@pawding.bsky.social:
Drilling for oil in the Arctic? Palantir? Canadian businesses being sold to foreign investment? Are you selling Canada to the highest bidder? Or protecting her? Only one right answer.
@beatsie1.bsky.social:
Carney’s not a Canadian
He’s nothing but evil.
I’ve never seen a more evil politician than Mark Carney
@christoaivalis.bsky.social:
Carney just gave corporations a tax cut that cost Canadians 36 BILLION dollars.
I’m sure the wealth will trickle down THIS time
@consbegone.bsky.social:
We did not vote for this.
Quite the opposite in fact.
Carney is a Conservative fraud
@marygillis.bsky.social:
The budget also provides over $36 billion over the next five years in tax deductions for industry.which in Carney/Harper’s Canada is mostly American, Nazi American and because Carney is a catholic misogynist, serves mostly men, well to do men.
Kinda gives away the game as to who this government is really focused on helping.
@avilewis.ca:
The single biggest item in the budget is a “mega deduction” for corporations, with a price tag of $36 billion over 5 years. Fifty per cent more than all of the “affordability measures” combined. But where is the mega deduction to your grocery bill, or your rent?
@tryangregory.bsky.social:
Militarization, AI, fossil fuels, and austerity and deficits to pay for it.
@leahgazan.bsky.social:
The Liberals have once again put corporations over communities in their Fall budget.
Its biggest expense? A handout tomostly American already super rich Nazi big fossil fuel companies. Meanwhile it ignores childcare, healthcare, postsecondary education, housing, and affordability.
@mehlerpaperny.bsky.social:
Really interesting piece from @emmettmacfarlane.com on Canada’s kibosh of assisted death for solely mental illness
The piece gets at something that irks: A major argument against MAiD is that people are accessing it who might not if their medical/social supports were better.
We have done nothing (zero) to improve medical or social supports in these contexts. Are we more comfortable with intolerable suffering?No, the religious are, notably kid raping catholic and evangelical “christian.”
Anyway, it’s budget day. Maybe we could ask a government so concerned about people with mental illness it’s denying them a right laid out by the Supreme Court what it’s doing to alleviate those people’s suffering.
Nothing but making our public Health Care, notably our near non existent mental health care, much more inaccessible in Canada, so as to give it to inhumane Nazi American private for profit health corporations. PS Herr Carney’s dad was part of the horrific residential school abuses; the evil son is showing us via his lies, racism, bigotry, bias to the rich and only the rich, and abuses that he is much more cruel.
@jgdownie.bsky.social:
Spot on. The Minister and his staff know better yet still force suffering individuals to go to court for protection of their Charter rights. Hoping (against hope?) that the Senate stands up for rights of people with mental illness the way they did for women on abortion years ago.I think many in the Senate have been swallowed by the Carney MAGAt cult.
The federal government’s proposed ban on MAID for mental health is immoral and unconstitutional by
Emmett Macfarlane, Nov 5, 2026, Defending Canadian Democracy
Last week the federal government introduced Bill C-41, amendments to the Criminal Code provisions concerning medical aid in dying that would, among other things, prohibit access for those with mental illness as a sole condition.
This aspect of the bill is based on the majority recommendation of a deeply flawed and divided Joint Committee process heavily tilted towards anti-MAID parliamentarians and witnesses.Aka, the religious terrorists.
More importantly, it is patently unconstitutional, a gross act of discrimination against individuals on the basis of their disability, and an attack on the autonomy and human dignity of people to make their own choices about life and death. Nothing could strike more at the heart of human rights generally and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms specifically.
The ban is predicated on the idea that those with mental illness are especially vulnerable, that they would be particularly susceptible to coercion or undue pressure, and/or that the nature of their illness means it is impossible to accurate gauge important questions around eligibility for MAID, including capacity to make decisions and whether a condition is a truly irremediable one. In the view of the government and opponents of MAID, then, this prohibition is justified on the basis of the protection it offers to a particularly vulnerable class of people.
There are a number of problems with this logic, and why when it is inevitably heard by the courts that it should not meet muster under the Charter’s reasonable limits analysis.
