Canada is moving forward with plans to expand its MAID — that's Medical Assistance in Dying, because even euthanasia needs a government acronym — to include people suffering from mental illness. The target date is March 17, 2027. Psychiatrists across the country are screaming that this is insane, and the government is responding by checking its watch and shrugging.
Nothing says "world-class healthcare" like offering to kill patients you can't be bothered to treat.
Let's start with the number that should make your stomach turn. More than 100,000 Canadians have already died through MAID. In 2024, it was the fourth most common cause of death in the entire country — more than accidents at 20,260, more than strokes at 13,725. Canada's government has gotten so embarrassed by the body count that they no longer even list MAID as an official cause of death in their statistics. Just memory-holed the whole thing.
Now Prime Minister Mark Carney wants to extend this program to the mentally ill. When asked about it, Carney delivered this profile in courage: "I like to take informed positions and I'll wait for the report." That's the Prime Minister of Canada saying he needs a committee to tell him whether killing depressed people is a good idea. The report comes from a parliamentary committee tasked with evaluating whether the system is "ready" to start euthanizing psychiatric patients.
The psychiatrists aren't buying it. The heads of psychiatry at 13 Canadian medical schools — including McGill, UBC, and McMaster — have come out against expansion. Their argument is devastating in its simplicity: "There is no accepted operational definition to clearly distinguish suicidal ideation from requests for medical assistance in dying." Let that sink in. The actual psychiatrists are telling the government that wanting to die IS the mental illness, and you can't get informed consent from the symptom itself.
Dr. Peter Blusanovics, a Montreal psychiatrist, put it even more bluntly: "Basic needs are currently not being met in our healthcare system." Translation — we can't get patients therapy appointments, medication management, or hospital beds, but sure, we can schedule their death. The waitlist to see a psychiatrist in Canada stretches months or years. The waitlist for a lethal injection? Apparently that one moves a lot faster.
Dr. Paul Saba, a family physician from Lachine, Quebec, has been sounding the alarm for years. He stated plainly that "those with mental disorders requesting euthanasia do not meet the condition of free and informed consent." This isn't a conservative talking point. This is a doctor saying that a suicidal person cannot freely consent to being killed. The fact that this needs to be said out loud tells you everything about where Canada is right now.
Not everyone in Canada has lost their mind. Quebec has passed a law banning MAID for mental illness except in cases of neurocognitive disorders. Alberta has passed legislation limiting MAID to cases where death is foreseeable within 12 months. Two entire provinces looked at the federal government's plan and said absolutely not.
Archbishop Frank Cardinal Leo of Toronto has spoken out against the expansion, and religious leaders across the country are joining him. But of course, the activists are furious that anyone would pump the brakes. Law professor and MAID activist Jocelyn Downie accused the parliamentary committee of having "gone off the rails" — because apparently asking whether we should kill mentally ill people counts as going off the rails in activist circles.
The original MAID expansion to mental illness was announced in March 2023. It's been delayed twice already. The Netherlands legalized euthanasia back in 2002, and Dr. Wilbert van Rooij, a Dutch doctor, has seen firsthand where this road leads. Canada's Supreme Court opened this door with its 2015 decision, and every year since, the door has swung wider.
As reported by The Spectator, this is the logical endpoint of socialized medicine. When the government runs healthcare and the budget gets tight, the math gets real simple. Treatment costs money. A needle costs pennies. And when you've already killed 100,000 people and hidden the numbers, what's a few thousand more?
Canada isn't expanding healthcare. They're expanding the exits.