Majority of Canadians Are Against Assisted Suicide for Mentally Ill: Poll

A bed is moved in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at St. Paul’s hospital in downtown Vancouver on April 21, 2020. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)

The majority of Canadians are not in favour of expanding medically assisted suicide, and rather have deep concerns and discomfort with the idea, according to a new poll conducted by the nonprofit Angus Reid Institute, in partnership with Cardus, a think tank.

“Less than one-third of Canadians are comfortable with offering medically assisted suicide to those suffering only from a mental illness—and 51% of Canadians oppose it,” stated Cardus in a Feb. 13 news release.

In every province except Quebec, Canadians surveyed opposed offering assisted suicide to people whose only condition is a mental illness. Politically across the board, notes Cardus, “substantial portions” of Liberal, Conservative, NDP, and Bloc Québécois voters are opposed to euthanasia in circumstances of mental illness.

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed stated people should “have to exhaust all treatment alternatives” before being able to obtain a medically assisted death.

More than half of Canadians, 55 percent, feared that assisted suicide would replace providing adequate social services, and one-third of Canadians worried increasing access to euthanasia would mean less commitment to palliative care.

MAID Expansion

The federal government intended to allow people with a mental illness as the sole criterion to obtain medically assisted death (MAID), otherwise known as euthanasia, by March 17, 2023.

“The minister needs to back off from expanding medically assisted suicide to people suffering from mental illness,” said Rebecca Vachon, health program director at Cardus. “Then the government should work to ensure Canadians can access all mental health and social services they need before even considering the possibility of expansion.”

On Feb. 2, Justice Minister David Lametti announced on Twitter that Bill C-39 would be tabled in the House of Commons to delay expanding eligibility criteria for assisted suicide to the mentally ill for one year.

Lametti said a Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying is still completing a final report on offering euthanasia to the mentally ill.

On March 13, the House of Commons began debating Bill C-39. “The main objective of this bill is to ensure the safe assessment and provision of MAiD in all circumstances where a mental illness forms the basis for the request,” Lametti said in the House on Feb. 13.

When polled, 61 percent of Canadians say they support allowing a patient to request assisted death “under certain circumstances but without facing foreseeable death.”

However, since 2016 when assisted suicide first became offered as a “treatment” in Canada, the number of Canadians using the treatment “increased tenfold,” noted Angus Reid, to more than 10,000 in 2021.

Two-thirds, or 64 percent, said that someone dealing with debilitating chronic pain should be able to request assisted suicide. Two in five individuals (40 percent) responded that they would support euthanasia for someone with several serious health problems. However, in scenarios where a person is dealing with mental health challenges, the percentage of people in favour drops dramatically, with only 23 percent in favour of euthanasia for post-traumatic stress disorder and 22 percent in favour of MAID for severe depression.

Of the individuals polled, all of those who had committed religious beliefs opposed euthanasia with mental illness as the sole criterion.

The survey conducted an online poll of 1,816 Canadians at the end of January.

Peter Wilson contributed to this report.