As most people will know, Joan Rivers passed away in early September. She was a pioneer in the comedy world, and a larger-than-life figure. She also took death in stride, regularly making jokes about it in her comedy acts and online. It turns out that she did more...
Latest News
Living Wills
Stolen body parts
I recently came across this article about a woman in Philadelphia whose son’s body was not properly returned to her. Mary Anderson’s son died of complications from a lung infection, so she authorized an autopsy to determine exactly what he died of. When his body was...
When does life support stop supporting life?
There has been a lot of discussion in the news in recent months over what counts as “life,” between the right-to-die cases moving toward the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as the Rasouli cases and the right to keep a patient on life support when the family’s wishes...
Back to school
September marks the return to school of many students, including university- and college-age students. While many of these young people have little in the way of assets, and thus do not have a great need for wills or other estate planning documents, they do need...
To plan, or not to plan. That is the question.
I am a big fan of Seth Godin. I read his blog daily, and I've read several of his books (and have the others on my to-read list). He is a very powerful writer, not least because what he writes is so simple. A few weeks ago, he wrote this post about health care...
Preserving your biological legacy
I have written before on whether a child can inherit from a parent who died before the child was conceived. That question is still very much alive in the U.S., and will likely enter Canada in the not-too-distant future. Today I want to talk about something else:...
Controlling your care
Late last year, the Globe and Mail ran a whole series of articles on death. They discussed many topics related to death and dying, generally and specifically within Canada. In this particular article, the question is on end-of-life care: what happens when someone is...
Young, no kids, no assets: why do I need a will?
Historically, I have generally been of the view that you start needing a will when you have assets or dependants. So here is the question: what, exactly, constitutes having assets? Most of us think of assets as being a house, a car, maybe some investments. However,...
Donate your organs via Facebook
With all the hubbub about Facebook's IPO last week, I thought I would write about something Facebook-related, namely donating your organs. Seriously. Facebook users in the US and UK can now use a new feature to sign up, via Facebook, with their local organ-donor...
Protect your care
I recently returned from a much-needed vacation down south (which is also the reason this blog has been silent for a little while). On the plane ride home, I flipped through my movie options and came across The Descendants, which I was a little familiar with because...