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OTTAWA — Kay Carter’s son, Price Carter, is planning to die this summer in the circumstances he wants.

The 68-year-old has been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. He knows the disease will eventually take his life, and before that happens, he wants to spend his life peacefully with his family by his own choice.

“I was told from the beginning that this was palliative care, not a cure. That made the decision easy for me,” he said from his home in Kelowna, British Columbia.

Carter says he always knew that assisted dying (MAID) was an option he would use if and when the time was right.
And now, he has that option in large part because of his mother.

Kay Carter is named in a landmark Supreme Court of Canada case that gave Canadians the right to choose assisted dying more than a decade ago.

Price Carter says she has passed the first assessment and expects a second assessment to be done this week to confirm her eligibility. She spoke calmly and candidly about her final days and her decision to end her life.

“I’m completely at peace with it, I really am,” she added. “Even if it had been years ago, I would have made the same decision.”

It’s been almost a year since she started feeling symptoms and received her final diagnosis. Until a few months ago, she was still swimming and boating. She and her husband, Daniel, recently played a round of golf.

“He took me on the golf course with him,” Price says with a laugh.

But now her energy is waning. And she knows what she wants the next phase of her life to be like.

More than 15 years ago, Price, her sisters Marie and Lee, and the family’s son-in-law, Hollis, secretly traveled to Switzerland to be with their mother on her final day.
Kay Carter, 89, who suffered from spinal stenosis, decided to die at a nonprofit center that offered assisted dying services. She was the 10th Canadian to do so.

At the time, assisted dying was illegal in Canada.

Kay Carter wrote a letter explaining her decision, and her family prepared a list of about 150 people to send the letter to after her death.
She could not tell anyone before she died because there was a risk that Canadian authorities would prevent her from traveling to Switzerland or prosecute her family.

When he arrived at the Dinitas Center, he finalized his paperwork, lay down on the bed, and took the sleeping pill that was stopping his heart with Swiss chocolate.

“When she passed away, she just leaned back gently,” Price says.

After a few minutes, a staff member walked to the door, the curtains fluttering in the wind, and he said,

“Her spirit was released.”

“If I were to write a movie about this, I wouldn’t change a thing,” Price added.

He says the memory of that day still brings tears to his eyes, but not from the sadness; rather, from the beauty of the moment.

“I want my children to experience my death the same way I saw my mother die,” he says.

He wants his wife, Daniel, and their children to be with him when he dies.

His children — Lynn, Grayson, and Jenna — live in Ontario. Everyone is busy, he says, and when the time comes, he tries to pick a day that works for everyone.

Until then, Price spends most of his time reading.

“I’m just taking it day by day and enjoying being with Daniel,” he says.

The Carter family has had a long and difficult journey since Kay Carter’s death in January 2010.

Her eldest daughter, Lee Carter, was instrumental in taking the case to the Supreme Court, where in early 2015, a unanimous decision struck down parts of the criminal code that criminalized assisted dying.

In 2016, the federal government passed legislation that created the legal framework for assisted dying in the country, allowing people whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable” to request an assessment.

The government updated the law in 2021 after a 2019 Quebec Supreme Court ruling found the restriction unconstitutional.

The amendment included a controversial provision that would have allowed people with mental illness to qualify for assisted dying. But that has raised concerns among provinces and mental health professionals, and its implementation has been delayed until March 2027.

Meanwhile, Health Canada is seeking public input on allowing “advance requests” for assisted dying.

These requests would allow people with Alzheimer’s, dementia or other degenerative diseases to make decisions about their future before they lose their ability to make decisions.

The change is “very simple,” says Price-Carter.

“We’re denying a large number of Canadians the option of assisted dying just because they might develop dementia in the future and no longer be able to make decisions. What could be more frightening and distressing than that?”

She admits to being frustrated by the slow pace of change, although she knows that a calm and accepting approach to death is not common among the public.

Helen Lang, president of Death with Dignity Canada, said that in every federal consultation since 2016, there has been overwhelming public support for advance directives.

“We continue to urge the new government to make this a legal option for Canadians,” she said.

The province of Quebec has passed legislation that allows people with serious and terminal illnesses to receive assistance in dying if they become incapacitated.

Marjorie Michel, the newly appointed health minister in the new government,