Tracy Latimer: Now 30 Years Later

Inclusion Canada - Tracy Latimer: Now 30 Years Later. 

Tracy Latimer was killed 30 years ago today (October 24). Tracy was a vulnerable 12 year old girl who was killed by her father. In an act of discriminatory violence Robert Latimer sought to unburden Tracy of life with a disability. Canadians with disabilities were disturbed not only by Tracy’s murder and copycat crimes that followed it, but also by the public’s understanding and support of Robert Latimer’s actions.

Tracy Latimer

In 2018, on the 25th anniversary of Tracy’s death, we at Inclusion Canada released a blog post that both honoured Tracy’s life and put into words how her death could inform then-emerging discussions about the legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) for mature minors. Today, on the 30th anniversary of Tracy’s death, our concerns have only grown.

Five years ago, assisted death remained strictly an end of life option – a way for people whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable” to be assisted to die peacefully. Now, five years later the law has been changed and assisted suicide is available to persons with disabilities whose deaths are not “reasonably foreseeable.”

Marginalized people who suffer because of systemic oppression and inadequate care are dying. Their suicidality is being endorsed and facilitated by the same state that is failing to meet their most basic needs. The same will soon (March 17, 2024) be true for persons whose “sole underlying medical condition” is a mental illness.

Therefore, in 2023, when elected officials discuss the prospect of legalizing MAiD for mature minors (the practice is not yet legal), they’re wrestling with whether or not to provide death by assisted suicide to minors with disabilities and mental illnesses who are not otherwise dying. This includes particularly at risk populations, like Indigenous youth.

A committee of MPs and Senators recently recommended making MAiD available to mature minors only in end of life scenarios. In doing so, they cited experts who said that this would be a first step in a “staged approach,” necessary to basically warm Canadians up to the idea of minors dying by MAiD.

Authorities are waiting for assisted suicide for mature minors with disabilities to feel right to Canadians. And we know from Tracy Latimer’s death that before long it likely will. It is our responsibility as individuals and as an informed collective to unpack our gut reactions and to recognize ableism when it shows its ugly face. So, just like in 2018, we’ll end this blog by asking “do we, as a country, like where we are headed?”

Five years later, we, at Inclusion Canada, can confidently say that we do not.

Previous article:

• Tracy Latimer - Some of the facts (Read).
• Disability rights leader - Latimer stirs up nightmarish wake-up call (Read).
• Not Dead Yet: Tracy Latimer must not be erased; her murder must not be pardoned (Read).

Preventing Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide Symposium - November 14.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition & Physicians for Compassionate Care

Register for our online Symposium on Saturday, November 14 

From (10 am to 2 pm Eastern Time)  (7 am to 11 am Pacific Time)

Register for free in advance for the event: (Registration Link)

Speakers:

Wesley J Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to The Corner at National Review and is the author of more than 14 books, in recent years focusing exclusively on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley’s most recent book is his updated and revised Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement.

• The importance of language and ideas in the assisted suicide debate.

Alex Schadenberg, has been the Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition since 1999. He has been published world-wide, including published several books, co-produced five video's and the EPC blog is the most complete location for research on euthanasia and assisted suicide. (epcblog.org) Alex has done speaking tours, spoken at conferences throughout North America and several European countries.

• Canada's euthanasia law and a post mid-term US election assessment.

Dr Sharon Quick, President, Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation. Dr Quick is a retired pediatric anesthesiologist/critical care physician. Dr Quick will be making two presentations.

• Pain and symptom management.
• How the lethal poison cocktails works?

Gordon Friesen: President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. Gordon lives in Montréal QC and has actively opposed medical homicide for many years.

Gordon will soon publish the book - Medical Homicide: The Poison and its Antidote.

• Medical Homicide: The Poison and its Antidote.

Register for free in advance for the event: (Registration Link).

The threat of euthanasia for mental illness, continues.

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Key Issues:

• The Canadian government defeated Bill C-218 and promised to introduce a bill to prevent euthanasia for mental illness as a sole criteria. The bill must become law before March 17, 2027.
• Dying with Dignity and Claire Brosseau launched a court case demanding that the court legislate from the bench to permit euthanasia for mental illness.

On October 7, 2026, Bill C-218, the private members bill that was sponsored by Tamara Jansen (MP) was defeated in parliament by a vote of 187 to 141. Bill C-218 would have amended the Criminal Code to prevent euthanasia for mental illness as a sole criteria.

