By: Angelina Ireland

Editor’s note: Angelina Ireland desperately needs your help. One of Canada’s heroes and a cancer survivor herself, she is a leader in the fight for the right to continue providing Christian end-of-life care in Canada. Please read to the end of this blog to learn how you can stand with her. But act now. After October 22 it may be too late.

Ireland serves as president of the Delta Hospice Society (DHS), the last genuinely pro-life palliative care institution on Canada’s west coast. The DHS is opposed to every form of euthanasia, including Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). But as you have perhaps already guessed, the B.C. government’s opposition has made the society’s continued existence almost impossible. Nevertheless, Ireland and her board are determined to preserve the right to provide a safe place for the dying, just as pregnancy care centres have long ministered to the unborn and their mothers. Read on for Ireland’s fascinating first-person account of the DHS’s trials, along with how you can play a direct role in its survival.

First encounter with the DHS

My hair had just started falling out the first time I went into the Supportive Care Centre operated by the Delta Hospice Society. My friends had been there the week before and had given the “Relaxation Circle” a very positive recommendation. They thought it would help me reduce my stress levels. Maybe I would sleep better.

The lady at the front desk was very gentle. I told her I was there to participate in a group class, but because I was early, she graciously escorted me over to the waiting area. I sat in a large open area filled with books and comfortable chairs. I took a book and opened it to the middle. I read, “Thank God generously and be grateful for all your wonderful blessings.” That simple statement changed my life, and I will never forget it. 

Would I have shut the book and walked away if I had known then that one day I would be called to defend and protect the Delta Hospice Society, and that by standing in its defence I would be ostracized, demonized, and hated in my community? I sincerely hope not. 

That first visit was in 2013. Back then there were no laws to legalize Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) or the euthanizing of people when they were sick. The very thought that such laws were on the horizon would have frightened me to the core. I was vulnerable, tired, pale, and weak—a shell of my former self. I needed a protector not a predator. I needed kindness, inspiration, and hope, and I found it at the Delta Hospice Society.

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By 2016 I had completed my chemo, radiation, and another year of adjuvant treatment. I was putting the pieces back together in my life, and as I gained courage, I felt ready to give back to the society that had helped me so much. I was grateful to God to have recovered my health, but some of my friends had not been so blessed and their journeys had ended at the hospice. I came to know that palliative care was God’s gift to humanity and a treasure that needs to be protected and shared with all people. 

A year later I joined the DHS Board of Directors and first saw the glimmers of tension around the new euthanasia legislation, Bill C-14. Two years later that tension would explode into a full-blown war that would divide my little town and land me in the centre of a war that is being fought to this day. Our Lord knows that without my faith I could not have endured. 

The battle is joined

At the DHS Annual General Meeting in November 2019 the membership decided its position on MAiD. I was not up for re-election so I watched from the sidelines. And as I watched it became clear that two groups were in a struggle for board supremacy, a pro-life slate of candidates vs. a pro-euthanasia slate.

Only a week earlier the Board had voted to allow euthanasia into the hospice. In fact, only four Board members had decided as three had resigned the week before in protest. I was left as the single dissenting vote, four against one, and MAiD was ushered in. But that wasn’t the end of the story. The membership then had their say at the AGM and the pro-euthanasia Board members were ousted. The majority pro-life Board elected me as president, and we reversed the euthanasia vote immediately before any patients could be killed.

At that point my life changed dramatically. The Fraser Health Authority, the B.C. Minister of Health, the ousted Board members, a national euthanasia lobby group, Delta’s municipal government, and district MLAs all seemed to work in a coordinated effort to thwart the decision of a private organization. First, they tried to push out the pro-life Board and take over the Society. Failing that, they simply grabbed the Hospice and implemented euthanasia by fiat.

After the AGM the DHS received e-mails from Dying with Dignity Canada intended for staff no longer in our employ, as well as previous Board members. The e-mails clearly revealed our opposition’s strategy. They celebrated when the DHS lost contract funding from the Fraser Health Authority and rejoiced at the news that legal fees would be paid for anyone taking the Delta Hospice Society to court to try and force us to implement MAiD.

From this collusion came a group called Take Back Delta Hospice (TBDH). Organized by the ousted Board Members, this group campaigned in the city of Delta to sign up pro-euthanasia members and overthrow the sitting pro-palliative Board in order to force euthanasia into the Hospice.  They signed up hundreds of people and would have been successful had our story not hit national news. The result? Lots of pro-life people wanted to become members to preserve the euthanasia-free stand that our Board had implemented.

