American Media Personality Glenn Beck Offers to Pay for Surgery to Save Sask. Woman Approved for Euthanasia

Glenn Beck from Blaze TV at the CPAC convention in National Harbor, Md., on March 1, 2019. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

American Conservative commentator Glenn Beck says he will cover the surgery costs for a woman who has received approval for medically assisted death, after she was unable to find a Saskatchewan surgeon to help her.

Jolene Van Alstine, who has a rare form of parathyroid disease called normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism, has had three surgeries but still needs specialized care to remove an overactive parathyroid gland.

Her story recently reached Beck, who is the CEO of Blaze Media, a conservative media company founded in 2018.

“If there is any surgeon in America who can do this, I’ll pay for this patient to come down here for treatment,” Beck said in a Dec. 9 X post.

The Regina woman said two weeks ago she was considering Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) because she was unable to have the surgery in Saskatchewan, or obtain a referral from an endocrinologist for surgery outside the province, as she can’t find any endocrinologists accepting new patients.

Her condition comes with symptoms like extreme bone pain, daily nausea and vomiting, and overheating, as well as anxiety and depression due to social isolation. Her MAID appointment is scheduled for Jan. 7, 2026.

Van Alstine and her husband Miles appeared before the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan on Nov. 25, in an effort to appeal to Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill.

“I feel like I’m at the end of the road so I’m hoping Minister Cockrill can help me,” Van Alstine said in a statement released by NDP Shadow Minister for Rural and Remote Health Jared Clarke.

Clarke urged Cockrill to meet with Van Alstine and hear her story, because “nobody should be forced to choose between unbearable suffering and death,” he said in the statement.

The Epoch Times contacted the province’s health ministry for comment on Van Alstine’s situation but didn’t hear back before publication time. The Epoch Times also reached out to the federal health minister about the woman resorting to MAID due to unavailability of health care, but didn’t immediately hear back.

Beck said in a subsequent post that he has been approached by surgeons willing to help and has made contact with Van Alstine and her husband about the surgery.  Beck also said on Dec. 10 that Van Alstine does not have a passport to legally enter the United States but his “team has been in touch with President Trump’s State Department” in a bid to secure her entry.

“All I can say for now is they are aware of the urgent life-saving need and we had a very positive call,” said Beck, who added that Canada should end its MAID program and that “Americans can never let it spread here.”

MAID in Canada

The Liberal government introduced a euthanasia program in 2016 following a Supreme Court ruling that found the absence of such a program violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The government expanded eligibility for MAID in 2021 to those whose death was not “reasonably foreseeable,” in response to a ruling by the Superior Court of Quebec. The government had planned to expand eligibility further in 2023, to allow mental illness as a sole factor for MAID, but has delayed it until at least 2027 because of widespread concern that Canada’s health-care system is not equipped to handle such complex cases.

The expanding parameters of the program have resulted in international media attention, particularly when military veterans reported being offered MAID unprompted by a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) representative after approaching the department for support. VAC conducted an investigation in 2023 and found the four incidents of MAID being inappropriately offered involved one agent who “is no longer employed with the Department.”

Military veteran and performance coach Kelsi Sheren told the House of Commons veterans affairs committee in October that she had evidence of more than 20 veterans being offered MAID. A spokesperson from VAC told The Epoch Times in a statement that it “takes these matters very seriously,” and all MAID-related allegations are investigated.

Other incidents in recent years have brought further scrutiny to Canada’s euthanasia regime, including people with income and affordability concerns pursuing the procedure. In one case, an Ontario man suffering from a back injury sought MAID in 2022 to avoid homelessness, but later changed his mind after receiving support from his community.

The Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying, released in November, said that 16,499 people received MAID in 2024, which was a 6.9 percent increase from the previous year. The report said the rate of growth has “decreased substantially,” from 2019-2020 when the growth rate was 36.8 percent.

The report said MAID accounted for 5.1 percent of all deaths in Canada in 2024, which was 0.4 percent higher than in 2023.

The report also noted that the median age of those receiving MAID whose death was “reasonably foreseeable” was 78 years, and 60.9 percent were over 75 years old. A total of 63.6 percent of MAID cases in that category cited cancer as an underlying medical condition.