Alberta Premier Directs Her Justice Minister to Legislate More Control Over MAID

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Minister of Justice Mickey Amery speak in Edmonton on April 29, 2025. Jason Franson/The Canadian Press

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has directed her justice minister to introduce new legislation giving the province more control over medical assistance in dying (MAID) programs.

In a Sept. 25 letter to Justice Minister Mickey Amery, Smith said the legislation should provide “appropriate safeguards” and prohibit mental illness from being the sole eligibility factor for MAID. The letter does not suggest what the safeguards should be or what oversight the provincial government should have.

Parliament amended the Criminal Code in 2016 to make euthanasia legal in some circumstances, leaving regulation and oversight to the provinces and professional colleges.

The government had planned to allow mental illness as a sole eligibility factor for MAID in 2023, but has delayed it until at least 2027 because of widespread concern that the health-care system is not ready to handle such complex cases.

According to Alberta’s provincial health authority, 1,117 Albertans had a medically assisted death in 2024, and more than 5,000 Albertans have chosen MAID since the program was first implemented in 2016.

Canada’s medically assisted dying regime has come under increased scrutiny for numerous incidents, including several military veterans who said they were offered MAID by a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) agent when seeking treatment. The VAC later said the agent no longer worked at the department.

There have been other incidents in recent years that have brought further scrutiny to the issue, including people with income and affordability concerns pursuing MAID. In one case, an Ontario man suffering from a back injury sought the procedure in 2022 to avoid homelessness but later changed his mind after receiving community support.

The Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada published last December reported that 15,343 people received MAID in 2023, a 15.8 percent increase over 2022 but a “slowing” of growth from 2019 to 2022, when the average growth rate was about 31 percent.

The report also found that nearly half of Canadians who sought MAID in 2023 whose death was not reasonably foreseeable cited “isolation or loneliness” as part of their eligibility criteria.