The defeat of Bill C-218 was related to the announcement on October 7 at 12 noon by Justice Minister Sean Fraser and Health Minister Marjorie Michel promising that the federal government will introduce legislation this fall that will prevent the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness as a sole criteria. However, the government legislation will also permit euthanasia by advanced request.

Euthanasia by advanced request is a dangerous concept as it would permit doctors and nurse practitioners to kill someone who is incompetent, based on an advanced request.

We have not seen the language of the government bill, but even if the bill actually prevents (MAiD) euthanasia as a sole criteria it will not end the issue.

We urge the government to follow the recommendations from the report of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD): Mental Disorder as the Sole Underlying Medical Condition: A Complex and Challenging Conversation Among Canadians was released on June 17, 2026.

The AMAD Committee decided that Canada should not implement euthanasia for mental disorders as the sole underlying medical condition on March 17, 2027. The report concluded:

That the Government of Canada amend the Criminal Code to indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from eligibility for medical assistance in dying.

It is great news that the AMAD Committee decided that Canada should not implement euthanasia for mental illness, but the battle has only begun.

It is important to note that euthanasia for mental illness, as a sole criteria, is currently scheduled to be implemented on March 17, 2027. The government is facing a time-line to pass their legislation.

Euthanasia for mental illness, as a sole criteria - Brosseau court case.

Dying with Dignity, a death lobby group, and Claire Brosseau, launched a court case demanding that the court legislate from the bench to permit Claire Brosseau to be killed by lethal poison based only on mental illness. If the court approves euthanasia for Brosseau, that would entitle others with mental illnesses to be killed by euthanasia.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition intervened in the Brosseau case to ensure that the salient arguments were offered in court.

On July 21/22, 2026 there was a hearing on the Brosseau case to deal with an "emergency" request, by Dying with Dignity and Brosseau, demanding that the court grant Brosseau an injunction to enable her to be killed by lethal poison.

Justice Carissima Mathen denied Brosseau and Dying With Dignity a lethal injunction but Mathen initiated a time-line for a full-hearing on the case that will may be heard in March 2027.

Even if the government passes a bill that clearly prevents euthanasia for mental illness the Brosseau court case may legislate from the bench and force parliament to permit euthanasia for mental illness as a sole criteria. Clearly, the Brosseau court case is very important.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition needs your financial support to continue our intervention in the case. The preparation and involvement in the July hearing cost around $50,000 and a full-trial, which may happen next Spring, will cost much more. (Donation Link).

From their the case will likely be appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal and from their to the Supreme Court of Canada. Help us continue the battle (Donation Link).

Previous articles on this issue:

• EPC victory: Court denies Brosseau euthanasia for mental illness (Read).
• EPC intervention in euthanasia for mental illness court case (Read).
• Important insight into decision to reject euthanasia for mental illness (Read).
• EPC filed to intervene in euthanasia for mental illness court case (Read).
• Bill C-218 was defeated. What will happen next? (Read).

Ottawa keeps mucking up MAiD (euthanasia)

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dr Ramona Coelho, who is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an adjunct professor of family medicine at the University of Western Ontario's Schulich School of Medicine and a past member of the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee was published by the National Post on October 16 with her article: Ottawa keeps mucking up MAiD.

In her Special to the National Post, Coelho is responding to Canada's federal parliament defeating Bill C-218, the bill that would have prevented euthanasia for mental illness, as a sole criteria, and the announcement, by the federal government, to expand euthanasia to approval by advanced directive.

Coelho comments on Canada's expansion of euthanasia in 2021:

Five years ago, Parliament made disastrous changes to Canada's assisted dying law, including one that was almost an afterthought. The government's original bill did not include expanding MAID for mental illness. The Senate added the expansion; the government — up against a court deadline that had already been extended four times — accepted it with a two-year delay. Within weeks, it was passed by the House under a closure motion.

Euthanasia for mental illness has been delayed until March 2027 and now it has been recommended that euthanasia for mental illness be indefinitely delayed, Coelho writes:

This year, a parliamentary committee where I testified recommended pausing it indefinitely. Now, the government's proposed approach is to cancel the expansion for mental illness, but let provinces decide whether to permit advance requests for MAID. While it's a relief that government will no longer approve MAID for mental illness, it is unconscionable that they will add advance requests.

Bill C-218 that would have excluded mental illness as a sole medical condition that was defeated in parliament on October 7 while on the same day, the government announced that they will introduce their own bill to exclude euthanasia for mental illness. Coelho argues that the government's bill should be judged based on three criteria.

