Brigitte Stegemann, 83, passed away on July 10 at The Pearl, a long-term care facility in Ontario.
Stegemann, who was diagnosed with Stage IV stomach cancer, easily qualified for medical assistance in dying, or MAID, under Canada’s controversial assisted suicide law.
Overseen by Health Canada, the federal department responsible for the country's national healthcare system, assisted suicide accounts for approximately 16,000 deaths a year on average.
However, law enforcement authorities are now investigating Stegemann's death after a granddaughter alleges MAID staff ignored mandatory safeguards that Canadians believe protect their loved ones.
Describing her grandmother's MAID-assisted death on the “Washington Watch” program, granddaughter Brigitte Kranendonk said she was her grandmother’s primary caregiver with legal power of attorney.
"When I went away on vacation in June, she was heavily medicated and had her first assessment with MAID without my knowledge,” Kranendonk said.
“And this is from a care home,” she continued, “that over-communicated with me about everything that needed to happen with her."
Despite holding power of attorney for six years, and even after her grandmother failed every question on a mental capacity assessment, the medical procedure moved forward anyway.
In a separate “Washington Watch” interview, Canada-based euthanasia opponent Alex Schadenberg was asked why the safeguards failed to protect Stegemann from the MAID procedure.
“The problem is the law from the beginning,” he insisted. “The problem is that they're giving doctors the right to kill somebody.”
Even though MAID is described as a final option for Canadians to consider, he explained, there are full-time MAID employees in every major hospital whose job is to encourage people to sign up to take their lives.
“They not only do it,” he warned, “they're the ones who sign you up. They're also the ones who sell it.”
Health Canada oversees a “free” national healthcare system. Canadians never pay a deductible for a doctor’s office visit, or get a bill in the mail after a major surgery, but even a wheelchair ramp can get delayed for years.
That was the case for Christine Gauthier, a retired Army corporal who requested a wheelchair ramp from Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC).
Gauthier testified before the House of Commons in 2022 about how she requested the wheelchair ramp, over and over, for five years. What made her tell her story, she said, was when the VAC caseworker offered her MAID based on her status as a disabled veteran.
An investigation found the same caseworker had offered MAID to four other disabled veterans, too.
Schadenberg said he has talked to Kranendonk at length about her grandmother’s death. His conclusion was the supposed safeguards failed because the elderly woman could not consent to a doctor ending her life.
“Nonetheless, she is dead,” he said.
