Advocates Concerned About Ottawa’s Plan to Allow Advance Euthanasia Requests

Euthanasia prevention advocates are criticizing the government’s plan to allow advance requests for medical assistance in dying (MAID) in certain cases of serious illness.

The change will be part of a bill the government plans to table that also indefinitely extends the ban on allowing MAID for those whose sole condition is mental illness, according to an Oct. 7 announcement by Justice Minister Sean Fraser.

Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Alex Schadenberg said his group is very concerned about the government’s plan to allow advance requests.

“Because someone’s now incapable of consenting or requesting, it’s a good idea now to do this because they might have asked for it in the past? The whole concept of consent becomes very problematic now,” Schadenberg said at an Oct. 7 press conference in Ottawa.

“Who makes the decision in the end? Some family member? Some doctor who says, ‘Oh, I guess this was requested in the end?’”

Speaking at the same press conference, family doctor Laurence Normand-Rivest said the issue of euthanasia for incapacitated patients is a “very, very delicate matter” and most doctors in Quebec who carry out euthanasia don’t do so for incapacitated patients.

“They need to be sedated and they don’t want to get an injection and to have an IV, a pick line, placed in,” she said in response to a question from media. “People think that it will be a peaceful death but, in fact, we see a lot of struggle and battle.”

Opposition also came from the pro-life group Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), who called the proposed change “an alarming move for concerned Canadians.”

“Pro-life advocates have warned that euthanasia by advance request is a defining mark along the slippery slope that leads to euthanasia on-demand,” the group said in an Oct. 7 press release.

While stating that the upcoming legislation will bar MAID for those whose sole condition is mental illness after recommendations he heard from a parliamentary committee in June, Fraser said allowing advance requests expands individual choice, in situations “when they still have capacity but know that they have been diagnosed with an illness that will take that capacity from them subsequently.”

Liberal Dissent

On the same day that Fraser announced his government’s plan, MPs voted on a private member’s bill tabled by Conservative MP Tamara Jansen which also sought to ban MAID for those whose sole condition is mental illness. However, while the Conservatives, NDP, and Green Party’s Elizabeth May supported the resolution, almost all Liberal MPs voted against the bill.

Fraser said his government couldn’t back the bill because it had wording that would “close off access to people who suffer from serious degenerative neurological disorders.”

However, Liberal MPs Kent MacDonald and Marilyn Gladu voted in favour of the bill. Gladu is a former Conservative MP who crossed the floor to join the Liberals in April.

Conservative MP Jamil Jivani thanked MacDonald for voting in favour of the bill. “God bless you,” he said on X.

The Conservatives have opposed growing eligibility for MAID and called for stricter federal oversight and public reporting on the program, and have brought up cases where disabled Canadians and veterans were allegedly offered MAID despite not having requested it.

Ahead of her bill being defeated, Jansen said she was “extremely disappointed” to hear the Liberals were planning to oppose the bill and accused the Liberals of playing a “political game.” She added that Conservatives were open to changing the wording of the bill if that would garner Liberal support.

“We’ve said, ‘Hey, if you want to change it, we’re willing to do that.’ And now all of a sudden, that’s the reason why they can’t go forward with supporting C-218,” she said.

Track 1 of MAID, which allows eligibility for individuals whose natural death was reasonably foreseeable, was passed into law under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016. It amended the Criminal Code after a Supreme Court of Canada decision, which found that the existing legal prohibition on assisted death contravened Canada’s Constitution.

Parliament expanded eligibility for the euthanasia program in 2021 via Bill C-7, introducing Track 2 of MAID for people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable but who suffer from a serious and irremediable illness that is causing them “intolerable” suffering.

Bill C-7 also expanded MAID eligibility to those whose sole condition was mental illness but implementation was paused twice to permit further parliamentary review, more training for practitioners, and time to establish safeguards.

Implementation of the mental illness eligibility will be paused indefinitely if Fraser’s promised upcoming legislation passes or, if not, the expansion is set to go into effect March 17, 2027.

Since the legalization of MAID and based on the latest available 2024 data from Health Canada, 76,475 Canadians have received euthanasia.