First, we need to scrutinize its language on MAID for mental illness. Conservative MP Tamara Jansen's Bill C-218 would have permanently repealed the expansion but was voted down over a quibble about the term "mental disorder." The Liberals now owe Canadians legislation that ensures the expansion will never happen. Justice Minister Sean Fraser has promised an indefinite exclusion of MAID for mental illness as a sole condition, but we have yet to see the legislation, and a pause is not a repeal. This is important, because it is not possible to reliably determine that a person with mental illness will not recover, and a reasoned request for MAID for mental illness cannot be distinguished from suicidality.

Second, will the forthcoming bill go far enough? Thomas Dillon died at 45 after a psychiatrist offered him MAID. He was assessed outside a Tim Hortons, with his mental illness and addictions largely untreated. Dillon was deemed eligible for MAID because he also had a bowel disease.

In cases I reviewed on Ontario's MAID Death Review Committee, depression, trauma and isolation often drove requests that were approved, sometimes with no psychiatric expertise consulted, because there was also an accompanying physical diagnosis. Excluding mental illness as a "sole" condition is a good start, but the move still leaves other problems unaddressed. A better fix would be to repeal Track 2, the expansion to persons with disabilities who are not dying, entirely, as the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has urged.

Third, the government bill will permit advance requests, leaving it up to provincial discretion. The current mental illness exclusion expires on March 17, 2027, so the bill has to pass before then. This last-minute addition mirrors the government's 2021 mistake: carrying through a major expansion on a MAID bill that must pass by a fixed date.

Coelho then comments on the expansion of euthanasia to include advanced requests:

Advance requests deserve their own debate, because the potential problems are serious. Consent given in advance cannot be fully informed; it often rests on fear of the future, not lived experience. My father had dementia, and his days held joy, laughter, love and dignity that neither he nor I could have foreseen. Ontario's review of dementia cases found requests for MAID can be driven by fear of future decline, families raising MAID repeatedly on a patient's behalf. It also found 86 per cent of these patients had not even received palliative care before MAID.

Coelho shows how Canadians do not know what teh euthanasia law permits:

Canadians are not aware of the breadth of cases our MAID law allows. A National Institutes of Health-affiliated survey found that while 73.3 percent of Canadians support the MAID law in general, this support collapses once respondents are shown what the law actually permits. Only 19.2 per cent of respondents correctly knew that a terminal illness is not required for MAID eligibility, and only 20.7 per cent knew that a patient may refuse effective, recommended treatment and remain eligible. And 56 per cent of Canadians polled In an Angus Reid study this year did not know that there was a planned mental illness expansion. 

Coelho challenges parliament to stop mucking up the euthanasia debate.

Stopping MAID for mental illness is necessary. But if it is achieved via a bill that must pass by March 2027, with advance requests attached, Parliament will have learned nothing from the last five years. A death cannot be appealed. Debate has to come first.

Some previous articles by Dr Ramona Coelho:

• The euthanasia committee got it right on mental illness. 
• Parliament must go further (Read). 
• Euthanasia can allow structural coercive forces to push people toward death (Read). 
• How euthanasia is rewriting the ethics of medicine (Read). 
• Disabled Canadians should never feel compelled to die (Read). 
• How euthanasia fails Canada's most vulnerable (Read).

Dementia Justice Canada concerned about euthanasia by advance request.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Dementia Justice Canada says that they will continue raising concerns with Parliament and other lawmakers about MAiD by advanced request as they develop and consider the proposed legislation.

Angelico Dino reported for the Canadian Lawyer on October 13, 2026 that Dementia Justice Canada has serious concerns with euthanasia (MAiD) by advanced request. Dino reports:

Dementia Justice Canada has raised concerns about the federal government's plan to permit advance requests for medical assistance in dying (MAiD), urging Parliament to examine whether safeguards can adequately protect people living with dementia from coercion, undue influence and elder abuse.

The organization issued a statement following the federal government's October 7 announcement that it would introduce legislation to decriminalize and permit advance requests for MAiD.

Dementia Justice Canada is concerned about manipulation and pressure.

Dr. Fay Martin, a retired social worker and second vice-chair of Dementia Justice Canada, said people living with dementia may increasingly depend on others for care, communication, transportation, finances and community access.

“Those relationships can be loving and supportive, but they can also become controlling or abusive. The difficulty is knowing what is happening when fewer and fewer people are apt to see it,” Martin said.

Dementia Justice Canada points out that the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities urged Canada in March 2025 not to expand MAiD to include advance requests.

