Tag: Public Interest

The WESA conference: Everything a trial lawyer needs to know about the Wills, Estates and Succession Act.

Opening Comments
R. TREVOR TODD, disinherited.com, Vancouver

View From a Very Knowledgeable Bench

THE HON. MADAME JUSTICE SANDRA BALLANCE, Supreme Court of BC, Vancouver THE HON. MADAME JUSTICE JANE DARDI, Supreme Court of BC, Vancouver

Solicitor’s View: WESA-Wise Planning – The Highs and the Lows
ANDREA E. FRISBY, Legacy Tax & Trust Lawyers, Vancouver

Litigator’s View: The Floodgates Have Opened
TARA R. BRITNELL, Hamilton Duncan Armstrong & Stewart, Surrey

Where There is No Will, There May be a Way:
Do Sections 58 and 59 now Unleash a Litigation Tsunami?
MARK WEINTRAUB, Clark Wilson LLP, Vancouver

Intestacy: Update on the Major Changes to the Parentelic Distribution Scheme, Changes for Spouses & the Spousal Home
EDWARD F. MACAU LAY, Edward F. Macaulay Law Corporation, Vancouver

Family Meets WESA: What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You
CAN DACE CHO, Onyx Law Group, Vancouver JUDITH A. JANZEN, Onyx Law Group, Vancouver

Beneficiary Designations:
Which Designated Assets are now Subject to WESA Redistribution?
JOHN W. BILAWICH, Holmes & King, Vancouver

Rule on Rules and Procedure
STANLEY RULE, Sabey Rule LLP, Kelowna

Undue Influence: Shift In Burden of Proof Means More Plaintiffs Wins
R. TREVOR TODD, disinherited.com, Vancouver
Closing Remarks

As reported by the ,Vancouver Province today, The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to review the country’s assisted suicide laws more than two decades after it rejected doctor-assisted dying for people who are terminally ill.

The high court announced Thursday it will hear an appeal in a case that briefly overturned the ban on assisted suicide and offered a British Columbia woman a constitutional exemption to get help in ending her life.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which has argued on behalf of several ill people who claimed they wanted to die with dignity, hailed the decision.

In 2012, Justice Lynn Smith of the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the existing law was unconstitutional, but delayed her ruling for a year to allow the federal government to rewrite the statute.

Smith also granted Gloria Taylor an exemption that would have allowed her to seek an assisted death. Taylor was terminally ill with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The federal government appealed the B.C. Supreme Court decision, and the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the ruling last October, concluding that the 1993 case that upheld the law was binding and that the lower court didn’t have the ability to overturn the decision.

The 20-year-old case that ruled against assisted suicide involved Victoria resident Sue Rodriguez.

Taylor didn’t use the constitutional exemption. She died of an infection in October 2012.

But the family of another woman, 89-year-old Kay Carter who went to Switzerland in January 2010 to end her life, is continuing the court fight with the help of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.

“Today we are savouring the knowledge that seriously ill Canadians are going to have the opportunity to make their plea to the court,” said lawyer Grace Pastine, who has argued the case for the association.

“There are few rights more fundamental or more deeply personal than the right to decide how much suffering to endure at the end of life and whether to seek a doctor’s assistance to hasten that, if living becomes unbearable,” she said.

Pastine said a woman named Elayne Shapray, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is seeking the right to die, has joined the challenge to the existing law.

“She would like to be able to choose a peaceful death surrounded by her loved ones and by her family,” Pastine said. “She filed an affidavit in support of our application and explained to the court that she was tormented by the knowledge that she might become trapped in an unbearable dying process and would forfeit the ability to take her own life.”

The association applied to have the appeal process expedited, saying the case is of extreme urgency for some very ill Canadians, but the high court rejected that application, giving no reasons as is customary.

The original case included the association, Lee Carter and Hollis Johnson, the two who took Lee’s mother to Switzerland.

The trial judge skirted the Rodriguez decision by saying the Supreme Court charter rulings in recent years on the guarantees to “life, liberty, and security of the person” allowed for assisted suicide in some cases.

The judge ruled the law must allow physician-assisted suicide in cases involving patients who are diagnosed with a serious illness or disability and who are experiencing “intolerable” physical or psychological suffering with no chance of improvement.

