OTTAWA — More than 90 Canadian advocacy groups are calling on the Mark Carney Liberals to scrap planned expansions to Canada's medically facilitated suicide framework. In a letter facilitated by Inclusion Canada, addressed to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Justice Minister Sean Fraser, Health Minister Marjorie Michel, and the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, the signatories urge the government to reconsider changes that would formally expand medical assistance in dying (MAID) to those whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness. These changes are set to come into effect on March 17, 2027.
Concerns from Disability and Mental Health Organizations
“We believe track two MAID is a violation of the rights of persons with disabilities,” said Inclusion Canada CEO Krista Carr. “It singles out one group of people for lethal injection, when what they’re asking for is help to live with dignity, and they very often cannot get it. That is what puts them in the situations that they’re in.”
More than 90 disability and mental health organizations from across the country have registered their concerns about the further expansion of Canada's MAID law. The groups are opposed to widening MAID access to people whose sole underlying condition is a mental disorder.
MAID Eligibility: Two Tracks
Five years ago, Canada removed the requirement that death had to be “reasonably foreseeable” to qualify for MAID. Currently, only patients under “track one” of Canada's MAID framework — those suffering from a terminal illness or whose natural death is approaching — are eligible for medically-assisted death. That will change next March when Canada plans to expand eligibility criteria to a second track, namely for those seeking therapeutic suicide whose death is not a reasonably foreseeable outcome.
This expansion has sparked considerable concern around the world and has even drawn the attention of the United Nations' Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In a report last March, the committee urged Canada to reverse course on track two, concerned that policies equating significant disability with government-facilitated suicide constitute a Charter violation.
Organizations Signing the Letter
Organizations that have signed onto the letter include the March of Dimes, Race and Disability Canada, the Canadian Association of the Deaf, the Autism Alliance of Canada, and Easter Seals Canada.
“Although some argue that MAID is distinct from suicide, Health Canada defines suicide as ‘the intentional act of ending one’s life,’ and MAID for mental illness clearly falls under this umbrella,” read an excerpt from the letter. “Your predecessors twice delayed legalizing MAID for mental illness, first in 2023, and then in 2024. Their concerns remain relevant today. Action by Parliament, to block MAID for mental illness, continues to be justified.”
MAID as Fourth Most Common Cause of Death
While medically-facilitated suicide is not tracked in Statistics Canada's annual list of common causes of death, government numbers indicate that 16,499 Canadians died via MAID in 2024 — ranking therapeutic suicide as the fourth most common cause of death that year, between accidents (20,260) and strokes (13,725).
“When (Canadians) think about MAID, they often think of their friend with stage four brain cancer,” Carr said. “If more Canadians understood the ramifications and the numbers of people and situations that would be included by expanding track two to include people whose sole underlying condition meets the definition of a mental disorder in the DSM-5, people would be very, very concerned.”
