I can’t remember when exactly it occurred, but an Edmonton police officer came to grandma’s apartment during the summer of 1985.

The officer came into grandma’s apartment and talked to Scott and I by ourselves.

I can’t remember what exactly the officer was asking, but I do remember that he said that he had to see both my brother and I in person to make sure that we were okay.

Okay from what?

He wouldn’t say.

At the end of the summer Scott and I flew back to Toronto from Edmonton.

Richard picked us up from the airport.

He didn’t say a single thing. He just picked up our luggage and loaded it in the back of the Mustang and then we drove back to our PMQ on CFB Downsview.

As we were driving up Keele street and approaching the base Richard told Scott and I that when we got back home we’d have to wait in the dining room and wait for the military police to come talk to us.

When we got back on Stanley Green Park and into the PMQ we sat down at the dining room table.

The instant I sat down I noticed that something wasn’t right.

Sue’s dining room furniture was all wobbly.

This is furniture that you didn’t drag as you sat in it. And you sure as hell didn’t sit at this table unless you were eating.

Over half of Richard’s National Geographic magazines were missing.

The windows in the dining room were all new. The glazing putty was fresh and unpainted. I could see that there had been some large holes repaired in all of the dining room walls.

I snuck a quick peek into the living room.

All the windows had brand new glass.

Sue’s drapes were missing and replaced with the standard military issued roll shutters.

Sue’s stereo looked like it had been through hell and back.

Richard’s aircraft models were all missing.

Two military police officers arrived.

Both MPs came into the PMQ and instructed Richard and Sue to step outside while the MPs talked to my brother and I.

The military police asked Scott and I if the Edmonton Police Officer told us anything when he paid us a visit.

The MPs started receiving frantic calls from occupants of the other PMQs with reports of Richard throwing furniture through the windows and screaming and yelling.

The military police said that when they attended the PMQ neither Richard or Sue would explain where Scott and I were. The MPs said that they were concerned about the welfare of Scott and I as the neighbours had told the MPs about the way Richard treated Scott and I.

According to the MPs it took three military police officers to bring Richard under control on the evening of the dispute.

The amount of damage done to the PMQ was substantial.

The MPs asked Scott and I if we knew any reason for the dispute.

I don’t think Scott or I said anything to the MPs, but for Richard and Sue to snipe at each other or to slam doors and huff away from each other was nothing out of the ordinary.

The military police told us that if Richard ever lost his temper again that we should get out of the PMQ by any means possible. Even if we had to jump from the second story, just get out of the PMQ.

We should call the MP shack and have the MPs dispatched to the PMQ right away. But they cautioned us against from calling from inside our PMQ, that we should go to a neighbour’s PMQ and call the military police from there.

The MPs also cautioned us against calling the Toronto Police as this would waste time as the Toronto Police couldn’t just come on to the base without themselves going through the military police.

At the end of the meeting, the two MPs gave Scott and I each a pair of business cards with the number for the MP shack. They also made sure that we watched at they put a sticker on the kitchen telephone of CFB Downsview emergency contact phone numbers.

After the MPs left, Richard came in and told us to put our clothes away and to go outside and play.

Neither he nor Sue ever talked about this.

I found out much later in life that the military police never informed the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto about the domestic dispute. At the time the CAST had a file open on my family. My family had been assessed as a low risk case due to my father’s insistence that everything in the PMQ was okay.

I cannot prove motive from memory alone. But the practical effect was clear: the matter stayed inside the military policing system, while the civilian child-protection agency with an open file on my family was apparently left uninformed.

Life in the PMQ patches was a lot more rough and brisk than it was in civvy land.

What we accepted as normal inside the chain-link perimeter of the PMQs was not normal at all. The military police knew enough to warn two children how to escape their own home, but not enough — or not openly enough — to bring civilian child protection into the room.

The lies and misinformation surrounding Medical Assistance in Dying are quite stunning. And these lies prove one of the most significant downsides of the Internet is that lies, bullshit, and paranoia circulate much faster than the truth.

And when the truth doesn’t suit their narratives, they just scream “Do Your Research”. And when someone does their research their response is often “Sheep! Do you believe everything they tell you?!?!?”

The most recent bullshit flying around the interwebs is that M.A.i.D. is the number #1 cause of death in Canada.

Here, from Stats Canada, are the leading causes of death from 2016 until 2023.

What must be remembered is that Medical Assistance in Dying is NOT the cause of death. It’s the mechanism. The cause of death is always the underlying disease.

From 2016 to 2023 there were about 663,600 deaths due to Cancer in Canada.