Proponents of assisted suicide argue that the Rodriguez ruling is outdated and that society’s view of the issue has changed significantly.

However, the federal government argues that Rodriguez is the final word on the subject.

NDP Opposition NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said Prime Minister Stephen Harper should not use assisted suicide as a political wedge issue.

Mulcair said the Supreme Court of Canada will probably send the matter back to Parliament to decide, just as it did with prostitution and Vancouver’s safe-injection site, and if that happens there’s a lot of work to be done.

“These are complex issues because people who work in health care are dealing with these issues every day of the week,” he said.

Dr. Will Johnston, chairman of the he Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of BC, which intervened in the case last fall, said he was disappointed in the top court’s decision to hear the appeal.

“The court rejected assisted suicide and euthanasia in 1993 and prevented Canada from taking a wrong turn,” he said.

“Let us hope that by clarifying the issues, the Supreme Court once again confirms the Canadian rejection of suicide and direct killing of the sick, and that we stay the course in providing great symptom control to all who need it.”

Forbes Magazine’s Top earning Dead Celebrities  2012 have now been reported, once again showing that many people are worth considerably more dead than they could have ever imagined.

It is not just artists and celebrities who have this earning ability,as  almost anyone who has the potential for either fame or residual earnings can create such incredible wealth post death.

Topping the list this year is newly dead Elizabeth Taylor at $210 million, beating out the previous years top earner, Michael Jackson, whose estate income fell to a mere $145 million.

I hope his $40 billion estate claim succeeds, so as  to put him back in top earning spot hereafter.

Third spot Fat Elvis is consistent at $55 million, as is 6th spot Bob Marley at $17 million.

Marilyn has been dead for 51 years and her estate still made $10 million last year, which is about 10 million more than she ever made while alive.

Albert Einstein died 7 years before Marilyn and he also brought in $10 million for his estate.

Steve McQueen died in 1980, and his star appeal then, presently  translates into $8 million per year.

Police arrest ‘dead’ banker accused of losing millions of investor dollars. A south Georgia bank director accused of losing millions of investor dollars before vanishing was homeless and worked odd jobs before his arrest earlier this week, a U.S. marshal told a federal judge Thursday.

U.S. District Judge James Graham in Brunswick formally notified Aubrey Lee Price of the charges against him. The 47-year-old was arrested Tuesday during a traffic stop on Interstate 95 in the coastal Georgia city. The judge set a bond hearing for Monday in Savannah.

Price had disappeared in June 2012 after sending a rambling letter to his family and acquaintances that investigators described as a confession. The letter said he had lost millions in investors’ dollars and planned to kill himself by jumping from a ferry in Florida.

A Florida judge declared him dead a year ago, but FBI authorities had said they didn’t believe Price was dead and continued to search for him.

The U.S. marshal said at the hearing Thursday that Price told authorities he’d been working as a migrant worker, accepting cash for odd jobs, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

An FBI spokesman said Wednesday that Price told authorities his family didn’t know he was still alive and that he had returned to Georgia to renew the tag on his truck. It wasn’t clear where he’d been for the previous 18 months.

Price was indicted in federal court in Savannah in July 2012 on charges of taking $21 million from a small south Georgia bank where he was director. He was also accused of taking many millions more from investors in his money management business. He faces federal wire fraud charges in New York.

My depression and discouragement have driven me to deep anxiety, fear and shame
Price left his home in south Georgia on June 16, 2012, telling his family he was headed to Guatemala for business, authorities have said. Two days later, Price’s family and acquaintances received letters saying he was going to Key West to board a ferry headed to Fort Meyers and planned to jump off somewhere along the way to end his life.

“My depression and discouragement have driven me to deep anxiety, fear and shame. I am emotionally overwhelmed and incapable of continuing in this life,” said a rambling confession letter investigators believe was written by Price.

AP Photo/FBIIn this June 2012 photo released by the FBI, Aubrey Lee Price is seen in Key West, Fla.
“I created false statements, covered up my losses and deceived and hurt the very people I was trying to help,” the letter said.

Credit card records showed he purchased dive weights and a ferry ticket. The ferry ticket was scanned at the boarding point, and security camera footage released by the FBI about six weeks after his disappearance showed Price at the Key West, Fla., airport and ferry terminal on the day he disappeared.

