Supreme Court of Canada Unanimously Allows Alleviation Of Nickelback Sufferers

Ottawa - Twenty years after narrowly denying Canadians the right to physician-assisted death, the Supreme Court of Canada on Friday dramatically changed course, unanimously striking down its previous ban.

The long-anticipated decision paves the way for Canada to join several Western nations and American states in making assisted suicide legal, though each jurisdiction is nuanced in its implementation.

The nine-person court ruled that "the prohibition on assisted dying is overboard...It imposes unnecessary suffering on affected individuals, deprives them of the ability to determine what to do with their bodies and how those bodies will be treated and may cause those affected to take their own lives sooner than they would were they able to obtain a physician's assistance in dying."According to the ruling, "the person must be an adult who is experiencing intolerable suffering that is either physical or psychological; they must clearly consent to the termination of his or her life; and the medical condition must be grievous, irremediable, and cause enduring suffering."

Michael Therrault, 41.

The case was brought forward by the family of Kay Carter, a woman with spinal stenosis who traveled to Switzerland in 2010 in order to die, and by Michael Therreault, a Calgary man in his early forties who has argued for years that his prolonged auditory exposure to Alberta-based band Nickelback has caused him "irreversible, intolerable suffering." Therrault, a worker in Alberta's oil industry, recounts the first time that he was exposed to the band's music: "I specifically remember that day. It was a normal day, I had kissed my wife and kids before heading off for work, and I turned on the radio in my truck." Therrault continues, "It was August of '01 and this song called How You Remind Me started playing. I could feel my heartrate increase, I started thumping my steering wheel to the beat. I began to sweat and had to roll down my window."

As the years went on, the Quebec native was both "attracted to, and strangely repelled by" the music of Nickelback. Songs such as Someday, If Anyone Cared, and This Afternoon consistently occupied his mind, and his incessant, off-key renditions of Nickelback songs led to the 2010 disillusion of his marriage. "I've lost everything - my wife, my kids, most of my friends, even my mother," says Therrault.

In recent years, several Canadian provinces have begun to keep track of Nickelback emergency-room related visits. The province of Ontario reported in 2012 that 11, 586 men and women visited hospitals after willingly listening to the band or being in a vehicle or shopping mall where their music had been playing.

In its unprecedented decision, the Supreme Court acknowledged Therreault and those like him who have been irrevocably damaged by "inexcusable music." "Canadians such as Mr. Therrault and those who will follow him are included in this decision. Rather than be forced to live with constant, wretched melodies and lyrics in their minds, they should have the choice to seek out permanent rest from a physician."

From Our Ottawa Bureau