By Shawn Buckley | Substack.com/@ShawnBuckleyLaw

Karen Peters described it like walking on golf balls.

Every step. Both feet. Her hands were swollen to twice their normal size. She had rheumatoid arthritis, and her doctor had been clear about what that meant. There was no cure. She had a progressive illness that would eventually put her into a wheelchair. She was facing a life of disability, suffering and death.

To slow the progression of the disease, Karen’s medical doctor offered to slow the progression of the disease with chemical drugs. One of these drugs was a chemotherapy drug called methotrexate.

For a year, Karen injected herself every week with the chemotherapy drug. For three or four days of every week, she was so sick from the drug that she wished she was dead.

She still had rheumatoid arthritis. She was still facing the wheelchair. She was still facing an early death. She was also now suffering acutely from the treatment.

Then a friend told her to see a naturopathic doctor.

She resisted. She’d been told naturopaths didn’t have the training. (They do—in many cases, more than medical doctors, particularly in nutrition.) But eventually she went. The first thing Karen told the naturopathic doctor was that she had an incurable illness. The first thing the naturopath said to Karen was:

“There are no incurable illnesses.”

The naturopathic doctor then cured Karen with nutrition and natural remedies. No drugs. No wheelchair. No death sentence. No weekly injections that made her wish she wasn’t alive.

He also told her something else: if she had continued the methotrexate, it would have given her cancer.

The Woman on Parliament Hill

I’ve been telling Karen’s story across Canada. We drove a petition supporting the Charter of Health Freedom (charterofhealthfreedom.org) from Victoria to Ottawa. Along the way, we held live events to allow ordinary Canadians to share their health journeys. We also broadcast an online health show so that Canadians could share what I can only describe as “forbidden information.” I challenge anyone to watch their stories (nhppa.org/speakers). You will not be the same.

On October 25, 2025, we were on Parliament Hill, handing over the petition with more than 157,000 signatures to MP Blaine Calkins to be entered into Parliament. I was telling Karen’s story as part of the event.

Afterward, a woman named Nelda came up to me. She was weeping.

Nelda said, “You just told my story.”

Nelda had rheumatoid arthritis. She was put on methotrexate. She was suffering terribly without hope. But there was one difference.

Nelda got the cancer, and they took her breasts.

I’ve thought about Nelda ever since. Karen’s story has a happy ending. Nelda’s story does not. And the only difference between them was timing and access to information.

How Many Karen Peters Are There?

That’s the question I can’t stop asking.

How many Canadians right now have rheumatoid arthritis and are being managed with weekly chemotherapy injections? Is it one? Five thousand? Fifty thousand? Two hundred thousand?

One is too many.

They are suffering without hope of ever becoming healthy again. They don’t know that others with rheumatoid arthritis have been cured. They don’t know that they should not lose hope. They don’t know because it’s actually illegal to tell them that they don’t have to be facing a wheelchair and an early death. It is illegal to share with them that there are other options that could help them—that people are being cured.

It’s illegal to tell them because of how Canada’s health laws are structured. The doctors who know can’t say it publicly without risking their licenses. The companies that make natural health products can’t share the stories without risking fines that now reach $5 million per day. The naturopaths who are doing the curing are, in some cases, being criminally convicted, not for harming anyone, but simply for practicing medicine without a medical license.

In September, the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of naturopathic doctor Annie Juneau. The Court did not ask if Dr. Juneau was saving lives. Nor did the Court ask if she was alleviating suffering. Rather, the only question was: Is she a medical doctor? In many provinces, only medical doctors are legally allowed to diagnose, recommend or treat us. In other provinces, there are narrow exceptions for some traditions, such as naturopathic medicine. There is no naturopathic exception in Quebec, and so the conviction of Dr. Juneau was upheld by the Court. Sentencing is pending.

She was helping people. That was the crime.

The Magnesium Story

I want to tell you one more story, because it illustrates something important about the scale of what we’re losing.

A young mother shared her story at our health show. She’d developed restless legs syndrome, which felt like electrical shocks to both legs when she lay down. The only way to stop the muscle twitching was to walk. She was walking the floors all night. Not sleeping. Immune system deteriorating. She was getting to the point where she was losing the ability to care for her two young children.

Her medical doctor told her there was no treatment for restless legs syndrome, but offered her a Parkinson’s drug to manage it.

She looked at the side effects, and she declined after reading them.

She went to a naturopath instead. The naturopath told her she was magnesium-deficient.

Within a day of supplementing with magnesium, the restless legs syndrome was gone.

A muscle twitch is often a symptom of magnesium deficiency. Any naturopath knows this. Any health food store employee knows this. It is basic, foundational nutritional knowledge.

Her medical doctor did not know it. And this isn’t a criticism of that doctor as a person, it’s a structural fact. I interviewed three medical doctors for our health show, all with at least 40 years of practice. I asked each one how much nutrition training they received in medical school.

Two hours. Maybe half a day. Out of eight years of medical school.

Because the system they were trained in, the allopathic system, is not designed to cure, it’s designed to manage symptoms with chemical drugs. Nutrition cures. Nutrition is therefore not part of the curriculum.

We Are All Malnourished

Here’s something that sounds absurd until you look at the data.

The US Department of Agriculture has been testing food for vitamins and minerals since at least 1900. The nutrient content has declined steadily for over a century. By the 1940s, the USDA was sounding the alarm: you can no longer be healthy by eating alone. The nutrients aren’t there anymore.

We are all malnourished. Not in the dramatic, visible sense, but chronically, subtly, in ways that manifest as the chronic conditions many Canadians are suffering with. Many of these conditions are “chronic” because their cause, nutritional deficiency, is not being addressed.

And the doctors treating these conditions have had, on average, half a day of nutrition training.

Meanwhile, the natural health products that could address the underlying deficiencies are being regulated out of existence. Prices have quadrupled compared to the United States. Low-income Canadians can no longer afford vital nutrients. The regulatory burden is so extreme that companies are disappearing, products are disappearing, and the practitioners who know how to use them are being silenced.

What Karen’s Story Demands of Us

Karen Peters is healthy. She’s not in pain. She’s not facing a wheelchair. She’s not wishing she was dead three days a week.

The woman on Parliament Hill is living with the consequences of a system that failed her, that took her breasts.

The difference between those two outcomes is access to information and the legal right to know that other options exist.

More than 157,000 Canadians have signed a paper petition, which is the third-largest in our nation’s history, demanding exactly that. A Charter of Health Freedom. A new Ministry of Wellness. The legal right to access natural health products without government pre-approval. The right to be told the truth about what can help you.

You can sign it too. Go to charterofhealthfreedom.org or nhppa.org.

Because somewhere in Canada right now, there is another Karen Peters. Weekly injections. Golf balls in her feet. Wishing she were dead from the treatment.

She deserves to know there’s another way.

Shawn Buckley is a Canadian constitutional lawyer, President of the Natural Health Products Protection Association (nhppa.org; charterofhealthfreedom.org), and Founding Member and Lead Counsel, nationalcitizensinquiry.ca.

Originally published at substack.com/@shawnbuckleylaw