{"id":4879,"date":"2020-05-22T13:59:49","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T13:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/?p=4879"},"modified":"2020-11-16T11:27:15","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T16:27:15","slug":"webcast-archive-no-free-choice-remembering-four-suicides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2020\/05\/webcast-archive-no-free-choice-remembering-four-suicides\/","title":{"rendered":"Webcast Archive: No Free Choice &#8211; remembering four suicides"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, we will not present our webcast, due to technical problems caused by heavy internet usage. However we are providing the text as a bulletin to offer up-to-date information about assisted suicide, euthanasia and ending-of-life practices for the disability community.<\/p>\n<p><b>NO FREE CHOICE: REMEMBERING FOUR SUICIDES<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the year before euthanasia came into effect in Qu\u00e9bec, between April, 2014 and March of 2015, four Qu\u00e9becers with disabilities ended their lives because they didn\u2019t have the supports they needed to remain independent. Despite efforts by advocates, conditions in the province have worsened since then.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In April of 2014, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.journaldemontreal.com\/2014\/04\/21\/linaction-de-la-saaq-mise-en-cause\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mario Beaudoin<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and his wife were found dead in their home following what was believed to be a suicide pact. Mr. Beaudoin had been injured in a car accident 16 months earlier, and had been unable to get home modifications, medical equipment and personal assistance services they needed.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In September, three months after Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s National Assembly adopted the province\u2019s euthanasia law, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/2014\/09\/the-useless-death-of-yvan-tremblay\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yvan Tremblay<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> killed himself because he was being forced to move out of his apartment due to new security regulations imposed by the government. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Management claimed that it would be impossible to evacuate Mr. Tremblay in case of fire, so he would have to move to a smaller apartment without a kitchen.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two days later, on September 16, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.journaldemontreal.com\/2014\/10\/08\/trois-tetraplegiques-se-suicident-en-six-mois\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pierre Mayence<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> died of starvation at the nursing home where he lived, after a court ruled that the staff could not force-feed him.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And finally, in March of 2015, Gabriel Bouchard died, also of starvation, because he could not get the supports he needed to remain in his own apartment. (You can watch our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2015\/02\/personal-stories-gabriel-bouchard\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interview<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with him on our website.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What has changed since 2015?<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2019\/11\/webcast-archive-fourth-report-from-quebecs-commission-on-end-of-life-care\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Qu\u00e9bec<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, from December of 2015 to April of 2019, 2,909 people were euthanized, and 2,947 people received continuous palliative sedation, for a total death toll of 5,856.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Neither Qu\u00e9bec nor the Federal government has released reports from the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.canada.ca\/en\/health-canada\/services\/medical-assistance-dying.html#a7\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">monitoring system<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for medical aid in dying (MAiD). However in introducing bill C-7, the Department of Justice mentioned that more than <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.canada.ca\/en\/department-justice\/news\/2020\/02\/government-of-canada-proposes-changes-to-medical-assistance-in-dying-legislation.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">13,000<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> euthanasia had been performed since June of 2016.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As of May 20, 3,718 people had died of COVID-19 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.quebec.ca\/en\/health\/health-issues\/a-z\/2019-coronavirus\/situation-coronavirus-in-quebec\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in Qu\u00e9bec<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, most of whom were residents of long-term care institutions. Deaths in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.canada.ca\/en\/public-health\/services\/diseases\/coronavirus-disease-covid-19.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Canada<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> totalled 6,030.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What hasn\u2019t changed in the last five years?<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Public policy still favours warehousing disabled people in institutions, rather than giving them the choice to control their lives by employing their own personal support workers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The public, including progressives, continue to believe in the myth that assisted suicide and euthanasia (AS &amp; E) is a free choice.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Disability groups remain timid about opposing AS &amp; E.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While we\u2019ve focused on events in Qu\u00e9bec, the same problems apply in the rest of Canada.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People talk about the health care workers who are the \u201cfront-line heroes\u201d of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that\u2019s absolutely true; many are going above and beyond the call of duty. But most of these workers get to leave the heartache behind when they go home at the end of the day. Disabled activists don\u2019t stop being disabled when their shift is over, just as single parents, women, people of colour and poor people can\u2019t leave behind the discrimination that affects their lives.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n   ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\n<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nThis week: we remember four Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois who killed themselves between 2014 and 2015 for lack of supports to enable them to remain independent, and ask what has, and has not changed since then.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2020\/05\/webcast-archive-no-free-choice-remembering-four-suicides\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Webcast Archive: No Free Choice &#8211; remembering four suicides&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2020\/05\/webcast-archive-no-free-choice-remembering-four-suicides\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Webcast Archive: No Free Choice &#8211; remembering four suicides&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[354,735,776,95,923,741,731,805,99,94,727,97,62,740,98,101,468],"class_list":["post-4879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-webcast-archive","tag-autonomy","tag-choice","tag-covid","tag-dignity","tag-end-of-life-en-2","tag-external-pressure","tag-hospice","tag-maid","tag-medical-aid-in-dying","tag-medical-assistance-in-dying","tag-nursing-home","tag-pain","tag-palliative-care","tag-quality-of-life","tag-suffering","tag-suicide","tag-terminal","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4961,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions\/4961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}