First, some of this line of reasoning is simply reflective of the same patronizing logics and slippery slope argumentation that the Supreme Court already rejected in the landmark Carter decision in 2015. The Court found (correctly) that there is plenty of comparative evidence from the experiences of other countries that sufficient protections could be provided to ensure vulnerable people do not fall prey to coercion.
And there are also jurisdictions that offer MAID in the context of mental health as a sole criterion (including Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands). MAID has been available in these countries for people with mental health as a sole criterion for roughly 20 to 25 years. The evidence shows such cases are a tiny proportion of the total of MAID requests. Nor is there any compelling evidence that existing safeguards don’t work.
Second, some of the arguments against MAID in the mental health context in Canada are rooted in broader anti-MAID sentiment that would apply to all those seeking MAID. For example, the media has enabled a moral panic often predicated on a mix of sensationalistic reporting and misinformation about how the MAID process actually operates. This whipped up moral panic is comprised almost entirely of anecdotal stories that inevitably include only selective facts about an individual’s MAID journey. The stories are often rooted in some salacious detail about a patient’s personal circumstances or rely on interviews with a grieving family member who disagreed with their loved one’s choice to pursue MAID.In my direct experience over my entire life time, the most cruel behaving towards me people have been those in my family and Nazi Smith is illegally making it a requirement for MAID recipients, if she and her “christian” cruel religious terrorist separatists even allow anyone to get MAID, that a family member be present. Fuck that abusive ignorant shit. I want nothing to do with any member of my family, ever
Take, for instance, reporting on this case, which describes family members who believe their loved one did not have capacity to consent because in addition to his other medical issues he also faced mental health challenges. They allege he was coached by a medical practitioner in order to get approval. While the story describes the need for assessments by two independent practitioners, like many of these media accounts the patient themselves is no longer available to be interviewed. The media has no access to the medical assessments, and only one of the practitioners involved responded to the allegations. In short, the ‘reporting’ lays out visceral allegations from a grieving family who disagreed with their loved one’s choice (he had been seeking MAID for years, according to the story), but inevitably failed to provide readers with the full context under which the assessment of capacity was undertaken.
One of the most common type of stories concerns individuals receiving inadequate social, welfare, or housing supports, and thus their living condition contributed to their decision to pursue MAID. Perhaps the most famous story – undoubtedly one with galling implications – was framed by the media with headlines like this: “Woman with chemical sensitivities chose medically-assisted death after failed bid to get better housing” [CTV] Here you have a woman who may have chosen not to pursue MAID had she been given better housing that would have possibly alleviated her medical condition.
I suspect anyone with an ounce of compassion reading this story – whether MAID proponent or opponent – is properly outraged at our systemic lack of political will or resources to provide adequate housing, welfare, and social supports to people in need. But the idea that the solution here is to deny people access to MAID (and indeed, not only to deny access to people in these circumstances but to deny everyone access) should be seen as equally troubling, because it is a decision to quite literally impose intolerable suffering on people.
Patients face life circumstances in the world we have, not the world we wish existed.Especially not the world the religious believe exists if one is forced to endure nothing but suffering in life, which is fucking sadistic Trump Shit. It is a world of scarcity and political decision-making that inadequately distributes resources to people is need. Sometimes patients face challenging social situations, including a lack of family or social supports. Most people lack the money to buy the absolute best medical care in the world, particularly in a context like Canada’s where our provincial health systems are often inadequate, especially in the context of chronic, non-’emergency’ care.
This reality does not justify changes to the way we approach patient autonomy: that is, it is the patient who gets to make their own medical decisions.Not fucking evil religious terrorists like Alberta’s rural ignorant hate-filled suffering-loving separatists and their evil incredibly ignorant sadistic Queen Dani, and Canada’s con politicos, including Mark Carney and his twin from Hell, Herr Harper and his IDU and other inhumane religious political consAnd inevitably people are going to – and should obviously be free to – take into consideration all of their life circumstances when making medical conditions.
