Alicia Duncan on Coercion, Coverups & Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying Program (Part 1)

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

In this episode, we’re joined by Alicia Duncan for a conversation that takes ALBC somewhere new: not a traditional cult, but a deeply troubling story about coercion, undue influence, narrative control, and institutional power. Alicia shares what happened after her mother entered Canada’s MAID—Medical Assistance in Dying—program, and how a family already navigating COVID, concussion symptoms, mental-health struggles, caregiver burnout, and a seriously broken healthcare system ended up facing an unimaginable loss.

Alicia walks us through the red flags, the rushed timeline, the medical assessments, the police wellness check, the legal maze, and the privacy laws that kept her family—and even the police—from accessing the records they needed to understand what happened. We get into assisted dying, euthanasia, suicide, autonomy, safeguards, medical negligence, bureaucratic gaslighting, and the very uncomfortable question of what happens when a system designed to protect people becomes more invested in protecting itself. And because apparently one impossible paperwork nightmare wasn’t enough, Alicia’s spent years advocating for answers, investigating the first police-investigated MAID death in Canadian history, and trying to make sure other families don’t get the same “good luck, hope you enjoy the maze” treatment. You’ll want to stay tuned for Part 2.

Watch Alicia’s episode on CBC’s The Fifth Estate on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plinQAHZRvk

Also be sure to pick up Alicia’s book, The Other Side of the Straitjacket, when it drops September 1st, and follow her on X, Instagram, or at aliciaduncan.com.

Trigger warning: This episode contains frank discussion of suicide, medically assisted death/euthanasia, PTSD, mental illness, concussion and traumatic brain injury, psychiatric hospitalization, coercion, medical trauma, family estrangement, caregiver burnout, institutional failure, and possible criminal negligence.

Also…let it be known that:

The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

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Watch Sarah's TED Talk and buy her memoir, Scarred

CREDITS:

Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames

Production Partner: Citizens of Sound

Co-Creator: Jess Tardy

Audio production: Will Retherford

Production Coordinator: Lesli Dinsmore

Writer: Sandra Nomoto

Social media team: Eric Skwarzynski and Brooke Keane

Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

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