He was arrested Tuesday when Glynn County sheriff’s deputies pulled over a 2001 Dodge on the interstate because they thought its window tint was too dark, Sheriff E. Neal Jump was quoted by the Journal-Constitution as saying. Deputies arrested Price after finding fake IDs in the vehicle.

The U.S. Coast Guard says the 47-year-old’s disappearance prompted a search by aircraft. The agency says the search put rescuers in harm’s way unnecessarily and cost the agency more than $173,000.

Creating a hoax or making a false distress call is a felony. The maximum penalty for making a false distress call is six years in prison, a $5,000 fine, a $250,000 criminal fine and reimbursement to

National Post Newsletters

Evolving  Attitudes Towards Death

Death renders all equal,” wrote Claudian. How each one of us relates to death, however, is individual, and always changing — as we mature; as we contemplate life, and death, around us; and as society changes. In this special edition of the National Post, we present stories and columns looking at the different ways we see, and prepare for, the Great Equalizer.

Like life, death never stops changing. Every generation faces new facts about the end of life. Every generation thinks about it in a different way.

Fifty years ago, a Canadian who lived to 100 was a news item and the recipient of a letter from the Queen. Today Canada has about 6,000 centenarians and their number increases by roughly 1,000 a year. A century ago, the death of a child was an expected part of family life; today we are appalled and outraged when it happens. Fifty years ago, suicide was universally abhorred and treated as a crime, if not a sin. Today the right to die, which means suicide for a good reason, is legal in several countries and American states; it may soon be a part of Canadian life.

Our attitude to death might strike our grandparents as inconsistent. We may or may not be terrified by it, but in choosing our entertainment we embrace it with delight. Each night of the week a small army of actors is gunned down in our living rooms. That’s one way the present moment is unique in the history of the human race. People once defended violence in TV by citing the killings in the Bible, Shakespeare and ancient Greek drama. But earlier forms of fictional death usually carried a heavy charge of meaning and often illuminated moral issues. The casual, often motiveless slaughter we watch now on TV is different. And in quantity it dwarfs the literature and drama of previous millennia.

It is not too much to say that death has become the core of popular culture. It appears that broadcasters and audiences agree that this is how it should be. We regret the reality of death, we do all we can to put it off, but clearly we find it satisfying to contemplate, often.

The young 21st century has expanded another death-related phenomenon: Huge audiences are attracted to narratives based on the notion that vampires live among us, bringing with them the exotic desires of their kind. These elaborate, often brilliantly composed stories echo superstitions of the past. In a science-dominated world they cling to the Gothic imagination of our ancestors.

As our view of death changes — and this special edition of the National Post will look at how our relationship with death continues to change — we alter our formal responses to it. A few decades ago, every funeral was solemn. Men wore black ties and long faces, women cried, unsmiling clergy delivered deadly serious eulogies. Spouses never took part: They were assumed to be so deep in mourning that they couldn’t speak.

Today, funerals can be a time for telling jokes and for light-hearted accounts of the dead individual’s eccentricities. Widows and widowers speak their own tributes if they care to. Sometimes we change the name of the event and call it “a celebration of the life” of the deceased, as if we had all decided not to let ourselves be too downcast. We work hard to keep death in perspective.

We talk more freely about death than we did a few generations ago but there remain certain aspects of it that we find hard to face. One that has always confused me is death by accident. While we profoundly believe in the value of human life, more than 2,000 Canadians a year die in motor vehicle accidents. Each death devastates people close to the victim, diminishing their lives forever. Yet the numbers register with most of us as no more than statistics. What if eight Canadian passenger planes fell to the ground annually, each killing 250 humans? If that happened, flying would soon be suspended until we found a way to make it safer.

Related

So, then, how can we tolerate the cruelty of road traffic? Because we are used to it. Unknowingly, we have built that cause of death into our moral system. It has become what historians call an unspoken assumption. We now consider those numbers normal.

As an 81-year-old, I naturally think more about death than young people do. It can’t be too far in the future. But contemplating what is to come makes me also think about all that has happened. You gain a lot by living eight decades, but you can also lose a lot.

