Over the last few weeks, tens of thousands of Canadians gathered in major cities across the country for the National March for Life and related pro-life events. Participants marched in Ottawa, Victoria, Edmonton, Regina, Toronto, Halifax, and elsewhere in what organizers describe as a peaceful public witness in support of legal protection for human life from conception to natural death.
Speakers addressed concerns surrounding abortion, euthanasia (MAID), disability, and the growing vulnerability of those increasingly seen by society as burdensome, inconvenient, or expendable. One of the speakers in Ottawa was Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.
That discrepancy matters.
Many Canadians increasingly sense that significant cultural, ethical, and political debates are often filtered through institutional narratives before the public ever encounters them directly.
In 2023, a group of Canadians undertook what many considered impossible: a citizen-led effort to publicly examine the governmental and institutional response to COVID-19. Across the country, witnesses from Canada and around the world testified before the National Citizens Inquiry, contributing to one of the largest citizen-driven public records concerning the pandemic era and its consequences.
But as the hearings progressed, something deeper emerged.
Witnesses repeatedly pointed not merely to policy failures, but to a growing crisis of institutional trust. Concerns extended beyond pandemic response into health care, education, child welfare, media, regulatory systems, and ultimately the broader question of whether the institutions Canadians once relied upon were still capable of protecting the vulnerable.
What emerged from the testimonies was not merely a political argument, but a philosophical one.
Increasingly, what we are hearing from those speaking out is that many Canadian institutions now operate according to a framework in which human dignity is tied less to intrinsic worth and more to autonomy, functionality, independence, or projected quality of life.
Under such a framework, vulnerability itself can become dangerous. Dependence becomes burdensome. Suffering becomes justification not merely for compassion, but for elimination.
And yet the value of the National Citizens Inquiry hearings lies precisely here: testimony evokes the kind of curiosity and public engagement necessary for a healthy society to examine questions many would otherwise prefer to avoid. Canadians may ultimately arrive at very different conclusions, but indifference is far more dangerous than honest and thoughtful public discussion.
The hearings do not demand that Canadians adopt identical conclusions. Nor do they remove the complexity surrounding issues such as abortion, palliative care, disability, mental illness, or end-of-life suffering. But they do place difficult evidence, experiences, and ethical concerns into the public record where they can no longer be dismissed simply because they are uncomfortable.
The value of public testimony is not that it removes complexity or forces unanimity. It does something more fundamental: it allows citizens to hear directly from witnesses, experts, physicians, advocates, researchers, and affected Canadians themselves.
The hearings have placed into the public record testimony that many Canadians may never otherwise encounter through mainstream institutional channels. Whether one ultimately agrees or disagrees with every witness, the testimony invites careful reflection on the state of Canadian institutions and the future direction of Canadian culture.
Civilizations are not defined only by their technology, wealth, or efficiency. They are also defined by whether the vulnerable are protected when protection becomes costly, inconvenient, or culturally unfashionable.
Awareness alone is not enough. But awareness is often where renewal begins.