Heather Campbell Pope

Heather Campbell Pope, a lawyer and chair of Dementia Justice Canada is concerned about the consequences of failing to detect undue influence before MAiD takes place. Dino reports:

“A court can undo a will that was unduly influenced,” Pope said. “But once MAiD is provided, there is no meaningful remedy if we later find that the person was pressured to make the advance request, that they had changed their mind, or that they are going along with it because of pressure or coercion. It is simply too late.”

Dementia Justice Canada is a non profit that was founded in 2017 to advance the rights and dignity of people with dementia. 

Free online film screening of the Prescription Poison film on October 27.

Register for the free online screening of the Prescription Poison film: Averting Assisted Suicide in America 

Tuesday, October 27 at: 8 pm (Eastern Time) / 5 pm (Pacific Time).

The Prescription Poison film is produced by Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Frank Panico with Xs in the Sky films.  

Topic: Prescription Poison - Averting Assisted Suicide in America

Tuesday, October 27, 2026 8 PM Eastern Time/5 pm Pacific Time. 

Register in advance for the screening: (Registration Link). 

Prescription Poison is 43 minutes and will be followed by a discussion.

Prescription Poison is ground-breaking documentary exposing the expansion of assisted suicide in America.

The film seeks to awaken America to the growth of assisted suicide and warns Americans that, unless stopped, the Canadian system of killing will become a reality in America.

Many groups and individuals have purchased the Prescription Poison film to screen in their community.

Purchase the Prescription Poison film for $10 US (download) or $15 DVD at: Prescriptionpoison.com

Watch the Prescription Poison Trailer:

Topic: Prescription Poison - Averting Assisted Suicide in America.

Tuesday, October 27, 2026 8 pm Eastern Time/5 pm Pacific Time.

Register in advance for the free online screening: (Registration Link). 

Prescription Poison was also entered into several film festivals and will be screened at the Life in Focus Film Festival in Minneapolis Minnesota on November 7. (Link to film festival).

Life Worth Living won another award. Purchase it and screen it in your community

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Purchase and share the Life Worth Living film from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: https://lifeworthlivingfilm.com

The Life Worth Living film was entered and considered in several film festivals, The film was screened in several film festivals and it won at the Niagara International Film Festival in June 2026.

Life Worth Living will be screened at the Life in Focus Film Festival on November 7 in Minneapolis Minnesota on November 7. (Link to film festival).

The Life Worth Living film was also a finalist at the Remember the Future World Film Festival in Cannes France.

Hearts and minds can change by purchasing and screening the award winning Life Worth Living film in your community.

Purchase and share the Life Worth Living film from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: https://lifeworthlivingfilm.com

Watch the Life Worth Living film trailer:

Reviews we received of the film:

I just watched Life Worth Living and I have to say I'm so incredibly impressed. I can't contain my enthusiasm for this film. It's one of the best film projects on the subject of medical killing ever. I'd expect awards to be forthcoming for best documentary film. Lester.

Another review:

I have purchased the film "Life Worth Living" a couple of weeks ago and have watched it. I feel that it's a film that everyone should watch because it shows what is happening in the system of "health" care in Canada and it opens our eyes to the reality of how far our government and the medical system has gone in the direction of killing people instead of healing people.

I would like to ask permission to show this film for our parish community. Eva

EPC gave Eva permission to screen the film in her community. Arrange screenings of the film by contacting info@epcc.ca

 

Life Worth Living features:

• Alicia Duncan, whose mother died by euthanasia with conditions based on mental health, 
• Kelsi Sheren, a Canadian military veteran who came back from combat with PTSD and other disabilities. Kelsi is a social media influencer and a life coach.
• Roger Foley, a Canadian man living with a significant disability who has been pressured by hospital staff to request euthanasia.
• Dr David D'Souza, an Ontario chronic pain specialist.
• Dr Catherine Ferrier, a Quebec Gerontologist and a leader of Physicians' Alliance against Euthanasia, 
• Dr Will Johnston, a Vancouver family physician and leader of Euthanasia Resistance BC
• Kathy Matusiak Costa, Executive Director of Compassionate Community Care,
• Alex Schadenberg, (myself), author, keynote speaker, International leader opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition needs your help.

1. Purchase the Life Worth Living Film (Life Worth Living film Link)
2. Arrange to have Life Worth Living shown in your community. Contact us at: info@epcc.ca
3. You may want a speaker at the event to lead a discussion. Contact us at: info@epcc.ca

Woman sought death by euthanasia. She lost her ability to cook.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The New York Times on October 5, 2026 published an article titled: Assisted Death is not a choice of last resort in Canada by Dr Gary Rodin and Dr Madeline Li, who are professors of psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

 
The article explained that both of them work with patients with advanced cancer and have counselled and assessed patients for euthanasia and one of them has administered the drugs (poison) to end a persons life.