You outlive nearly all of your elders, most of your contemporaries and even some of your younger friends. I find this far more painful than the failings of my body. Attending a funeral often means carrying home a sense of loss, of absence, that never disappears.

In an old man, a good memory like mine (though it’s weakening on the short-term side) can lead to melancholy thoughts. Memory makes you realize how much you miss certain people: Their wisdom, their laughter, their quirks, the well of affection you shared. Luis Buñuel, the great film director, kept a small pad on which he listed all the people he liked who had died. I couldn’t bear that and, in any case, don’t need it: One of my most cherished mentors died four decades ago and when I write on a favourite subject of his, I wonder what he would think of my piece. Sometimes I even work out his reactions in detail.

What I miss is the chance to talk to him and many others. I can recall the details of conversations I had with them but I want more: To revisit arguments, trade gossip, work over the great and small events of the world.

There are whole platoons of people among the missing. For instance, I can remember the reaction of my fellow sports writers when I wrote my first (also my last) story on the caber toss, the event in which Scots athletes throw giant wooden poles into the distance. I informed sports-page readers that this event had strong “cultural connotations,” a phrase my co-workers rightly found pretentious.

As an 81-year-old, I naturally think more about death than young people do

This was 60 years ago and I remember in detail all those people, nine men and one woman, each of them 10 or 15 years older than I and therefore unlikely to be reachable by phone at this time.

I remember where we all sat in our sports department, what they looked like, the advice they gave me. An assistant sports editor, a man of infinite gentleness, told me it was a crime to spell names incorrectly, especially names of people rarely mentioned in print; they would be hurt and would never forget it. Those journalists were my first colleagues and my teachers; a certain part of me loves them still.

A dear friend died just recently and, at least twice a week since, I have thought of something I wanted to tell him or ask him; a second later I remember the truth. That’s a certain kind of loneliness. It accrues and deepens.

But none of this is to be considered a complaint. Breathing and thinking, and still able to operate this miraculous instrument invented for my use in Silicon Valley — I find that, all things considered, there’s a great deal of pleasure in being old.

Many of us say that we don’t fear death. Our time in history is predominantly secular, which means that it’s relatively easy to consider dying simply a last page. We like to think of death visiting us in a relaxed, generous mood. Or we could settle for its appearance during sleep: The father of a friend of mine was reading in bed, felt sleepy, put his glasses on the bedside table, fell asleep and did not wake up. Ideal, in its way.

But it can be horrible. I don’t fear death but I’m terrified of painful and boring months (or even years) in palliative care. What if joy and wonder disappear, but a version of life endures? People can lose the ability to hear or talk. Their decline severs connections with spouses, children and friends. What if I can’t exchange words with anyone? What if I can’t read? If I can’t watch my grandchildren grow, and laugh with them, I won’t truly be alive. If able, I will earnestly request medical help to end to my life.

I don’t fear death but I’m terrified of painful and boring months (or even years) in palliative care

In 1970, I contributed a piece called “The Future of Death” to a book of essays that Stephen Clarkson edited, Vision 2020: Fifty Canadians in Search of a Future. I predicted that by the year 2020, death would be far better managed: “One imagines people openly discussing their deaths, deciding reasonably and honestly the point at which their lives should finish.” In 1970, no one objected to those sentiments, but 20 years later a man in Kamloops, B.C., discovered my essay reprinted in a school reader. He spent two years petitioning federal and provincial ministers to have me prosecuted for counselling suicide, to no avail. He argued that students would read it and kill themselves.

I thought of him earlier this month and wondered if the B.C Court of Appeal gladdened his heart when it upheld the ban on medically assisted suicide. Still, I’m guessing that the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Lance Finch is closer to the emerging national consensus: “The point at which the meaning of life is lost, when life’s positive attributes are so diminished as to render life valueless” is a personal decision we should all have the right to make for ourselves.

The Quebec legislature has on the order paper a bill allowing medical assistance for suicide. The Manitoba health minister, Theresa Oswald, says “This is a conversation whose time has come.” Other health ministers are moving in the same direction. Perhaps I wasn’t overly optimistic when I suggested that it might be resolved by 2020.

