The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled, Parliament has legislated and provinces have set up new systems. For most Canadians the assisted suicide debate is last year’s news story. But Cardinal Gerhard Müller, head of the Catholic Church’s theological watchdog-agency, begs to differ.

OTTAWA — Cardinal Thomas Collins told the 20th National March for Life on May 11 euthanasia and the crushing of conscience rights “brings shame to our country.”

MANCHESTER, England – The Vatican is investigating the decision of a group of psychiatric care centres run by a Catholic religious order in Belgium to permit doctors to perform euthanasia of "nonterminal" mentally ill patients on its premises.

In mid-April The Globe & Mail gave two days of coverage to the suicide of Adam Maier-Clayton, just 27 years old. He lived for years with a variety of psychiatric disorders and unremitting pain. There is no doubt he knew suffering.

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Following a decision by the board of several Belgian Catholic psychiatric hospitals to start performing euthanasia, the religious brothers who operate the hospitals said the policy change is unacceptable and cannot be implemented.

OTTAWA – A government-funded home-care agency serving the Ottawa area is facilitating end-of-life services for people seeking to be euthanized in their home.

The pledge was buried deep within the federal budget and delivered almost as an afterthought. Still, it is encouraging to see the Liberals keeping a 2015 election promise on palliative care.

Doctors are being bullied, silenced and coerced in a pro-euthanasia environment which is forcing those who object to medically assisted suicide to provide an effective referral for patients who wish to die, provincial legislators were told during hearings into Bill 84.

OTTAWA – Ontario doctors should fight harder to preserve conscience rights in the face of a policy that is “outrageous,” said American physician and theologian Dr. Farr Curlin.

Conscience rights for Ontario doctors will get the full attention of Queen’s Park on Thursday, March 23, in committee hearings on Bill 84.

OTTAWA – The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees conscience protection for physicians and overrides policies of medical bodies that want to compel health care professionals to participate in euthanasia and assisted suicide, argued a constitutional lawyer.

The right being sought by many Ontario doctors to refuse to give patient referrals for euthanasia and assisted suicide will be addressed in committee meetings at Queen’s Park in the next month.

It was a story that slipped through public consciousness like a shadow, first ominous then quickly evaporated and forgotten.

Timely, fully-funded and widely available palliative care could save Canada’s health care system between $7,000 and $8,000 per patient, claims a new paper from the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians.

As society grapples with the rising cost of health care comes word of potential savings of up to $124 million annually from the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide. It turns out that lethal injection is good business. Who didn’t see this coming?