Fight over Delta hospice now focused on $4M charity store business

A community group in Delta, hoping to wrest back control of a second-hand store worth millions, is asking outsiders to join the Delta Hospice Society in order to vote against the society's current board of directors.

At the centre of the dispute is the Delta Hospice Society-owned Hospice Charity Shoppe in Tsawwassen, which has an assessed value of $3 million and generates over $750,000 in annual revenue.

In a flyer, the group Take Back Delta Hospice says the Delta Hospice Society (DHS) is directing support away from hospice care "to fight its own members in court and to recruit thousands and thousand of new members from around the globe on the premise that their mission is to spearhead a national movement to oppose [medical assistance in dying]."

Take Back Delta Hospice (TBDH) organizer Chris Pettypiece said the charity shop and land was originally purchased through the generosity of Delta citizens, and that any benefit derived from the business should stay in Delta.

"It was paid for through donations of money or goods to be sold to provide resources and funding for services to this community, not to fund this ideological agenda," said Pettypiece. 

In a text message, Delta Hospice Society president Angelina Ireland said the assertion that the society is launching a national campaign against MAiD using community assets is "nonsense."

"We support and try to protect palliative care. We have nothing to say about MAiD," said Ireland. "There is lots of access to MAiD in most communities but not a lot of access to authentic palliative care."

In December 2019, a newly elected Delta Hospice Society board of directors moved to ban MAiD at the 10-bed Irene Thomas Hospice while proposing changes to the society's constitution to make it a faith-based Christian organization.

Medically assisted death became legal in Canada in 2016 and can be sought by an individual, according to a strict set of guidelines. 

This past February, the province withdrew $1.5 million in annual funding to the society over its refusal to offer MAiD. 

DHS was subsequently evicted from both the hospice and the associated Harold and Veronica Savage Centre for Supportive Care next door, where it used to operate programs.

Fraser Health is now running the hospice.

In June 2020, TBDH won a B.C. Supreme Court decision to stop an extraordinary meeting to vote on the proposed constitution. In the ruling, the judge said the DHS board of directors acted in bad faith to manipulate voting by cherry-picking members with Christian views while rejecting others.

Membership in the Delta Hospice Society is not restricted by geography, which has created the equivalent of an arms race for voters. 

Last year, it was revealed through court ordered disclosure that thousands of people from around B.C. and Canada, even some from outside the country, had become members of the Delta Hospice Society. Outside organizations like Campaign Life Coalition, a Toronto-based social conservative lobby group, also started recruiting members for the society. 

Meanwhile, Pettypiece is now president of the new Heron Hospice Society in Delta, which formed to support the Irene Thomas Hospice and "embrace all end-of-life choices."

But while the MAiD battle has been decided, TBDH wants to ensure the assets and income of the Hospice Charity Shoppe stay true to its original purpose of funding care locally.

Pettypiece is hoping for broad support from people willing to put up the $10 DHS membership fee in order to vote against the current DHS board of directors at an upcoming annual general meeting. 

 "We're definitely on the side of a massive majority in Canada. The question is: how many people will choose to get involved," he said. "And we're still advocating that the community needs to stay involved to ensure that a $3 million asset doesn't get liquidated to fund an agenda that's got nothing to do with why it was there in the first place."

Via text message, Ireland said TBDH should concern itself with the Heron Hospice Society.

"We suggest they concentrate on their own society instead of spreading rumours and talking gossip about DHS in an attempt to discredit their competition," she said.

The court-ordered sign-up deadline for Delta Hospice Society membership is Oct. 22. The annual general meeting will be held online due to COVID-19 restrictions at a date that has yet to be announced.