Denying access to MAID is not a solution to any of the deficiencies of our health care or social assistance systems. It is instead the imposition of cruelty premised on an impoverished conception of ‘protecting’ vulnerable peoples, a perspective that would literally have us deny them the choice, however maddening or tragic their particular circumstances, to make the most important decisions affecting them, and failing to recognize their own dignity and autonomy.
The most ardent opponents of MAID present this approach as literally eugenicist, as a system designed to kill poor and disabled people. This disgusting line is itself rooted in misinformation. For one thing, literally everyone who gets access to MAID suffers from a disability (in this context, a medical condition). The argument that MAID ‘targets disabled people’ is thus simply an argument against having MAID at all. For another, the empirical evidence from Canadian data is clear: as with most health care, MAID as a service disproportionally goes to people with higher incomes (people who are often better equipped to get access to health services because of their privileged circumstances). Moreover, the proportion of MAID recipients who suffer from social isolation is also the same as or lower than the broader population [see this post for more]. The claim that MAID systematically targets the poor or uniquely vulnerable is, as an empirical matter, bullshit.
Finally, it is important to consider arguments that are specific to the mental health context: that is, in at least some cases, questions of irremediability and capacity to consent may be more challenging to assess than in the context of other medical conditions.
There are two responses to these concerns. The first is to note that sometimes irremediability is mischaracterized in the debates, or people treat it simplistically. Consider, for example, the fact that many mental illnesses can be treated or alleviated in many circumstances. The implication some people absorb from this fact is that people suffering from these particular illnesses should never be eligible for MAID because the illnesses themselves are not irremediable! But the question of irremediability is a question for the specific case of a particular person. Treatments that work on some do not work on others. We do not – and could not, ethically-speaking – impose on patients the requirement that they must undergo every conceivable treatment for a condition or that they must wait some arbitrary decades-long timeline before a conclusion on irremediability is reached. Assessment of irremediability, then, is deeply contextual. Just as one person’s suffering with a disease might be tolerable for them but is intolerable for someone else with the same condition, irremediability is assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Second, let’s accept the fact that in some cases it may be more difficult to assess capacity to consent or irremediability. This fact does not make the absolute prohibition the government is pursuing remotely proportional under section 1 of the Charter. There is no basis for the prohibition even if patients in some instances will not be deemed eligible for access. Moreover, the courts must demand the government provide robust evidence that existing or potential safeguards will fail to protect patients from having MAID imposed one them in ways that violate the eligibility rules.
It is disheartening to see the Carney government abandon basic rights and evidence-based policy-making by introducing this egregiously unconstitutional prohibition. It flies in the face not only of the Carter decision but of any reasonable understanding of section 7 and equality rights. MAID opponents will say that the Supreme Court said nothing explicit about mental health as a sole criterion in Carter, and they are technically correct, but what they have not addressed is the ways such a ban flies in the face of Carter’s underlying logic and rights analysis.
The bill is not yet law. One hopes that the independent Senate will take a hard look at this. While the Senate should generally avoid obstructing a government’s legislative agenda, there is a crucial role the Senate can play in defending constitutional standards.
If the Senate undertakes a proper investigation of this bill, it will find that it is an unjustifiable limit on people’s basic rights, and it will vote to amend or defeat the bill outright, if necessary.
No More Delays:
“The media has no access to the medical assessments, and only one of the practitioners involved responded to the allegations.”
This is why I opened up one of my assessments to reporters from the Canadian Press and NYTimes.
Originally, I thought it would be good for those that report on MAiD to see an assessment happen so they could use that experience in their future reporting.
Now it’s shifted because changes to the mental illness exclusion will strip away the approvals I received. I got both approvals 13 days before C-41 was introduced.
Ken Fisher:
“This aspect of the bill is based on the majority recommendation of a deeply flawed and divided Joint Committee process heavily tilted towards anti-MAID parliamentarians and witnesses.” Yes. It is unconstitutional. Are Libs this hungry for CPC votes?Yes, of course, Cruel Carney is power hungry like his evil pals Steve Harper and Danielle Smith. He needs massive corrupt majority to continue destroying Canada, serving his rich American friends in the anti rights Nazi Trump regime, and military, industry, Nazi AI, etc, and to continue destroying our rights and getting rid of our Charter which he, Smith and Harper hate.
