Pro-Life Group Urges MPs to Back Bill Blocking Euthanasia for Mental Illness

Pro-life supporters take part in the March for Life event in downtown Ottawa on May 8, 2025. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Ahead of their annual march for life against abortion and euthanasia, the Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) called on MPs to vote for a bill to stop the expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) to include those suffering from mental illness.

“The next euthanasia time bomb is set to explode on March 17, 2027, when eligibility will automatically expand to mentally ill patients,” CLC Director of Political Operations Jack Fonseca said, referring to the planned expansion of MAID.

Speaking at an event on Parliament Hill on May 13, he added that the Conservative Party’s Bill C-218 would exclude all mental disorders from eligibility for euthanasia, and urged MPs from all parties to vote for the bill.

“Bill C-218 would ensure Canada continues to prioritize suicide prevention instead of suicide provision,” Fonseca said.

Canada’s MAID regime was initially scheduled to allow eligibility for Canadians whose sole medical condition is a mental illness beginning March 17, 2023, but the federal government has since postponed the change multiple times, most recently delaying implementation until March 17, 2027. The delays came in response to concerns from medical providers and some provinces that the health-care system was not equipped to implement it safely.

The federal government has not clarified whether it will allow MAID to expand to the mentally ill in 2027. Prime Minister Mark Carney said on May 6 that he would wait for the release of a parliamentary report on MAID expansion before deciding, while Justice Minister Sean Fraser also said the decision would follow the report’s release.

Fonseca said Alberta has been “leading the way” in opposition to the expansion of MAID through Bill 18, which would tighten MAID eligibility by limiting access to cases where natural death is reasonably foreseeable, prohibit MAID where mental illness is the sole underlying condition, and introduce restrictions on when and how health-care providers may initiate discussions about the procedure.

“Premier Danielle Smith has shown all the provinces the way. Now they all need to introduce similar legislation as a first step,” Fonseca said, calling for the provinces to use their “constitutional power to regulate, licence, and determine what procedures count as genuine health care.”

MAID Concerns

Brandan Tran, director of Public Affairs and Outreach at the CLC, said Canada is on track to surpass 100,000 euthanasia deaths since the procedure was legalized in 2016, adding that the organization is concerned about what it describes as Canada’s MAID regime “creeping forward.”

Tran cited comments from a member of the Quebec College of Physicians, who told a parliamentary committee in 2022 that MAID could be appropriate for babies up to one year of age with “severe deformities and very serious syndromes.”

Tran also said the organization is concerned about recommendations from the 2023 Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, including one stating that minors seeking MAID would have the “requisite decision-making capacity,” which would “ultimately take priority” over their parents’ wishes.

Additionally, Tran said Canada’s MAID regime risks allowing for on-demand euthanasia that is “driven not by illness” but by social issues such as poverty, lack of housing, or loneliness.

“The future we fear is already here. Death is right now available as a solution to social suffering, and has not remained a last resort,” Tran said.

Tran also cited a 2023 Angus Reid poll that found 72 percent of Canadians do not support expanding MAID to the mentally ill. “The public is ahead of parliament on this. It is time Parliament caught up,” he said.

Pro-Life Rally

CLC Communications Director Pete Baklinski told reporters that the 29th annual March for Life rally will take place at noon on Parliament Hill on May 14. Baklinski said thousands of Canadians will gather to call on the Liberal government to “enact legal protection for all human beings, from conception to natural death.”

According to Baklinski, over 5 million Canadian babies have been aborted since abortion was legalized in 1969.

“In our Charter, Canada and the rest of the civilized world recognize that everyone has the right to life … yet abortion denies this right to the smallest and most vulnerable members of the human family, the pre-born,” Baklinski said.

“The pro-life movement in Canada remains strong, peaceful and determined. We will continue to come to Parliament Hill as long as it takes until our elected leaders hear the cry of the pre-born child and protect every single life, including the pre-born, in law,” he added.