There was a time when most politicians found euthanasia far too controversial even to mention. But recent decades have eliminated many once-banned topics and this one has finally made its way to the surface. It appears that generations of free speech and anxious argument have actually led to improvements in certain crucial aspects of life, including even, notably, death.

Death renders all equal,” wrote Claudian. How each one of us relates to death, however, is individual, and always changing — as we mature; as we contemplate life, and death, around us; and as society changes. In this special edition of the 

National Post, we present stories and columns looking at the different ways we see, and prepare for, the Great Equalizer. To read the complete series, click here. 

Like life, death never stops changing. Every generation faces new facts about the end of life. Every generation thinks about it in a different way.

Fifty years ago, a Canadian who lived to 100 was a news item and the recipient of a letter from the Queen. Today Canada has about 6,000 centenarians and their number increases by roughly 1,000 a year. A century ago, the death of a child was an expected part of family life; today we are appalled and outraged when it happens. Fifty years ago, suicide was universally abhorred and treated as a crime, if not a sin. Today the right to die, which means suicide for a good reason, is legal in several countries and American states; it may soon be a part of Canadian life.

Our attitude to death might strike our grandparents as inconsistent. We may or may not be terrified by it, but in choosing our entertainment we embrace it with delight. Each night of the week a small army of actors is gunned down in our living rooms. That’s one way the present moment is unique in the history of the human race. People once defended violence in TV by citing the killings in the Bible, Shakespeare and ancient Greek drama. But earlier forms of fictional death usually carried a heavy charge of meaning and often illuminated moral issues. The casual, often motiveless slaughter we watch now on TV is different. And in quantity it dwarfs the literature and drama of previous millennia.

It is not too much to say that death has become the core of popular culture. It appears that broadcasters and audiences agree that this is how it should be. We regret the reality of death, we do all we can to put it off, but clearly we find it satisfying to contemplate, often.

The young 21st century has expanded another death-related phenomenon: Huge audiences are attracted to narratives based on the notion that vampires live among us, bringing with them the exotic desires of their kind. These elaborate, often brilliantly composed stories echo superstitions of the past. In a science-dominated world they cling to the Gothic imagination of our ancestors.

As our view of death changes — and this special edition of the National Post will look at how our relationship with death continues to change — we alter our formal responses to it. A few decades ago, every funeral was solemn. Men wore black ties and long faces, women cried, unsmiling clergy delivered deadly serious eulogies. Spouses never took part: They were assumed to be so deep in mourning that they couldn’t speak.

Today, funerals can be a time for telling jokes and for light-hearted accounts of the dead individual’s eccentricities. Widows and widowers speak their own tributes if they care to. Sometimes we change the name of the event and call it “a celebration of the life” of the deceased, as if we had all decided not to let ourselves be too downcast. We work hard to keep death in perspective.

We talk more freely about death than we did a few generations ago but there remain certain aspects of it that we find hard to face. One that has always confused me is death by accident. While we profoundly believe in the value of human life, more than 2,000 Canadians a year die in motor vehicle accidents. Each death devastates people close to the victim, diminishing their lives forever. Yet the numbers register with most of us as no more than statistics. What if eight Canadian passenger planes fell to the ground annually, each killing 250 humans? If that happened, flying would soon be suspended until we found a way to make it safer.

Related

So, then, how can we tolerate the cruelty of road traffic? Because we are used to it. Unknowingly, we have built that cause of death into our moral system. It has become what historians call an unspoken assumption. We now consider those numbers normal.

As an 81-year-old, I naturally think more about death than young people do. It can’t be too far in the future. But contemplating what is to come makes me also think about all that has happened. You gain a lot by living eight decades, but you can also lose a lot.

You outlive nearly all of your elders, most of your contemporaries and even some of your younger friends. I find this far more painful than the failings of my body. Attending a funeral often means carrying home a sense of loss, of absence, that never disappears.

In an old man, a good memory like mine (though it’s weakening on the short-term side) can lead to melancholy thoughts. Memory makes you realize how much you miss certain people: Their wisdom, their laughter, their quirks, the well of affection you shared. Luis Buñuel, the great film director, kept a small pad on which he listed all the people he liked who had died. I couldn’t bear that and, in any case, don’t need it: One of my most cherished mentors died four decades ago and when I write on a favourite subject of his, I wonder what he would think of my piece. Sometimes I even work out his reactions in detail.