Veronica Strong-Boag:
definitely!
Big Mac:
Where does all this leave people who wish to sign legal documents for MAID in advance of future need? Are the provinces going to be able to remove that right?Yes, or course, that’s why Carney is giving advance requests to provinces like Anti MAID heavily religious terrorist Alberta. I believe intentionally to eventually let religious run provinces destroy our charter right to MAID completely, serving the vicious and cruel kid raping anti MAID catholic church. Carney is catholic, while pretending the feds are innocent in the law violations.What if the province’s politicians’ values and beliefs do not align with our personal beliefs and values? Will they pay for our future care? Will they pay for future medications, supplies and assistive devices to unnaturally prolong our lives against our wishes. Who owns our bodies and minds?That’s easy – fucking lying abusive misogynistic bigoted cruel rape religions. It’s long past time to criminalize all religions, and and humans must in the very least, take away their tax free status
No More Delays;
Provinces wont have to remove that right.
Advanced requests in Bill C-41 don’t create a right to advanced requests across the country. It kicks the problem to the provinces to make their own patchwork of legislation allowing it.
So when C-41 passes, those that want to see advanced requests in their province will have to push for their province to allow it.
My guess is it was only thrown in there knowing no other provinces except Quebec will care about advanced requests, but makes it harder for the Senate to vote down the bill.
Big Mac:
Danielle Smith said she will oppose MAID in this type of case. Accordingly, people in Alberta will have less rights than other Canadians. We need legal MAID documents that will be recognized nationwide and also give us access anywhere in Canada. Documents are not access. Unfortunately, it looks like we’ll be shafted by Alberta’s government again.
No More Delays:
Unfortunately for Albertans, Smith has already passed legislation banning advanced requests. That bill is truly evil. It forces patients to include family they may not want to include into the MAiD process.Ordered so by Smith’s bosses, the religious terrorist Nazi separatists
Big Mac:
I’m hoping that Albertans will have guarantees to advance planning, portable documents and access to MAID for reasons listed below that other Canadians will have. Provincial opt-outs do not serve the people.
Kate Langan:
Hopefully someone will start an “ourcommons” petition against this bill so that we can add our voices to the debate.
Canadian Returnee:
Autism is considered a mental health issue now. Should they be denied if they happen to understand the process?
Doug Jordan: TravelsWithMyself:
Your comment on the role of the Senate in reviewing challenging legislation is very apt.
Kay:
Alberta is blocking MAID access to Albertan’s in multiple instances including the recent changes allowing for advance consent re dementia diagnosis citizens … And, in Alberta, the kid raping hideously cruel catholic church rules supreme, and treats patients seeking MAID worse than if they were dead dogs.
***
@sustainablesong.bsky.social:
So how is Mark Carney responding to the worst cost of living crisis in generations? With things like fifty billion dollars in cuts to federal health care transfers.
Oil profits matter to this PM. Your physical well being does not.
shrlnk.ca/s/lSMuC0GM
@darkmatterzine.bsky.social:
reform means more profits for companies, introducing US style medical bankruptcies, worsening health and profiteering companies sentencing people to death by denying them essential healthcare.and much worse, causing decades of horrific suffering all the while using rape religions to violate Canadians charter right to MAID.
Enemies of Public Health Care Roost in Toronto, US dark money-backed groups gather today to hone their attack on Canada’s medicare by Christopher Holcroft, Nov 5, 2026, The Tyee
Christopher Holcroft is a writer and Principal of Empower Consulting. Reach him by email.
Canadian medicare is under attack. Nefarious legislation, insufficient funding and weak leadership are causing this country’s once-cherished public health-care system increasingly to buckle.
This week, U.S. dark money-funded think tanks are holding a conference on how to break it permanently.
Jointly organized by SecondStreet.org, the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Montreal Economic Institute, the two-day event set to begin today at the exclusive Albany Club in Toronto is rather innocuously titled “The Future of Health-Care Reform.”
