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The Jill Bennett Show · CKNW / Curiouscast

Is being offered MAID part of a normal trip to the emergency room?

April 9, 2026·35 min·2 clips
An 80-year-old woman went to the ER with severe back pain and was unexpectedly offered medically assisted death.
The lead story is stark. Miriam Lancaster says she came to Vancouver General Hospital with bad back pain and ended up facing a question she never expected in an emergency room. The host connects it to what Mike Smith had raised earlier with Andrew Weaver, then lets Lancaster explain how the encounter played out. After that, the show changes gears. Two guests named Sarah talk about renters with pets and the squeeze they face when landlords default to no-pet policies. First United brings the downtown Eastside view. Sarah Marsden says those rules can push people into homelessness, displacement, or out of housing they already have. The BC SBCA adds the animal side. Sarah Herring says housing challenges and a lack of pet-friendly rentals are the main reason healthy adult animals are surrendered across the province. That number sticks: since 2014, more than 12,000 animals have been surrendered to the BC SBCA for housing reasons, before counting other organizations, private rehoming, or abandonment. The policy question stays plain. Would banning no-pet clauses actually help renters and animals, or just move the problem around? Ottawa gets time too, with the cold open teasing floor crossing and what it could mean for the federal Liberals and Conservatives. Then the show widens again, this time to a rare, hundreds-of-years-old artwork tied to the Hudson's Bay Company and headed to auction. David Heffel closes that thread, saying the piece matters for artwork in Canada and the history of old masters. The episode feels local and useful. It moves from one woman's hospital experience to renters, pets, politics, and art, while keeping the pressure on what these stories mean in everyday life.

As heard by us

A health care story anchors a broad hour that also reaches into Ottawa politics and a Hudson's Bay-linked art auction.

The Jill Bennett Show opens on a health care story: a woman in her 80s says she went to Vancouver General Hospital with severe back pain and was surprised to be offered medically assisted death. If that account is taken as she gives it, the segment is hard to shake.

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Why you'd press play

You want a hard local story that quickly opens into bigger public questions.

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