It’s not practical and it might be illegal but it may be desirable. It’s safe to say there’s a quintessentially Canadian divergence of views when it comes to elective ventilation but it was ever thus when it comes to matters of organ transplantation policy. Little surprise then that the notion of improving organ donation rates by allowing people with severe brain injuries and hopeless prognoses to be placed on ventilators until they suffer brain death isn’t on the Canadian table. The topic hasn’t been broached and the time hasn’t come to even contemplate such a proposition, argues Dr. Sam Shemie, a physician in the Division of Pediatric Critical Care at Montreal Children’s Hospital in Quebec and Canadian Blood Services medical director for organs and tissues donation. Although Canadian organ donation rates are “mediocre at best,” far more rudimentary approaches to resolving the shortfall must be undertaken before even contemplating such “ethically controversial and difficult issues,” S