasia lethal injections. This accounts for 4.1 percent of all deaths in the country for that year, a 31.2 percent increase from 2021.

This article supplied by Troy Media.

By Daniel Zekveld

Canadians need real mental health support, not state-sanctioned suicide

If the law Parliament plans to roll out in 2027 had been on the books 15 years ago, Member of Parliament Andrew Lawton says he’d probably be dead. He’s not exaggerating. He’s referring to Canada’s scheduled expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to include people suffering only from mental illness.

Lawton, who survived a suicide attempt during a period of deep depression, knows what’s at stake. So do others who’ve shared similar stories. What they needed back then wasn’t a government-approved exit plan. They needed care, time, and something MAiD quietly discards: the possibility of recovery.

MAiD, medical assistance in dying, was legalized in Canada in 2016 for people with grievous and irremediable physical conditions. The 2027 expansion would, for the first time, allow people to request MAiD solely on the basis of a mental illness, even if they have no physical illness or terminal condition.

With the expansion now delayed to March 2027, Parliament will once again have to decide whether it wants to cross this particular moral threshold. Although the legislation was passed in 2021, it has never come into force. First pushed back to 2024, then to 2027, it remains stalled, not because of foot-dragging, but due to intense medical, ethical and public concern.

Parliament should scrap the expansion altogether.

A 2023 repeal attempt came surprisingly close—just 17 votes short, at 167 to 150. That’s despite unanimous support from Conservative, NDP and Green MPs. You read that right: all three parties, often at each other’s throats, agreed that death should not be an option handed out for depression.

Their concern wasn’t just ethical, it was practical. The core issues remain unresolved. There’s no consensus on whether mental illness is ever truly irremediable—whether it can be cured, improved or even reliably assessed as hopeless. Ask 10 psychiatrists and you’ll get 12 opinions. Recovery isn’t rare. But authorizing MAiD sends the opposite message: that some people’s pain is permanent, and the only answer is to make it stop—permanently.

Meanwhile, access to real mental health care is sorely lacking. A 2023 Angus Reid Institute poll found 40 per cent of Canadians who needed treatment faced barriers getting it. Half of Canadians said they outright oppose the expansion. Another 21 per cent weren’t sure—perhaps assuming Canada wouldn’t actually go through with something so dystopian. But 82 per cent agreed on one thing: don’t even think about expanding MAiD before fixing the mental health system.

That disconnect between what people need and what they’re being offered leads to a more profound contradiction. Canada spends millions promoting suicide prevention. There are hotlines, campaigns and mental health initiatives. Offering MAiD to people in crisis sends a radically different message: suicide prevention ends where bureaucracy begins.

Even Quebec, normally Canada’s most enthusiastic adopter of progressive policy experiments, has drawn the line. The province has said mental disorders don’t qualify for MAiD, period. Most provincial premiers and health ministers have called for an indefinite delay.

Internationally, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has condemned Canada’s approach and urged the government not to proceed. Taken together, the message is clear: both at home and abroad, there’s serious alarm over where this policy leads.

With mounting opposition and the deadline for implementation approaching in 2027, Parliament will again revisit the issue this fall.

A private member’s bill from MP Tamara Jansen, Bill C-218, which seeks to repeal the 2027 expansion clause, will bring the issue back to the floor for debate.

Her speech introducing the bill asked MPs to imagine someone’s child, broken by job loss or heartbreak, reaching a dark place. “Imagine they feel a loss so deep they are convinced the world would be better off without them,” she said. “Our society could end a person’s life solely for a mental health challenge.”

That isn’t compassion. That’s surrender.

Expanding MAiD to mental illness risks turning a temporary crisis into a permanent decision. It treats pain as untreatable, despair as destiny, and bureaucracy as wisdom. It signals to the vulnerable that Canada is no longer offering help—just a final form to sign.

Parliament still has time to reverse course. It should reject the expansion, reinvest in suicide prevention and reassert that mental suffering deserves treatment—not a state-sanctioned exit.

Daniel Zekveld is a Policy Analyst with the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada.

Explore more on Euthanasia, Assisted suicide, Mental health, Human Rights, Ethics

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