Dr's Madeline Li & Gary Rodin

Rodin and Li provided information about cases where the patient, through counselling, changed their mind or delayed being killed. The first story was a woman in her 70's who sought death based on losing her ability to cook:

We’ve seen how beneficial it is to pause and reflect with our own patients. One of them, a woman in her 70s, was the matriarch of her family, the one who made Sunday dinners. She sought and received approval for assisted dying after she lost the ability to cook. She felt she had lost her value to her family. Through counselling, she came to understand that her family valued who she was, not what she did for them. She decided not to go through with ending her life, at least for now. That Christmas, her family gathered and she sat proudly at the table, while others did the cooking and serving.

The woman was approved for euthanasia, based on her medical condition, but she was seeking death based on losing her ability to cook. The authors show how this woman found personal meaning in caring for her family and through counselling she was assured that she continued to have meaning for her family.

The next story was less uplifting, even though it showed counselling enabled this man to delay being killed. 

Another patient, a man in his 80s, refused a new treatment that might extend his life and instead requested and was approved for assisted dying. He survived the Holocaust as a child and viewed the freedom to choose the timing of his own death as a way of reclaiming what Hitler had taken away from his parents. However, his living family’s grief mattered to him, too, and they had concerns about him giving up too soon. With counselling, he chose to delay. Months later, he had adapted to his illness and continued to find meaning in his life. Eventually he got sicker and Dr. Li told him he was at risk of losing capacity to consent to assisted dying. This time, he chose the procedure, fully supported and surrounded by his family.

With the second story, Dr. Li suggests that his time to be killed had come. I understand that his medical condition had progressed, but the answer to human difficulty should never be medical homicide. 

This man could have had a fulfilling final months of life as he approached natural death. Counselling is a good response, but caring not killing, provides hope.

Dr Madeline Li

Dr Madeline Li was featured in the article by Elaina Plott Calabro, who wrote an exposé on Canada's euthanasia law that was published in the September 2025 edition of the Atlantic titled - Canada is Killing Itself.

Calabro interviews Madeline Li, an early euthanasia pioneer who had developed the euthanasia program at the University Health Network in Toronto in 2017. In 2018 Li started questioning the euthanasia program.

It was not long into her practice, however, that Li’s confidence in the direction of her country’s MAID program began to falter. For all of her expertise, not even Li was sure what to do about a patient in his 30s whom she encountered in 2018.

The man had gone to the emergency room complaining of excruciating pain and was eventually diagnosed with cancer. The prognosis was good, a surgeon assured him, with a 65 percent chance of a cure. But the man said he didn’t want treatment; he wanted MAID. Startled, the surgeon referred him to a medical oncologist to discuss chemo; perhaps the man just didn’t want surgery. The patient proceeded to tell the medical oncologist that he didn’t want treatment of any kind; he wanted MAID. He said the same thing to a radiation oncologist, a palliative-care physician, and a psychiatrist, before finally complaining to the patient-relations department that the hospital was barring his access to MAID. Li arranged to meet with him.

Li explained that the prevailing view was that a medical condition was considered incurable if it could not be cured by means acceptable to the patient.

In other words, the law is completely subjective. Someone who has a treatable condition can be killed by euthanasia. Li told Calabro that she agreed with this. Calabro continued:

This had made sense to Li. If an elderly woman with chronic myelogenous leukemia had no wish to endure a highly toxic course of chemo and radiation, why should she be compelled to? But here was a young man with a likely curable cancer who nevertheless was adamant about dying.

What was Li left with? According to prevailing standards, the man’s refusal to attempt treatment rendered his disease incurable and his natural death was reasonably foreseeable. He met the eligibility criteria as Li understood them. But the whole thing seemed wrong to her. Seeking advice, she described the basics of the case in a private email group for MAID practitioners under the heading “Eligible, but Reasonable?” “And what was very clear to me from the replies I got,” Li told me, “is that many people have no ethical or clinical qualms about this—that it’s all about a patient’s autonomy, and if a patient wants this, it’s not up to us to judge. We should provide.”

In the end, Li killed this man but she regretted it. This is the crux of the issue. Euthanasia is sold as choice and autonomy, but it requires another person to do the killing.

Rodin and Li are suggesting that a medical "pause" in euthanasia, through counselling, gives patients a chance to discover alternatives or to establish that their life has meaning. 

I agree with their premise but I find it to be counter intuitive if it still leads to killing.