(LifeSiteNews) – Law enforcement in Canada is now investigating the July 10 euthanizing of a confused Christian great-grandmother against her will, as the case captures global horror at the ramifications of Canada’s so-called “medical aid in dying” (MAiD) regime.
As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, 83-year-old Brigitte Stegemann (nicknamed “GG”) had lived in an Ontario long-term care facility for the final two years of her life. She originally explicitly stated that, due to her Christian beliefs, she didn’t want to be euthanized. About five months before her death, she had been diagnosed with untreatable Stage IV stomach cancer.
While her granddaughter Brigette Kranendonk (named in her grandmother’s honor), who held legal power of attorney was away on vacation, the medical team convinced Stegemann to request euthanasia. The family, who had already lodged complaints about the quality of GG’s care, says clear evidence of her cognitive decline was ignored in securing her “consent.”
“I truly believe that one nurse really saw us as an obstacle,” she said. “We were getting in the way of her doing MAiD on my grandmother. I think she really, truly believes that MAiD is the best for people, and shame on me for trying to stop that.”
The Daily Mail reports that in the months since, Kranendonk has still been unable to see the consent paperwork that her grandmother allegedly signed and is currently appealing to the Ontario Chief Coroner’s Office, the Patient Ombudsman, and Belleville Police.
“I don’t know who the witness was,” she says. “I don’t know how they explained the paperwork to her. I don’t know what they said to her. I have no idea.” She maintains she never heard GG state “I want MAiD,” but rather “all I saw was her not understanding the process.”
Despite the ordeal leading up to the killing, it was only afterward that she began to realize the full extent of how the process circumvented the supposed safeguards of Canada’s MAiD system, including against pressure to go through with it and requirements that all paperwork be complete and submitted before the death, not after. “I was flying blind,” Kranendonk says.
“This incident is currently open and under investigation with our Criminal Investigations Division,” a Belleville Police spokesperson confirmed. “We are unable to provide any additional information at this time.”
“Canada has one of the highest rates of euthanasia in the world, with MAiD accounting for 4.7 per cent of the deaths in 2023,” the Mail notes. In July, a “Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Oversight 2024 Year End Report” found that, just in British Columbia, there were 2,807 reported errors in the case outcomes for 4,169 euthanasia cases, or 51.9 percent. In about 353 cases, or 12.5 percent, there were compliance concerns and “required education” of healthcare personnel “to ensure they understand legal requirements and the professional standards associated with MAiD.”
As Patients Rights Action Fund (PRAF) executive director Matt Vallière has argued, euthanasia programs constitute discrimination against the disabled when programs “will pay for every instance of assisted suicide” but not palliative care. “I don’t call that autonomy,” he says; “I call that eugenics.”
Live Action’s Bridget Sielicki further notes that “because a paralytic is involved, a person can look peaceful, while they actually drown to death in their own bodily secretions. Experimental assisted suicide drugs have led to the ‘burning of patients’ mouths and throats, causing some to scream in pain.’ Furthermore, a study in the medical journal Anaesthesia found that a third of patients took up to 30 hours to die after ingesting assisted suicide drugs, while four percent took seven days to die.”