Four Canadian religious leaders, including the head of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, are urging the federal government to develop a “well-funded, national initiative to improve palliative care access and quality.”

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.

OTTAWA – With $6 billion earmarked for home and palliative care in the 2017 federal budget, Canada is on track towards making quality end-of-life care more accessible.

Palliative care is a human right and should be available to all Canadians and end-of-life choices should not be driven by economics, Dying With Dignity CEO Shanaaz Gokool has told The Catholic Register.

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.

OTTAWA – Palliative care is about living and celebrating life and should begin much earlier than a during a patient’s last days and weeks of life, palliative care physician Dr. Jose Pereira said Feb. 18.

MELBOURNE, Australia – The government of the Australian state of Victoria is looking to legalize euthanasia in 2017, but physicians have warned of the risk of diminishing palliative care, already under-utilized and underfunded.

OTTAWA – The Catholic Women's League is making sure its 2016 resolutions do not get lost in the political shuffle of priorities on Parliament Hill.

If there’s anything that unites Canadians, it’s their overwhelming support for something very few of us have.

One obvious failing of legalized assisted suicide is that Canada now recognizes a person’s right to receive a quick exit but fails to grant terminally ill people an offsetting right to humane care until their natural death.

Providence Healthcare’s new $4.5 million palliative care wing features no state-of-the-art technology, no breakthrough innovations, no dazzling science. The money went into providing peace, quiet and the human touches that make life worth living.

Widespread abuse of prescription painkillers is a major problem that governments are right to address. But Ontario’s recent move to become the first Canadian jurisdiction to eliminate high-dosage opioid medications from its provincial drug plan goes a step too far.

TORONTO – Respecting the moral conscience of Canadians who oppose medical aid in dying requires systemic changes to improve access to palliative care, according to those who oppose the recently legalized procedure.

OTTAWA – Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish and Muslim faith leaders united on Parliament Hill June 14 to issue a joint call for a well-funded, quality national palliative care strategy.

In the government’s rush to push Bill C-14, the medically assisted dying legislation, through the House of Commons, Canadians have been left very much on the sidelines.