Assisted suicide is getting out of control in Canada. I have no problem with someone in full possession of their faculties and suffering from a terminal illness or very few other conditions like unbearable chronic pain taking their own life.
But that’s not what’s happening in Canada. The numbers tell the story.
“In Ontario alone, 219 people were killed by the end of the next day following their request for ‘medical assistance in dying’ (MAID) in 2023, according to a 2024 report by an advisory committee,” writes The Free Press’s Rupa Subramanya. “About 30 percent of those deaths occurred on the same day that the person sought the government’s permission to die,” he adds.
That’s intolerable for any society that claims to be compassionate. A line has been crossed, and it’s going to be nearly impossible to go backwards.
“It’s a sign of maturity of a society, of a progressive society, which says, ‘I prefer this for myself,’ ” Georges L’Espérance, a retired neurosurgeon in Quebec, told Subramanya. “It is cultural; it is about control over our lives. As we say here, joie de vivre—living life fully and on one’s own terms.”
L’Espérance is hiding behind the PR version of MAID. The reality is far grimmer.
The report described the treatment of a dying woman in her 80s who was identified as “Mrs. B.” She “reportedly expressed” her interest in MAID “to her family,” but then changed her mind, “citing personal and religious values and beliefs,” the report said.
The next day, her husband requested another MAID assessment. The person who evaluated Mrs. B concluded that she was eligible for assisted suicide, even though the previous evaluator was concerned about “the possibility of coercion or undue influence. . . due to caregiver burnout.” A third evaluator did an online assessment of Mrs. B and approved her suicide. She was killed by the end of the day.
By the numbers. In the door alive, out the door, dead. Like a well-oiled machine, Canada’s MAID program is humming along, killing more than 96,000 people in 2025 with an expected total of 106,000 in 2026.
Mrs. B’s case is not the only worrisome application of assisted suicide in Canada.
The Ontario report also described the assisted suicide of “Mr. C,” a man in his 70s with cancer who requested MAID five days after his admission to the hospital. His condition deteriorated, and he became delirious and largely unresponsive, lacking the capacity to make medical decisions. But the assisted suicide provider “proceeded to vigorously rouse” Mr. C, who “opened his eyes and mouthed ‘yes’ ” when asked about his request for MAID.
According to the report, Mr. C mouthed “yes” again, blinked, and nodded after his medication was withheld for 45 minutes. Approval was granted, and he was killed on the same day.
Are there any guardrails at all in this program? Even if there are, there are loopholes you can drive a semi-truck through. Waiting periods are somewhat “optional.” There’s a 90-day assessment period for those who want to die, but whose death isn’t “reasonably foreseeable.”
However, “an exception in the law allows doctors to shorten the waiting period if they believe a patient might soon lose the capacity to make decisions,” writes Subramanya. This exception allowed about 13/% of those cases in Ontario to be completed in fewer than 90 days in 2023.
Burned-out caregivers, greedy relatives seeking a quick buck, and people pressured by the MAID healthcare community to end things before they’re ready are all trap doors through which untold numbers of people fall.
In contrast to Canada, the Netherlands reported 9,958 assisted suicide deaths in 2024 and over 100,000 since assisted suicide was legalized there in 2002. That means Canada is on pace to have as many assisted suicides as the Netherlands in just half the time.
The “slippery slope” argument in Canada explains a lot. What began as care for terminal patients and a compassionate ending to suffering will soon become a place where the mentally ill can simply ask to end it all. There is currently a mental health exclusion, but the original MAID bill allowed for assisted suicide for those who, by definition, could not make a rational choice.
The exclusion was originally scheduled to end in 2023, then delayed to 2024. In 2024, through Bill C-62, the federal government delayed the eligibility for mental illness as a sole condition until March 17, 2027. This extension is intended to allow more time to figure out how to avoid lawsuits from angry relatives by crafting rules designed to hold physicians and nurses harmless.
Canada is now on the downward slope of a catastrophe that cannot be stopped or even slowed down. In the United States, we have the ability to avoid this mess by just saying “no” to the “compassion nazis” when they try to pass enabling legislation.
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