Canada to permanently exclude mental illness as sole basis for MAID
The government also plans to allow advance requests for people diagnosed with conditions that will rob them of decision-making capacity.
OTTAWA — The federal government will permanently bar people whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from accessing medical assistance in dying, Justice Minister Sean Fraser announced Wednesday.
Fraser said the government plans to table legislation this fall to maintain the existing exclusion "on an indeterminate basis." The rule is currently set to expire in March 2027.
"While there is not a perfect consensus on this issue, we believe this is the correct approach at this particular time," Fraser said.
READ MORE: Ottawa warns Stelco owner over job cuts, citing CEO's tariff support
READ MORE: Parti Québécois wins minority government, sets stage for sovereignty referendum
The announcement settles a heated decade-long debate and follows a June report from a special parliamentary committee that recommended the government draw a line in the sand.
That committee concluded key issues remain unresolved, including whether doctors can predict with certainty if a mental illness is incurable.
"These are not easy decisions. But we believe they are the correct ones," Fraser said.
The legislation will also create a pathway for advance requests, allowing people to consent to MAID in advance if diagnosed with an illness, like dementia, that will later rob them of decision-making capacity.
Fraser said the bill will amend the Criminal Code to ensure a doctor who provides MAID under such an advance request "will not be treated as a criminal in Canada going forward." The provision would only apply in provinces that choose to permit it.
Currently, Canadians cannot make these decisions ahead of time, except in Quebec under limited circumstances.
Conservative MPs criticized the timing of the announcement, coming the same day the House of Commons was set to vote on a private member's bill from Conservative MP Tamara Jansen that sought a similar exclusion for mental illness.
"We have no idea what his bill is going to say. He’s telling us all sorts of things. He hasn’t even seen the bill himself," Jansen told reporters.
Conservative MP Andrew Lawton accused the government of eroding consensus by bundling the mental illness exclusion with advance requests.
The Bloc Québécois welcomed the move on mental illness but said limiting further expansion would be "abandoning patients who are suffering."
"We have a responsibility to those who are suffering, and it is our duty not to let them down and to continue the dialogue," Bloc MP Luc Theriault said in a statement.
Some advocates raised concerns about the parliamentary committee's process. The advocacy group Dying With Dignity Canada claimed the committee selected witnesses who were opposed to the expansion and chose not to hear from people with mental disorders who wanted to speak about seeking a MAID assessment.
In a dissenting opinion, three senators and Theriault called the committee's process "highly irregular and flawed" and asked the government to seek a Supreme Court reference on the expansion.
Claire Elyse Brosseau, who has suffered from severe mental health conditions for decades, criticized the committee after its report.
She asked members to "consider what it does to people when society repeatedly tells us we aren’t qualified to speak about our own suffering."
Outside the mental illness question, the new advance request provision drew criticism from some advocates.
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said consent can become uncertain in advance request scenarios.
"It’s really a problematic situation, and then who makes the decision in the end? Some family member, some doctor who says, ‘Oh, I guess this was requested in the end,'" Schadenberg said.
Krista Carr, CEO of Inclusion Canada, said "consent at the time is the most basic protection a person has. Parliament should not take it away."
Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski, a physician and co-chair of the parliamentary committee, said he was against advance requests.
"What happens then when I’m 80 and I’m pleasantly demented? I’m enjoying my life, I like watching hockey games, and then what are they going to do? Pull me into some back room, strap me down as I’m yelling and screaming, and inject me with drugs and kill me?" Powlowski said.
The government plans to table the legislation this fall.
With files from Global News, National Post and Toronto Star