Canada Moves to Drop Assisted Suicide for Mental Illness Alone but Opens Door to Advance Requests
Bill C-41 would cancel a planned March 2027 expansion of euthanasia, but pro-life and disability groups warn its advance-request rules lack safeguards.
Learn more ›OTTAWA, Canada —
Canada's federal government introduced a bill Tuesday, Oct. 27, that would permanently halt a planned expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAID) to people whose only condition is a mental illness. The same bill would let adults diagnosed with illnesses such as Alzheimer's request an assisted death in advance.
See where this is ›Justice Minister Sean Fraser introduced Bill C-41, which the Department of Justice calls the Medical Assistance in Dying Safeguards Act. Under the current law, people whose sole condition is mental illness would become eligible on March 17, 2027. A special parliamentary committee concluded in June that they should be excluded indefinitely, and the government is following that recommendation, The Canadian Press reported.
Advance requests would be allowed only in provinces and territories that pass their own laws permitting them. Two independent medical or nurse practitioners would have to agree the person meets the criteria, and the procedure could not go ahead if the person shows refusal or resistance by words, sounds or gestures. Quebec is the only province with an advance-request system now, and Alberta has passed a law barring them.
See where this is ›The bill must clear the House of Commons and the Senate before March 17. Fraser said failing to pass it by then would have “extraordinarily serious” consequences, and he wants House approval before the sitting ends in December.
Pro-life and disability groups welcomed the halt on mental illness but objected to advance requests. Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition in London, Ontario, told The Christian Post the bill “lacks any effective oversight.” Cardus, a Christian think tank, said it was deeply concerned about advance requests, and Inclusion Canada warned that assumptions about disability and quality of life could shape those decisions. Conservative MP Tamara Jansen said “the Liberals are holding Parliament ransom” by joining the two changes in one bill.
See where this is ›On the other side, Dying with Dignity Canada said the federal government “has effectively given each province and territory a veto on advance requests.”
Canada legalized MAID in 2016 and widened it in 2021 to people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable. The government's sixth annual report counted 16,499 MAID deaths in 2024, or 5.1 percent of all deaths in the country, the most since the law took effect.
