Florence is described as having the mental capacity of a small child, and suffers from Prader–Willi syndrome, a rare genetic condition in which the sufferer always feels hungry.
Radio Show Host Says Mentally Ill People Should be Euthanized
Tristan Hopper reported for the National Post on May 21 that Luc Fernandez, who co-hosts a radio talk show on 98.5 Montreal told his audience, on May 15 in French that:
doctor-assisted suicide could be a form of “liberation” for the mentally ill.
Hopper reported that Fernandez also stated that:
Quebec should enshrine “comité de sages” (committees of experts) to authorize assisted suicide “in cases where, for example, someone no longer has any parents, people who were abandoned … people who no longer receive visits … no longer have any joy in life, they have no more interest in living, who live in permanent suffering.”
Montréal disability rights group RAPLIQ responded by accusing Ferrandez of promoting a eugenic ideology and stated:
“To speak of euthanasia with logistical calm, as if it were a measure of social efficiency, is to deny the value of different lives,”
“It is to slip down a eugenic slope, the very same that has led history into the abyss.”
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This is not the first time Ferrandez has made comments about euthanasia. The Post Millennial reported on December 3, 2019 that Ferrandez wrote on his facebook page, concerning euthanasia for climate change that:
“Could we, for environmental, social and economic reasons, decide that we want to receive help to die so as not to be a burden for our family and society in general?”
Ferrandez’s recent comments were madewhile discussing the story of “Florence” an intellectually disabled 24-year-old woman who was profiled in a story by Le Presse. Hopper reports:
Florence, not her real name, was held in solitary confinement for eight days at Quebec’s Leclerc Institution following a perennial failure by Quebec health authorities to place her in an institution that suited her needs.
Florence’s story outlines the abusive care that she receives in Québec.
Hopper explains how Ferrandez responded to the “Florence” story:
Mid-way through Thursday’s segment on the case, Ferrandez suggests that Florence’s mother should have the right to end her daughter’s life via doctor-assisted suicide.
“How does the law have the right to say ‘no’? How does the state have the right to say ‘no’?” he said, to agreement from Normandeau.
He added that in extreme disability cases, the only medical solution is to “freeze” a patient in bed, and that death could be seen as “a way to end their pain.”
RAPLIQ responded by stating:
No to the trivialization of death as a “social solution.”
No to this false compassion that hides a deep contempt.
No to this morbid fantasy of liberation which is nothing but a shameful surrender.Disability is part of the human condition.
It is not a virus to eradicate.
It is not a problem to be solved through erasure.To reject disabled people is to reject one’s own humanity.
We choose, for Florence and for all the others:
Solidarity, not suppression.
Adaptation, not abandonment.
Dignity, not disappearance.Quebec can do better. Quebec must do better.
Solutions exist — here and elsewhere. What’s lacking is courage.
Ferrandez is a former mayor of the Montreal borough of Le Plateau-Mont-Royal. He co-hosts a daily three-hour talk show with Nathalie Normandeau, a former deputy premier under the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest.
Canada approved euthanasia for mental illness alone and has scheduled to implement it on March 17, 2027.
On March 21, 2025 the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Committee report urged Canada’s federal government to:
- Repeal Track 2 Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), including the 2027 commencement of Track 2 MAiD for persons whose “sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness”;
- Not support proposals for the expansion of MAiD to include “mature minors” and through advance requests;
Québec has the highest euthanasia rate in Canada at 7.6% of all deaths in 2024. Recently a Québec coroner’s inquest has investigated the death of Normand Meunier, a quadriplegic man who died by euthanasia on March 29, 2024 after developing bedsores from a lack of basic medical care. Québec expanded it’s euthanasia regime on October 30, 2024 by permitting euthanasia by advance request.
LifeNews.com Note: Alex Schadenberg is the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and you can read his blog here.
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