Western Canada: Controversy around a Delta, B.C., hospice deepens over its refusal to allow medically assisted death

For the dying in Delta, B.C., the Irene Thomas Hospice, just down the road from the local hospital, has been a serene refuge where patients can live out their final days.

But patients there have never been able to ask for a doctor’s help to end their lives: the Delta Hospice Society, which runs the facility, does not allow medical assistance in dying and the procedure has never been performed at the hospice, even though some patients have wanted it.

Back in February, British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix put the society on notice – change the policy or lose the provincial funding that flows to the facility. For the year ending March 31, 2019, according to filings with the Canada Revenue Agency, the hospice received the lion’s share of its revenue – $1.6-million, or 47 per cent of its $3.4-million budget – from the province.

Last week, Dix announced the society’s funding would be cut next February.

What happens next will be sure to divide the community even further.

As Andrea Woo reports today, not only does the hospice receive public money, it also sits on public land leased to the society by the Fraser Health Authority. The health authority has not said what it will or can do about the matter. Society president Angelina Ireland pointed out that the organization is only 10 years into a 35-year lease with the authority.

Faith-based organizations in B.C. are not required to provide medical assistance in dying, but they are expected to provide referrals.

The Delta Hospice Society is not a faith-based organization. However, on June 15, the society has called a general meeting and mail-in ballot in an effort to change its constitution to “formally affirm our heritage and identity.”

In a May 22 letter to society members, Ireland wrote: “It has also become obvious that we must return to our roots and fully affirm our Christian identity.”

How the vote will go is a matter of intrigue. As Andrea and Wendy Stueck reported in January, the struggle over the society’s principles has led to bitter divisions within Delta, a bedroom community of 100,000.

A power struggle on the hospice board led to the ousting of the hospice’s founder last fall over the issue of MAID (Medical Assistance In Dying). A membership drive ensued in which the number of society members surged to roughly 1,500 from fewer than 200.

Two annual general meetings followed. The first, in October, ended without a conclusive result after a voting issue; more ballots were cast than there were members registered to vote.

The second, in November, was held in a larger venue to accommodate roughly 300 attendees. The meeting was raucous. When votes were tallied, there was a new slate of directors that within days reversed the previous board’s decision to allow MAID at the hospice, putting the society at odds with Fraser Health.

In recent months, the society has been rejecting membership applications without reason. Ireland said most hospice societies only have around 50 members, and that it was becoming unwieldy and expensive to coordinate meetings.

“We have accepted as many as we possibly could,” she told Andrea on Tuesday. “We are absolutely inundated.”

Delta’s mayor, George Harvie, has called the situation “shameful."

“The mass rejection of memberships from dedicated community members, including past and present hospice staff and volunteers, is simply wrong,” he said in a May 28 statement.

“We cannot let the intolerable actions of the current board go on. The Hospice was funded, built on public land, to provide an end-of-life facility in Delta."

This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief James Keller. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here. This is a new project and we’ll be experimenting as we go, so let us know what you think.

Around the West

GUN CONTROL: Alberta and Saskatchewan are taking more control over gun regulation by replacing their federally appointed chief firearms officers with someone they’ve selected. Provincial chief firearms officers are in charge in implementing many aspects of federal gun laws, including licensing, background checks, transportation and other issues. They are already provincially appointed in Ontario, Quebec and all three Maritime provinces. Alberta and Saskatchewan promised to appoint their own firearms officers months ago but the federal government’s recent ban on what it calls assault weapons has created more urgency.

CHARGES RECOMMENDED AGAINST RCMP: Dale Culver was a member of Gitxsan Wet’suwet’en and a general labourer in construction. He died in 2017, after police responded to allegations he was casing parked vehicles. The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) said in a summary of events released on Friday that when police attempted to question Mr. Culver, he tried to flee by bicycle. A struggle ensued and pepper spray was used. When Culver had trouble breathing, police requested medical help, but he died soon after. The BC Civil Liberties Association later alleged that RCMP members instructed witnesses to delete cellphone evidence of the incident after the fact. The IIO says reasonable grounds exist to indicate two officers involved in the incident committed offences in relation to the use of force, and three others committed offences regarding obstruction of justice. Now his teenage daughter wants an apology.

FAMILY VISITS: As of late last week, the lives of 93 seniors have been lost to the pandemic in the province’s care facilities – each one a painful loss, but it could have been far worse. That relative success in B.C. is fuelling demands from families who now want to ease one particular pandemic measure: the ban on visits, which has been in place since March, arguing the sustained ban on visits is harming residents, while the risk of COVID-19 is low. On Friday, the Vancouver Island Health Authority, with almost 800,000 residents, had only one person hospitalized with the disease.

TOP-UP FUNDS: Store clerks, childcare workers, bus drivers, jail guards and others in Manitoba will qualify for a COVID-19 wage top-up if they’ve been earning less than $2,500 a month, the provincial government announced Tuesday. Premier Brian Pallister said unions and business groups helped develop the list, which also includes some nurses, health care aides, cashiers, cooks and others. The exact dollar amount is to be determined later, depending on how many people qualify. Pallister said he expects about 100,000 workers will get a one-time payment of roughly $1,000.

B.C. SCHOOLS REOPEN: Just one-third of British Columbia’s students from kindergarten to Grade 12 have returned to the classroom for the final month of the school year, despite assurances from public-health officials that pandemic safety measures will keep children safe. The union representing the province’s public school teachers has offered reassurances to its members, too, but according to education ministry data, 10 per cent of teachers have been excused from the classroom because of COVID-19. The uneasy reopening of in-class instruction this week, 10 weeks after classes were suspended for most students, is voluntary and part-time.

MANITOBA REOPENS A BIT MORE: Monday marked the second phase of the government’s relaunch of services after few new infections were found in recent weeks. There were no new COVID-19 cases Monday and the three that were reported last week were all travel-related – two truckers and a temporary foreign worker who had followed proper procedures and self-isolated, public-health officials said. Manitoba has had 295 cases and seven deaths since the pandemic began. Only 10 cases remained active Monday and no one was in the hospital.

COMMERCIAL RENT: The B.C. government is banning commercial evictions for landlords who refuse to participate in the federal relief program. Some businesses have complained that they can't benefit from the federal program, which requires landlords to accept 75 per cent of the usual rent.

CANMORE’S NEW CHURCH: The new Shrine Church of Our Lady of the Rockies in Canmore opened Saturday May 30, 2020. Originally, the dedication ceremony was planned with close to 450 people who would be in attendance and involved. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ceremony was held just with Bishop McGratten, Father Nathan Siray, who will be pastor of the church and a few local priests and sisters.

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Opinions

Hamish Telford and Rob Peregoodoff on reopening B.C. schools for the month of June: “Not to put too fine a point on it, but the spring’s online learning experiment and the current return to class have both been a colossal waste of time and effort. In our opinion, rather than trying to salvage the current school year, the government, school boards and teachers should have been putting all their efforts this spring into preparing for September.”

Alex Gill on dining out as Vancouver slowly starts to reopen: “I had a lump in my stomach and a catch in my breath as I crept up to Nook in North Vancouver last Friday night. What if the experience was terrible? What if I got sick? I might be a critic, but I certainly didn’t want to be the first one to land a punch when the entire industry is down.”