What I miss is the chance to talk to him and many others. I can recall the details of conversations I had with them but I want more: To revisit arguments, trade gossip, work over the great and small events of the world.

There are whole platoons of people among the missing. For instance, I can remember the reaction of my fellow sports writers when I wrote my first (also my last) story on the caber toss, the event in which Scots athletes throw giant wooden poles into the distance. I informed sports-page readers that this event had strong “cultural connotations,” a phrase my co-workers rightly found pretentious.

As an 81-year-old, I naturally think more about death than young people do

This was 60 years ago and I remember in detail all those people, nine men and one woman, each of them 10 or 15 years older than I and therefore unlikely to be reachable by phone at this time.

I remember where we all sat in our sports department, what they looked like, the advice they gave me. An assistant sports editor, a man of infinite gentleness, told me it was a crime to spell names incorrectly, especially names of people rarely mentioned in print; they would be hurt and would never forget it. Those journalists were my first colleagues and my teachers; a certain part of me loves them still.

A dear friend died just recently and, at least twice a week since, I have thought of something I wanted to tell him or ask him; a second later I remember the truth. That’s a certain kind of loneliness. It accrues and deepens.

But none of this is to be considered a complaint. Breathing and thinking, and still able to operate this miraculous instrument invented for my use in Silicon Valley — I find that, all things considered, there’s a great deal of pleasure in being old.

Many of us say that we don’t fear death. Our time in history is predominantly secular, which means that it’s relatively easy to consider dying simply a last page. We like to think of death visiting us in a relaxed, generous mood. Or we could settle for its appearance during sleep: The father of a friend of mine was reading in bed, felt sleepy, put his glasses on the bedside table, fell asleep and did not wake up. Ideal, in its way.

But it can be horrible. I don’t fear death but I’m terrified of painful and boring months (or even years) in palliative care. What if joy and wonder disappear, but a version of life endures? People can lose the ability to hear or talk. Their decline severs connections with spouses, children and friends. What if I can’t exchange words with anyone? What if I can’t read? If I can’t watch my grandchildren grow, and laugh with them, I won’t truly be alive. If able, I will earnestly request medical help to end to my life.

I don’t fear death but I’m terrified of painful and boring months (or even years) in palliative care

In 1970, I contributed a piece called “The Future of Death” to a book of essays that Stephen Clarkson edited, Vision 2020: Fifty Canadians in Search of a Future. I predicted that by the year 2020, death would be far better managed: “One imagines people openly discussing their deaths, deciding reasonably and honestly the point at which their lives should finish.” In 1970, no one objected to those sentiments, but 20 years later a man in Kamloops, B.C., discovered my essay reprinted in a school reader. He spent two years petitioning federal and provincial ministers to have me prosecuted for counselling suicide, to no avail. He argued that students would read it and kill themselves.

I thought of him earlier this month and wondered if the B.C Court of Appeal gladdened his heart when it upheld the ban on medically assisted suicide. Still, I’m guessing that the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Lance Finch is closer to the emerging national consensus: “The point at which the meaning of life is lost, when life’s positive attributes are so diminished as to render life valueless” is a personal decision we should all have the right to make for ourselves.

The Quebec legislature has on the order paper a bill allowing medical assistance for suicide. The Manitoba health minister, Theresa Oswald, says “This is a conversation whose time has come.” Other health ministers are moving in the same direction. Perhaps I wasn’t overly optimistic when I suggested that it might be resolved by 2020.

There was a time when most politicians found euthanasia far too controversial even to mention. But recent decades have eliminated many once-banned topics and this one has finally made its way to the surface. It appears that generations of free speech and anxious argument have actually led to improvements in certain crucial aspects of life, including even, notably, death.

Death renders all equal,” wrote Claudian. How each one of us relates to death, however, is individual, and always changing — as we mature; as we contemplate life, and death, around us; and as society changes. In this special edition of the 

National Post, we present stories and columns looking at the different ways we see, and prepare for, the Great Equalizer. To read the complete series, click here. 

Like life, death never stops changing. Every generation faces new facts about the end of life. Every generation thinks about it in a different way.

