(LifeSiteNews) — One of Canada’s only fully pro-life hospice societies launched a national “Guardian Angels” initiative that aims to help ill and vulnerable Canadians stuck in the healthcare system have a personal advocate on their side to champion the “sanctity of life” over euthanasia.
The “Guardian Angels” advocacy program is the brainchild of the Delta Hospice Society, based in British Columbia. The group says its new initiative is a “national health care advocacy program that partners our compassionate, trained volunteer health advocates, with people navigating the increasingly challenging health care system.”
“We value the sanctity of life, recognizing that every life is a precious gift, and every life is always of equal value,” DHS told LifeSiteNews.
DHS says that through its new “Guardian Angels” advocacy program it will partner with people to “ensure that your voice is heard and respected.”
“We are committed to helping you and your loved ones to ensure the enrichment of life to its natural end,” DHS said.
DHS president Angelina Ireland told LifeSiteNews that volunteers are needed to “sign up” to become an “Angel,” and called those needing “an Angel” to sign up as well.
The “Guardian Angels” program will see the DHS help to be at the “side” to ensure that there is a person to “advocate for you or your loved ones with a caring, supportive, and respectful approach.”
“We will ensure informed decisions are being made, without participation in euthanasia, assisted suicide or any other intervention intended to hasten death,” DHS notes.
‘Guardian Angels’ program needed in society where people’s pets treated with more dignity
Ireland said that when it comes to euthanasia in Canada, or Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) as it is officially known, dogs and cats are given more respect than humans.
“In this country, are we more concerned for the lives of dogs than Canadian citizens,” Ireland told LifeSiteNews.
“In Canada, we fund no-kill animal shelters with pride to allow animals sanctuary from death. In places like British Columbia and Quebec, we are not allowed to have no-kill hospice palliative care facilities that refuse to allow euthanasia.”
Ireland observed that, unfortunately, as she sees it, Canadians can expect the trend of outlaying “no-kill hospices” to “expand to other provinces as euthanasia-creep continues.”
In addition to its “Guardian Angels” advocacy program, DHS also has a Do Not Euthanize’ Advance Directive (DNE) program, which is a legal document protecting people against attempts to have their lives “terminated unnaturally” through lethal injection.
The DNE was officially launched in the summer of 2022. Ireland said at the time that it was a “proactive response to those who think that our people have no right to medical treatment or to life itself.”
Canada today looking like the former USSR
In speaking with LifeSiteNews, Ireland noted that DHS has been told by supporters who came from the former Soviet countries that back in the day that “they never let their loved ones go to the hospital alone.”
“They always had to ‘keep eyes on them’ while in care, for fear that they would not come out alive again,” Ireland said.
“Today, we lament that we have a fear of the same situation existing in this country.”
On March 29, 2021, DHS was evicted from its two buildings after the Fraser Health Authority, one of five publicly funded healthcare regions in British Columbia, canceled the lease.
As it stands now, DHS is currently operating out of a small office after its Irene Thomas Hospice and the Supportive Care Centre were taken by the Fraser Health Authority. DHS was given no compensation for its assets, which Ireland says has an estimated value of $9 million.
The Irene Thomas Hospice site is now run by the government, complete with euthanasia.
Ireland told LifeSiteNews that the government’s hostile takeover of its former facilities because it refused to offer MAiD is a “case in point” of how dangerous it is to oppose the pro-death agenda.
“The BC government expropriated our 10-bed palliative care hospice, evicted our organization, and expropriated $8.5 million of our assets because we refused to kill our patients,” Ireland said.
“Among the last sanctuaries for the dying, we were evicted from our own buildings for not complying with death-on-demand.”
Ireland told LifeSiteNews that if hospices cannot even “provide sanctuary from death for our people, then we must protect our people that end up in government-run health facilities,” which as it stands are the vast majority of the places left.
“In the wake of the catastrophic decay of our healthcare system and the institutionalized push for ‘MAiD,’ the Delta Hospice Society answers this call for support, out of concern for our people,” Ireland said.
Canada’s ever-liberalizing laws have allowed euthanasia to rise 32% since 2020, with more than 10,000 people dying in 2021 alone.
The Liberal federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau legalized euthanasia in 2016, and since that time deaths have skyrocketed under its MAiD program. There has also been a continued push to further expand who can qualify for state-sanctioned death.
The allowance of MAiD for those suffering solely from mental illness came as part of the 2021 passage of Bill C-7, which also allowed the chronically ill – not just the terminally ill – to qualify for doctor-assisted death.
The mental illness expansion was originally set to take effect in March. However, after massive pushback from pro-life groups, conservative politicians and others, the Liberals under Trudeau delayed the introduction of the full effect of Bill C-7 until 2024 via Bill C-39, which became law on March.