In reality, the event is both a showcase for privatization and a strategy discussion for importing U.S.-style, two-tier health care into Canada. For these special interests the intent is clear: “reform” means ruin.Herr Hideous Harper’s wet dream that he failed to bring to fruition while he was terrorizing Canadians when he was PM. Now he’s got his more evil twin Carney to do it.
The conference agenda features a mix of speeches and panel discussions including presentations from Dr. Brian Day, former president of the Canadian Medical Association and president of Cambie Surgery Centre, which was at the centre of a failed constitutional challenge to medicare.
Also participating are past and present politicians from both the Conservative and Liberal parties: former Conservative federal health minister Tony Clement, former Liberal Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil and current federal Conservative health critic Raquel Dancho. Having both a senior Liberal with governing experience and a high-profile current Conservative member of Parliament speaking at the conference — not just attending — is a coup for organizers, and a concern for medicare supporters.
Notably, prominent Globe and Mail health columnist André Picard will deliver the conference’s closing keynote address, titled “André Picard’s Realistic Vision for a Better Health-Care System.” Picard was named Canada’s first Public Health Hero by the Canadian Public Health Association.
Talks will also be given by journalist Matt Gurney, co-editor of the Line; Walter Robinson, former lobbyist for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and current advocate for AI in health careJFC!; and Andrew Enns, executive vice-president of Leger, who will discuss results from “exclusive” polling now available on SecondStreet’s website. Other presenters will include representatives of the think tanks organizing the conference, as well as from thepiece of con shit Fraser Institute.
The conference is the latest initiative being carried out by Canadian think tanks in service of the shadowy yet powerful Atlas Network, a U.S.-based organization championed by billionaire libertarians who seek to meddle in the policy debates of other countries, bending them to their favour. These debates range from measures to address climate change to fair taxation policies to restrictions on disinformation and hate speech.
The network’s funders — which include many of the United States’ corporate elite — also evidently want Canadians to abandon medicare. The reason is clear: privatization of a $400-billion annual public expenditure presents tremendous opportunity for profit.
As part of its global network of partner think tanks, the Atlas Network supports 11 Canadian organizations, including SecondStreet, the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Montreal Economic Institute. Atlas has tapped all three groups to be its agents in the campaign for health-care privatization in Canada.
SecondStreet.org is the newest and most focused organization on health-care policy among the three. SecondStreet was an Atlas Network “Smart Bet” in 2022. In an announcement accompanying the designation, the network promised to “contribute significantly to SecondStreet.org’s budget” for a project called “Health Care Choice.”
A larger grant pledged to “move the needle one province at a time toward giving patients the right to access the care of their choosing — public or private.” There is no mention of this funding anywhere on SecondStreet’s website or in its annual reports.
Since 2022, SecondStreet has campaigned for two-tier health care, releasing reports, conducting polls and becoming a regular presence in media, including via its own show on Forum TV. The group also maintains a rather ghoulish online tracker, “Died on a Waiting List.” SecondStreet has taken credit for recent provincial conservative government health policies and also notes that the Ontario Liberal Party adopted its messaging on waiting lists in the party’s ultimately unsuccessful 2025 election campaign.
The Canadian Constitution Foundation is referred to as a partner by the Atlas Network, and its advocacy and legal work on health-care choice is profiled by the organization. Specific reference is made to Atlas Network funding for health care-related court challenges.
The Canadian Constitution Foundation also supported the plaintiffs in the previously noted long-running but ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit by Cambie Surgery Centre in B.C. to challenge the constitutionality of Canada’s public health-care system. The foundation’s interim executive director, Christine Van Geyn, also hosts a show on Forum TV, called Canadian Justice.
The Atlas Network’s affiliation with the Montreal Economic Institute goes back many years. The institute’s founding president, Michel Kelly-Gagnon, remains a fellow with the Atlas Network. In 2021, the institute’s work on health policy reform in Quebec was highlighted along with published arguments made against universal health care by Montreal Economic Institute senior economist Peter St. Onge. In those comments, St. Onge claimed that “Canada serves as a warning of the unintended consequences of socialized medicine: high taxes, long waits, staff shortages and substandard drugs and equipment.”
