Private Member’s Bill to Stop MAID Expansion to Be Voted on This Week

Conservative MP Ed Fast speaks during a news conference on his private member's bill on medical assistance in dying, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, March 6, 2023. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang)

A private member’s bill to halt the expansion of Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAiD) regime to those whose only medical condition is mental illness is expected to be voted on in the House of Commons on Oct. 18.

“MPs should be voting on MAiD with their eyes wide open,” Conservative MP Ed Fast, who introduced Bill C-314, said on platform X on Oct. 15.

Bill C-314, which was given its first reading on Feb. 10, 2023, would amend the Canadian Criminal Code to state that a mental disorder “is not a grievous and irremediable medical condition for which a person could receive medical assistance in dying.”

During Question Period on Oct. 5, Mr. Fast said his bill would reverse the “terrible decision” to expand MAiD to those with mental illnesses, while not repealing other provisions of Canada’s assisted dying laws. He cited a poll by Angus Reid that found just 28 percent of Canadians favoured expanding the country’s MAiD laws to the mentally ill, as well as a recent letter from the heads of 17 Canadian psychiatry schools that were against the law’s expansion.

“Stakeholders have deplored the lack of social and economic supports for persons with mental illness and how this can lead people to consider MAiD,” Mr. Fast said, adding that the Canadian government had not fulfilled its promise to deliver dedicated mental health and palliative care funding to the provinces.

“The question is this: Should Canadians be able to trust their government to act in a way that values the life of every Canadian, or do we give up on the most vulnerable among us,” he said.

MAiD Expansion

In March 2021, Parliament passed Bill C-7, which amended the Criminal Code to allow MAiD for Canadians whose natural death is not “reasonably foreseeable.” The bill included several safety guards, such as a minimum 90-day assessment period, a second eligibility assessment by a practitioner with expertise in the condition causing the person’s suffering, and two clarifications of informed consent.

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According to a Statistics Canada report from February 2023, MAiD deaths in Canada rose by 35 percent from 2020 to 2021, with 10,029 deaths in 2021 compared to 7,446 the year prior. A total of 3.3 percent of all deaths in Canada in 2021 were from medically assisted suicide, up from 2.4 percent in 2020.

The passage of Bill C-7 also temporarily pushed the expansion of MAiD for cases only involving mental illness to March 2023. In February 2023, then-Justice Minister David Lametti announced the government would delay MAiD’s expansion by one year in order to “ensure that we move forward on this sensitive and complex issue in a prudent and measured way.”

Criticism 

Canada’s MAiD regime came under controversy back in 2022, after several Canadian Armed Forces veterans claimed that they had been offered the procedure unprovoked. A veteran seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury told Global News that he was offered MAiD by a Veterans Affairs worker.

Then in December 2022, veteran and former Paralympian Christine Gauthier, who had been trying to get a wheelchair ramp installed in her home for the past five years, told a parliamentary committee that she was offered the same procedure by a Veterans Affairs employee.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the incident “absolutely unacceptable” and said the federal government would be following up with investigations into the department. A spokesperson for then-Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay said they were taking the issue “very seriously,” and that providing advice on MAID is “not a VAC service.”

Several Conservative MPs, including leader Pierre Poilievre, have heavily criticized the proposed expansion of medically assisted dying.

During a press conference on March 6 announcing the imminent introduction of a bill to stop the expansion of MAiD, Mr. Poilievre said the job of the federal government was to “turn their hurt back into hope. To treat mental illness problems rather than ending people’s lives.”

At the same press conference, Mr. Fast told reporters that vulnerable people should be offered mental health support instead of assisted suicide. “It is deeply concerning that this government appears to be moving from a culture of life to a culture of death,” he added.