Fifty years ago, a Canadian who lived to 100 was a news item and the recipient of a letter from the Queen. Today Canada has about 6,000 centenarians and their number increases by roughly 1,000 a year. A century ago, the death of a child was an expected part of family life; today we are appalled and outraged when it happens. Fifty years ago, suicide was universally abhorred and treated as a crime, if not a sin. Today the right to die, which means suicide for a good reason, is legal in several countries and American states; it may soon be a part of Canadian life.

Our attitude to death might strike our grandparents as inconsistent. We may or may not be terrified by it, but in choosing our entertainment we embrace it with delight. Each night of the week a small army of actors is gunned down in our living rooms. That’s one way the present moment is unique in the history of the human race. People once defended violence in TV by citing the killings in the Bible, Shakespeare and ancient Greek drama. But earlier forms of fictional death usually carried a heavy charge of meaning and often illuminated moral issues. The casual, often motiveless slaughter we watch now on TV is different. And in quantity it dwarfs the literature and drama of previous millennia.

It is not too much to say that death has become the core of popular culture. It appears that broadcasters and audiences agree that this is how it should be. We regret the reality of death, we do all we can to put it off, but clearly we find it satisfying to contemplate, often.

The young 21st century has expanded another death-related phenomenon: Huge audiences are attracted to narratives based on the notion that vampires live among us, bringing with them the exotic desires of their kind. These elaborate, often brilliantly composed stories echo superstitions of the past. In a science-dominated world they cling to the Gothic imagination of our ancestors.

As our view of death changes — and this special edition of the National Post will look at how our relationship with death continues to change — we alter our formal responses to it. A few decades ago, every funeral was solemn. Men wore black ties and long faces, women cried, unsmiling clergy delivered deadly serious eulogies. Spouses never took part: They were assumed to be so deep in mourning that they couldn’t speak.

Today, funerals can be a time for telling jokes and for light-hearted accounts of the dead individual’s eccentricities. Widows and widowers speak their own tributes if they care to. Sometimes we change the name of the event and call it “a celebration of the life” of the deceased, as if we had all decided not to let ourselves be too downcast. We work hard to keep death in perspective.

We talk more freely about death than we did a few generations ago but there remain certain aspects of it that we find hard to face. One that has always confused me is death by accident. While we profoundly believe in the value of human life, more than 2,000 Canadians a year die in motor vehicle accidents. Each death devastates people close to the victim, diminishing their lives forever. Yet the numbers register with most of us as no more than statistics. What if eight Canadian passenger planes fell to the ground annually, each killing 250 humans? If that happened, flying would soon be suspended until we found a way to make it safer.

Related

So, then, how can we tolerate the cruelty of road traffic? Because we are used to it. Unknowingly, we have built that cause of death into our moral system. It has become what historians call an unspoken assumption. We now consider those numbers normal.

As an 81-year-old, I naturally think more about death than young people do. It can’t be too far in the future. But contemplating what is to come makes me also think about all that has happened. You gain a lot by living eight decades, but you can also lose a lot.

You outlive nearly all of your elders, most of your contemporaries and even some of your younger friends. I find this far more painful than the failings of my body. Attending a funeral often means carrying home a sense of loss, of absence, that never disappears.

In an old man, a good memory like mine (though it’s weakening on the short-term side) can lead to melancholy thoughts. Memory makes you realize how much you miss certain people: Their wisdom, their laughter, their quirks, the well of affection you shared. Luis Buñuel, the great film director, kept a small pad on which he listed all the people he liked who had died. I couldn’t bear that and, in any case, don’t need it: One of my most cherished mentors died four decades ago and when I write on a favourite subject of his, I wonder what he would think of my piece. Sometimes I even work out his reactions in detail.

What I miss is the chance to talk to him and many others. I can recall the details of conversations I had with them but I want more: To revisit arguments, trade gossip, work over the great and small events of the world.

There are whole platoons of people among the missing. For instance, I can remember the reaction of my fellow sports writers when I wrote my first (also my last) story on the caber toss, the event in which Scots athletes throw giant wooden poles into the distance. I informed sports-page readers that this event had strong “cultural connotations,” a phrase my co-workers rightly found pretentious.

As an 81-year-old, I naturally think more about death than young people do

This was 60 years ago and I remember in detail all those people, nine men and one woman, each of them 10 or 15 years older than I and therefore unlikely to be reachable by phone at this time.

