On Wednesday, a parliamentary committee report, presented for discussion in the House of Commons, recommended that Canada should expand doctor-assisted suicide to include “mature minors”—teenagers as young as 12, who are ‘capable of making decisions concerning their health’—and patients with mental illnesses, currently not covered by the law. The report also called for providing the opportunity of “advance requests” for people with serious illnesses, such as dementia, that could, later on, hinder their ability to consent to euthanasia.
Canada’s controversial MAID (“Medical Assistance in Dying”) program, which became law in 2016, quickly made headlines for putting outstandingly loose criteria in front of those who wished to end their lives. Now, based on the assessment of a parliamentary committee, a coalition of leftist parties (including the Liberals, the NDP, and the Bloc-Quebecois) seek to amend and make it even more liberal.
Under the existing law, patients don’t need to have a terminal illness to qualify (only an “irremediable medical condition,” which can be any disease or disability that “cannot be relieved under conditions that the person considers acceptable”) and MAID can be administered not only by physicians but also nurse practitioners after evaluation by just two of them.
What initially was meant to help seriously ill patients who have long lost all hope of recovering quickly has turned into a slippery slope and “ballooned into a government program offering death as an escape from loneliness, depression, or even poverty and homelessness,” says Paul Coleman’s commentary on the topic.
But even though numerous medical experts have been calling MAID a “reckless experiment” that would unavoidably spiral out of control, the Canadian parliament now moves to expand it. If the current proposal were to be passed by parliament, making medically assisted suicide more widely available, notes The Globe and Mail, that would make MAID the most liberal euthanasia law in the world in an instance.
The majority of the committee’s members recommended changes that strongly support individual autonomy in assisted suicide and a system that allows much wider access to it. The final report recommended expanding MAID to capable minors but restricting it to young patients whose natural deaths are reasonably foreseeable. The report did not propose a bottom age limit, instead saying that “eligibility for MAID should not be denied on the basis of age alone.” Parents should be consulted “where appropriate,” states the document, but the will of a minor found capable of deciding would “ultimately take priority.”
However, the recommendations in parliament were not unanimous. A dissenting report by conservatives on the committee suggested that continued expansions of medical assistance in dying would be careless, especially when it comes to patients under the age of 18. Conservative MP Michael Cooper, one of the committee vice-chairs, said that the committee “turned a blind eye to the many problems with the existing MAID regime, and instead produced a report that recommended radical expansion.”
On the other hand, Senator Pamela Wallin, a committee member who supports the expansion of medically assisted suicide, argued that the system has many safeguards. “MAID is always a matter of choice,” she said, adding that Canadians have expressed strong support for advance requests. “Let’s hope the government now acts quickly to answer the needs of Canadians.”
Polls indicate that Canadians do support euthanasia on request. According to the latest Ipsos poll made in 2022, 86% of all respondents expressed support for MAID (including 84% of Catholics and 79% of Protestants, as well as 90% of those above the age of 55). Conservative MPs, therefore, will likely have a hard time fighting the legislation on a moral and ethical basis against these numbers.
The committee, whose findings serve as advice to Parliament, heard six months of emotional expert testimony last year. Psychiatrists expressed fears that mental health patients who could recover might instead choose assisted suicide. Palliative care doctors also raised concerns about the complexity of providing assisted suicide to seniors with dementia who can no longer consent.
The committee majority recommended that the government hold formal consultations with Canadians under 18 about MAID within the next five years, and increase funding for research into the issue. If MAID is expanded, the majority said, Ottawa should develop clear standards with the provinces and territories for safely assessing young patients.
The majority also called for clear standards on advance requests. If such requests were allowed, people with incurable illnesses, such as dementia, would be able to decide on the details of their assisted suicides ahead of time, before they have lost the capacity to advocate for themselves. Currently, in almost all cases, patients must consent to assisted suicide on the day they receive it.