In 2025, the Montreal Economic Institute was a “Smart Bets” winner in support of “training and inspiring the next generation of civil society and political leaders with the ideas of liberty.”
All three groups also work with other Atlas Network-supported right-wing Canadian think Lie & Propaganda tanks, including the Fraser Institute, which has its own role at the conference.
This week’s conference arrives as political momentum is with the organizers. A growing number of provinces are unabashedly incorporating more private care delivery into their health systems, in spite of outcomes such as longer wait times and higher costs.
Alberta’s United Conservative Party government moved aggressively with its Bill 11 taking effect last month. The legislation creates a system of “dual practice” that allows physicians to both operate within the public system and charge patients privately for the same medical services.
Meanwhile, last week’s British Columbia election result and the campaign promises of the winning Conservative Party of BC suggest the province is likely to soon make its own foray into privatized health care.
In June, SecondStreet, the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Montreal Economic Institute, along with a number of other think tanks in favour of private health care, released a public letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney, which also appeared as a digital ad in the Hill Times newspaper. It applauded the government “for recognizing the importance of provincial flexibility murder of Public Health Care and for taking a more open approach to provincial health-care innovation and reform.”Reform is translation for Rape by American for Profit Health Monsters – or in other words, ejaculation by Herr Hideous Harper
The letter was prompted by an underwhelming defence of the Canada Health Act by Liberal Health Minister Marjorie Michel, with whom medicare advocates had pleaded to intervene on Alberta’s Bill 11. Michel rebuffed those pleas, claiming her government was taking a “collaborative approach” with the provinces, one that “respects their jurisdiction to explore innovative ways to improve take away and force massive profit for American Nazi shit head corporations under guise of access to care.”
Michel has since used more forceful language to describe Alberta’s legislation, but her initial comments are consistent with a pattern of the Carney-led federal Liberal government showing little interest in defending or strengthening medicare.
Over the last year, the government has reduced spending on health care, stalled the expansion of pharmacare and reduced access to health care for refugees. It has also declined to commit to maintaining the present level of funding for the Canada Health Transfer that is set to expire in 2028.
Fortunately, grassroots supporters of medicare are standing up and speaking out.
The need is urgent. Canadians do not just care about medicare; they are calling for it to be robustly defended, including the five principles of the Canada Health Act that have come to define medicare: universality, portability, public administration, comprehensiveness and accessibility.
Moreover, evidence is on the side of the defenders. Study after study after study demonstrates that Canadian medicare delivers better patient outcomes and more efficient and affordable care than private models.Nazis Carney, Smith, Harper and American profit suckers don’t give any shits about Canadians or the shitty care provided by for profit private care
In a time of “elbows up” civic nationalism to counter Donald Trump’s United States, there may be no better representation of the Canadian values we are fighting to defend than medicare.
The principles of fairness and equality inherent in a health system that precludes two-tier care — one system for the rich and another for everyone else — is nation-defining. It is why public opinion polling continues to deem medicare central to the Canadian identity and how a Prairie preacher and long-ago politician, Tommy Douglas, could win a contest to be named Greatest Canadian.
Further, a recent opinion poll from Abacus Data that was commissioned by the Canadian Health Coalition brings encouraging news — and results that contrast sharply with the Leger results prepared for SecondStreet.
In the Abacus poll, 80 per cent of Canadians agreed with the statement “Canada’s public health-care system can meet Canadians’ needs if governments invest more in it.” Additionally, just 11 per cent favoured allowing Canadians to privately purchase insurance to access medically necessary services outside the public system.
As Abacus CEO David Coletto declared in reference to medicare, Canadians “have lost confidence in how well the system is performing but have not lost faith in the basic model itself.”
As with standing up to Trump, Canadians are seemingly more resolute than many of their politicians in defending medicare. Still, with relentless efforts by U.S.-funded Canadian think tanks to profit off private care, they are going to have to be.
The fight for medicare is not over yet.
@204queenb0574.bsky.social:
I believe they have. Carney’s motivated by profit and sees they can gouge people for healthcare and make it more of a business here. He’s literally here to destroy us.