Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on the show today is Michael Bonner. Michael is a communications and public policy expert, who served for a decade

in Canada's federal and provincial governments. He is also a classicist and historian of Iran. His work

has appeared in Quillette, in the Epoch Times, and he's been writing for City Journal as well.

He's the author of several books, including In Defense of Civilization, How Our Past Can Renew Our Present,

which was published earlier this year.

Today, we'll talk a bit about that, but also discuss the prevalence of loneliness and despair in the

Western world and certain controversies that have arisen in Canada.

So Michael, thanks very much for joining it.

Thanks for inviting me.

You wrote for City Journal an article last month about the rise of assisted suicide in Canada.

So a little less than a decade ago, Canada's Supreme Court

determined that the nation's constitution protected a right to assisted suicide. And then Parliament

soon began passing and amending laws to allow for this practice of euthanasia. Since then,

I think the number is over 40,000 people

have been euthanized in Canada. And the number seems to be increasing. So I'm wondering

if you could just describe what the state of play is with that, what kind of people are seeking

euthanasia and whether this has proven controversial?

Yeah, I would say that, I mean, first of all, it is controversial.

I would say that there's very far from a consensus on the practice as it currently obtains.

There's been quite a lot of coverage in media that I think most people tend to find

shocking about assisted suicide being pushed

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