~65 – 70% of M.A.i.D. procedures are cancer-related

-but-

Only ~4 – 5% percent of terminal cancer patients seek M.A.i.D.

Stage 3 or Stage 4 cancer is not something that I would wish upon my worst enemy. And it should come as no surprise that the majority of M.A.i.D. procedures currently being performed are for patients with Stage 3 or Stage 4 cancer.

Why “Do Your Research” Isn’t About Research

It’s tempting to dismiss anti-intellectual movements as simple ignorance. That’s comforting—but it’s wrong.

What we’re seeing is a convergence of forces.

For many, these beliefs are tied to identity. Changing their mind isn’t just updating a fact—it’s risking their place in a community. Facts become secondary to belonging. Certainty becomes more valuable than accuracy.

Layered on top of that is a very human need for control. The modern world is complex, uncertain, and often frightening. Conspiracy thinking offers something simple: clear answers, clear villains, and the illusion of understanding. It trades nuance for emotional stability.

There’s also a deep and, at times, justified mistrust of institutions. Governments have lied. Corporations have failed. That history becomes a lens through which everything is viewed—even when the conclusion no longer fits the evidence.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Social media amplifies the loudest, most extreme voices. Echo chambers reinforce beliefs until they feel self-evident. And within that environment, a smaller but significant group of actors—grifters, influencers, opportunists—learn that outrage is profitable. Confusion becomes currency.

Not everyone shouting “Do your research” is acting in bad faith. Most are trying to make sense of a complicated world using the wrong tools.

But some are.

And the result is what we see now: a system where noise is rewarded, doubt is weaponized, and the appearance of confidence is mistaken for truth.

The Fear of Death.

One of the most powerful drivers of opposition to M.A.i.D. is fear—specifically, the fear of death and the belief that death represents failure.

For many people, death isn’t seen as a natural conclusion to life, but as something to be resisted at all costs. That perspective is often reinforced by deeply held beliefs about what comes after death, whether that’s an afterlife, reincarnation, or some form of continued existence.

Those beliefs can provide comfort, and for many, they do. But they are still beliefs—personal frameworks used to make sense of something fundamentally unknown.

When those beliefs become the basis for decisions about how others should live—or die—the conversation shifts. It moves away from the lived reality of the person who is suffering and toward a set of assumptions that cannot be proven or shared by everyone.

What we do know is this: when the brain ceases to function, the person as we understand them—their thoughts, memories, and consciousness—is gone.

And for some, facing that reality leads not to fear, but to a desire for control over how their life ends, especially in the presence of severe and irreversible suffering.

When the Debate Isn’t Just Ours

Canada’s conversation around Medical Assistance in Dying (M.A.i.D.) is often framed as a purely domestic issue—one rooted in Canadian law, Canadian values, and Canadian lived experience.

But that framing is becoming harder to maintain.

In recent years, there has been growing concern about the role of foreign influence in shaping public policy debates, particularly where those debates intersect with deeply held moral or religious beliefs. The M.A.i.D. conversation is no exception.

South of the border, the United States has seen a resurgence of politically active evangelical movements, many of which are closely tied to broader currents of Christian nationalism. These movements are not confined by geography. They are well-funded, highly organized, and increasingly international in scope.

That matters, because advocacy does not stop at the border.

Ideas, messaging strategies, and—critically—funding can and do move across jurisdictions. Organizations that oppose assisted dying on religious or ideological grounds often operate within networks that extend beyond Canada, drawing on shared resources, coordinated campaigns, and in some cases, financial support originating outside the country.

This does not mean that all opposition to M.A.i.D. in Canada is foreign-driven. It isn’t. Many Canadians oppose M.A.i.D. for their own reasons, and those views deserve to be part of the conversation.

But it does raise an important question:

To what extent is a Canadian policy debate being shaped by external actors with different legal frameworks, cultural contexts, and political objectives?

The concern is not belief. People are entitled to their beliefs, whether they are rooted in religion, philosophy, or personal experience.

The concern is influence.

When well-funded networks with explicit ideological goals engage in cross-border advocacy, the line between domestic discourse and imported agenda begins to blur. Messaging that originates in one country—where legal and social conditions are different—can be transplanted into another, often without that context being made clear.

In the case of M.A.i.D., that matters because the stakes are deeply personal. This is not an abstract policy question. It is about how Canadians choose to navigate suffering, autonomy, and the end of life within their own legal and healthcare systems.

If that conversation is being shaped—directly or indirectly—by movements that do not operate within those same systems, then transparency becomes essential.

Canadians should be able to understand not only the arguments being made, but where those arguments are coming from, who is funding them, and what broader objectives they may serve.