The cry for more palliative care continues to grow louder in Canada. While protesting the introduction of legislation expected to expand access to assisted suicide next  month, Canada’s bishops joined many advocates in decrying stalled plans to give Canadians the alternative of palliative care.

OTTAWA -- The federal government is coming under increasing fire from critics of legal medically-assisted suicide in Canada for how quickly it is moving to change the regulations around assisted suicide and for how short a time period Canadians were given to express their views in an online survey overseen by the Ministry of Justice.

VANCOUVER -- Angelina Ireland first learned about Delta Hospice five years ago.

As most Canadians support fewer restrictions on assisted suicide, disability activists are worried the current system lacks safeguards.

EDMONTON -- The bishops of Alberta and the Northwest Territories are calling on Catholics to mobilize and oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide even as the federal government looks to make it easier to qualify for a medically-induced death.

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- A suburban Vancouver hospice is prepared to forego hundreds of thousands of dollars in government funding rather than bow to government pressure to provide euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Somewhere tucked between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s press conferences earlier this month about the tragedy of the Ukrainian Airlines crash was a bombshell of another kind: changes coming to federal legislation that pave the way for more Canadians to end their lives prematurely.

OTTAWA -- As Canadians are being urged to express their views before the government revises the law governing assisted suicide, about 200,000 people have made their feelings known via a federal government online survey, according to the Department of Justice.

VANCOUVER -- A heated debate about whether a 10-bed hospice in Delta, B.C., should offer assisted suicide may come to a climax in February.

I write a lot about euthanasia and associated issues. I will not dispute this nor will I apologize. What I think drives me is not only the abhorrence of such an evil practice but that there are ways to safeguard ourselves and our friends and family from this evil. However, to a large extent we are failing to do so. We need to wake up.

OTTAWA -- As the federal government launches a public consultation on laws governing assisted suicide, opponents are calling any move to expand the practice proof of the slippery slope they have long predicted.

VATICAN CITY -- Health care professionals always must "promote the dignity and life of each person and reject any compromise in the direction of euthanasia, assisted suicide or suppression of life, even in the case of terminal illness," Pope Francis said.

As Ottawa prepares to rewrite Canada’s euthanasia law, palliative care doctors and hospice operators are urging lawmakers to acknowledge that palliative care and medically induced death are separate and distinct things.

As Alberta debates a private member’s bill to protect conscience rights for doctors and other health care providers, Ontario’s government is saying little about a lack of protection for doctors forced to provide referrals for assisted suicide, abortion and other procedures.

CORNWALL, Ont. -- The Nova Scotia Health Authority has assured a Catholic health facility, St. Martha’s Hospital in Antigonish, that it will not have to provide assisted suicide within the hospital.