DELTA, British Columbia (LifeSiteNews) – The Delta Hospice Society’s (DHS) virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM) will conclude on April 2.
The AGM for the palliative care association was held this past Saturday but adjourned before important votes were held due to technical issues.
“[Last] Saturday’s meeting did not conclude, and it had to be adjourned. We had serious technical difficulties that did not allow us to continue. We had to stop the meeting before the most important votes were called,” DHS’s pro-life president Angelina Ireland told LifeSiteNews late Sunday.
“The Meeting will continue where we left off next Saturday, April 2nd, 2020, at 11:00 am PST.”
The DHS had earlier urged all of its pro-life members to attend the AGM on March 26, to ensure enough votes to pass a revised constitution and bylaws that “affirm life to its natural end.”
Ireland thanked all of those who attended Saturday’s meeting and apologized for the technical issues but urged members to attend the meeting again when it reconvenes on April 2.
“The most important votes, for the Board of Directors and the constitutional amendments, have not happened yet. Next week is round two of the battle royale for life,” Ireland told LifeSiteNews.
“We know that the only way we can achieve the Delta Hospice Society’s vision of creating Hospice Sanctuaries, safe places for the dying free from euthanasia, is if our pro-life members stick with us and come to the Meeting.”
Ireland told LifeSiteNews that at their last special AGM, held in October 2021, “we [pro-lifers] only won by 1 percent.” She explained that this is “why it is crucial that our pro-life members continue to stand with us and attend this AGM.”
The DHS’s 2022 AGM will be the “ultimate showdown between our members for control of the Delta Hospice Society,” she added.
Last year Ireland told LifeSiteNews that the goal of the “pro-death” side of the divided society is to take DHS’s assets and “use them in conjunction with the Government’s ‘MAiD’ agenda promoting thinly-veiled slaughterhouses they call end of life care centers.”
The DHS won a legal battle regarding voting rules concerning its AGM last year. On July 13, 2002, a judge ruled that a virtual “Special General Meeting (SGM)” could be held to “ask our members if they want a virtual/electronic AGM.”
As a result, the DHS put out a call to all pro-lifers to join the society by an October 22, the cut-off date for membership, to help safeguard its future.
While most DHS board members are Christians who oppose assisted suicide, and Ireland herself is Catholic, euthanasia activists went to court for the right to join the society. The British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that the DHS could not exclude membership applications from euthanasia supporters.
LifeSiteNews previously reported that a local group called Take Back Delta Hospice, with the help of the euthanasia lobby group called Dying with Dignity, has been trying a hostile takeover of DHS since April 2020.
The Canadian government legalized euthanasia — the lethal injection of sick patients — in 2016. Since that time, DHS had been under attack by both the provincial government and euthanasia activists because it refused to allow the practice at its palliative care hospice.
The DHS has put out a video regarding their April 2 AGM and is asking members if they are unsure about which link to go for this Saturday’s conclusion of the meeting, to please email [email protected] or call 1-800-232-1589.