On the feature this week, an interview with Derek Miedema from the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada. Derek has just done a policy review of a new website that provides advice and information on palliative and hospice care across the country. We talk about the positives and the negatives of using technology for the delivery of these kinds of services.

In the news, Manitoba MP Ed Komarnicki’s motion on “Conscience Rights” for MP’s passed almost unanimously in Parliament last week. Mike Schouten from We Need a Law weighs in on the policy implications of the motion.

Some context this week, on stories you’ve no doubt seen in the mainstream media on a survey by the group “Dying with Dignity”. The survey claims that more than 80% of Canadians are OK with the outcome of the so-called “Carter Case”, and with the notion of doctor-assisted suicide. However, Natalie Hudson-Sonnen from Life Canada says the numbers are a bit deceiving. Surveys they’ve done show that the level of support drops considerably once people think through the risks and policy implications of the idea.

And ARPA lawyer André Schutten was in Michigan last week for a conference organized by the Acton Institute. We talk to him about what he learned, and what the week was all about.