The scandal is growing in Canada after it was revealed that the competent authorities are trying to steer demobilized soldiers with problems towards euthanasia instead of providing them with treatments and tools that make their lives easier.
Since "assisted suicide" was legalized in Canada in 2016, around 65,000 people have died with medical assistance. Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is expanding the range of eligible people.
The fact that, instead of real help, the state offers "assisted suicide" to demobilized soldiers who are struggling with mental illness or, for example, physical disabilities, has caused enormous outrage in Canada. When the scandal broke, the authorities tried to hide the traces , reports the American news portal Slay News.
The media first reported such a case in 2022, when Christine Gauthier, a former corporal in the Canadian Army, came forward saying that a staff member at the Veterans Affairs Office offered her to end her life with medical assistance.
Gauthier served in the Canadian army for ten years, from which he was demobilized because a permanent spinal injury , which has since left him confined to a wheelchair, reports the British newspaper Daily Mail. The woman is a multiple world champion parakeet runner (she also won a gold medal in Szeged in 2011), and represented Canada at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio.
Despite everything, he had been fighting with the competent authority for several years to get a wheelchair lift for his home, when the speaker assigned to his case told him that he could no longer live like this, that this had to be resolved.
If you really feel like you can't go on like this, if you feel like you can't do it anymore, do you know that you have the right to die?
- the official's shocking answer by the British newspaper The Telegraph.
The incident caused a huge outcry across Canada, especially after several other veterans reported similar offers. A war veteran wanted treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome, but was instead encouraged to end his life.
The reason, at least according to organizations dealing with the interests of demobilized soldiers, is as simple as it is cynical: money.
The full article can be read HERE
Cover image: Illustration (Source: BBC)