The TBDH supporters then took to Facebook and started a group to mobilize and take control of the Society. Those who were not yet DHS members were easily identified, and their membership applications were denied. Nevertheless, the group’s hateful and vitriolic public language poisoned the community against pro-life Board members and five directors resigned. Still, the TBDH made little headway. The five pro-life directors who resigned were replaced with five steadfast pro-life directors who endure to this day.

At the time the provincial MAiD policy stated faith-based organizations could claim an exemption from performing euthanasia in their facility. Consequently, the Board agreed to ask our members if they wanted to become a Christian organization. We planned a Special General Meeting to resolve this question. We anticipated we had a majority of Christian members and this Constitutional change was likely to be approved with the requisite two-thirds in favour.

But TBDH organizers—Sharon Farrish, Chris Pettypiece, and Jim Levin—took the DHS to court to have the meeting cancelled. They also asked the Judge to force DHS to accept pro-euthanasia applicants. Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick sided with these petitioners, cancelled the meeting, and deemed the Delta Hospice Society an “open Society,” thus sealing its fate as a national organization. We were also not allowed to refuse admittance to anyone, regardless of their motivation for joining.

To celebrate getting their recruits admitted, the TBDH organized a march and rally around Delta. At the rally the mayor and our local MLA chastised the Board of Directors and demanded our resignations. When none of the Board resigned, the mayor and Council cancelled our tax- exempt status, forcing the DHS to pay $35,000 a year in property tax for the Second-Hand Shoppe we own and operate to fund our programs. It appeared the pro-euthanasia lobby group would take over the Society, but numerous pro-life and pro-palliative care Canadians became members and successfully defended the position of the DHS. 

Governments exert overwhelming force

That’s when the B.C. provincial government stepped in. The Fraser Health Authority (FHA) cancelled our contract (as we had constructed our buildings on land owned by Fraser Health and leased for 35 years) in February 2020 and gave us a one-year working notice because we refused to commit euthanasia in the hospice. The year ended this past February and 30 days later the FHA ended our 35-year land lease (with 25 years remaining). Thus, the land upon which we had built our $8-million facility was taken away and as “fixtures to the land” our buildings were confiscated without compensation. Two weeks later the Fraser Health Authority reopened the Hospice under its control, but now offering euthanasia.

Important note: This Fraser Health parcel of land we leased sits right next to the Delta Hospital where MAiD is performed. 1 minute away! But that is not close enough for those with a thirst for death - it must be inside our facility too and in each of our 10 beds.

In the meantime, ousted pro-euthanasia DHS Board members started another organization, the Heron Hospice Society (HHS), a pro-euthanasia group that modeled itself after the DHS but restricted membership to residents of Delta. HHS currently provides community information sessions on MAiD and has lobbied the Fraser Health Authority for possession of the Supportive Care Centre so it can work with the Government to facilitate death. It brags that it has the support of the Mayor and Council and is likely to be given the DHS building. However, they do not have a revenue stream to operate programming and upkeep of the building.

The big steal

Needing money to operate the Centre they have resurrected the Take Back Delta Hospice group to try another hostile takeover of the Delta Hospice Society. Why? DHS has financial assets the pro-euthanasia group would like to use to further its plans. Another membership drive is underway to try to smother the pro-life voices of Canadians needing authentic palliative care free from the threat of euthanasia. 

The upcoming virtual AGM is the final battle of our pro-life incumbent Board of Directors against the pro-euthanasia interlopers. Our pro-life vision for the future of the DHS is one of hospice sanctuary. We will build another hospice, but this one will remain private, on privately-owned land, and will be a euthanasia-free sanctuary for the dying. We will also cooperate with other groups across Canada who can join our Hospice Sanctuary Network and provide euthanasia- free facilities for people in their own communities. It has become clear to us that the only way forward is to do these things on our own and provide people a true choice for end of life care. We fear government facilities will pressure the sick, weak and vulnerable into accepting MAiD. Hospice sanctuaries will be operated by people committed to authentic palliative care practices providing comfort and protection for people until their natural life’s end. 

Please visit www.deltahospice.org or call 1-800-232-1589 and become a member of the Delta Hospice Society ($10) by October 22, 2021. Then join us at the virtual AGM as we walk our faith and protect God’s gift to humanity.

For further information go here: https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-delta-hospice-society-continues-to.html