I remember where we all sat in our sports department, what they looked like, the advice they gave me. An assistant sports editor, a man of infinite gentleness, told me it was a crime to spell names incorrectly, especially names of people rarely mentioned in print; they would be hurt and would never forget it. Those journalists were my first colleagues and my teachers; a certain part of me loves them still.

A dear friend died just recently and, at least twice a week since, I have thought of something I wanted to tell him or ask him; a second later I remember the truth. That’s a certain kind of loneliness. It accrues and deepens.

But none of this is to be considered a complaint. Breathing and thinking, and still able to operate this miraculous instrument invented for my use in Silicon Valley — I find that, all things considered, there’s a great deal of pleasure in being old.

Many of us say that we don’t fear death. Our time in history is predominantly secular, which means that it’s relatively easy to consider dying simply a last page. We like to think of death visiting us in a relaxed, generous mood. Or we could settle for its appearance during sleep: The father of a friend of mine was reading in bed, felt sleepy, put his glasses on the bedside table, fell asleep and did not wake up. Ideal, in its way.

But it can be horrible. I don’t fear death but I’m terrified of painful and boring months (or even years) in palliative care. What if joy and wonder disappear, but a version of life endures? People can lose the ability to hear or talk. Their decline severs connections with spouses, children and friends. What if I can’t exchange words with anyone? What if I can’t read? If I can’t watch my grandchildren grow, and laugh with them, I won’t truly be alive. If able, I will earnestly request medical help to end to my life.

I don’t fear death but I’m terrified of painful and boring months (or even years) in palliative care

In 1970, I contributed a piece called “The Future of Death” to a book of essays that Stephen Clarkson edited, Vision 2020: Fifty Canadians in Search of a Future. I predicted that by the year 2020, death would be far better managed: “One imagines people openly discussing their deaths, deciding reasonably and honestly the point at which their lives should finish.” In 1970, no one objected to those sentiments, but 20 years later a man in Kamloops, B.C., discovered my essay reprinted in a school reader. He spent two years petitioning federal and provincial ministers to have me prosecuted for counselling suicide, to no avail. He argued that students would read it and kill themselves.

I thought of him earlier this month and wondered if the B.C Court of Appeal gladdened his heart when it upheld the ban on medically assisted suicide. Still, I’m guessing that the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Lance Finch is closer to the emerging national consensus: “The point at which the meaning of life is lost, when life’s positive attributes are so diminished as to render life valueless” is a personal decision we should all have the right to make for ourselves.

The Quebec legislature has on the order paper a bill allowing medical assistance for suicide. The Manitoba health minister, Theresa Oswald, says “This is a conversation whose time has come.” Other health ministers are moving in the same direction. Perhaps I wasn’t overly optimistic when I suggested that it might be resolved by 2020.

There was a time when most politicians found euthanasia far too controversial even to mention. But recent decades have eliminated many once-banned topics and this one has finally made its way to the surface. It appears that generations of free speech and anxious argument have actually led to improvements in certain crucial aspects of life, including even, notably, death.

Reprinted from the National Post

Robert Fulford: Death, like life, never stops changing, nor do our attitudes toward it

Increased Estate Litigation Due to Increased Longevity

In 1998 I did a seminar on mental capacity with a geriatric specialist who told the crowd that historically people only live to be 40 years of age. He mentioned that medical science has made such quantum leaps and advancement that people’s bodies, and in particular their minds, have not adjusted to the current longevity of the life expectancy well into the 80s or 90s. The following brief article was excerpted from the Atlantic:

Why We Live 40 Years Longer Today Than We Did in 1880

Joe PinskerOct 23 2013, 7:08 PM ET

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were a golden era of American health innovation. Breakthroughs like germ theory, antibiotics, and widespread vaccination, as well as major public-health advances in sanitation and regulation, neutralized many long-leading causes of death. Life expectancy skyrocketed as a result, but brought with it new demons. For the past 50 years, medical innovation has focused less on eradicating disease and more on managing chronic conditions. Does this indicate a slowdown in medical progress and a coming plateau in life expectancy? Or have we merely hit a lull before the next wave of major fixes?