EPC Response: Government Committee says NO to Euthanasia for Mental Illness

Response to the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying Report on Euthanasia for Mental Illness, as the sole criteria.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is pleased that the Canadian Government AMAD Committee has recommended that Canada not extend euthanasia to include euthanasia for mental illness, as the sole criteria. Currently euthanasia for mental illness, as the sole criteria, is scheduled to begin on March 17, 2027.

The heads of Psychiatry at 13 Canadian medical schools called on the federal government to halt the expansion of assisted dying to people whose sole condition is mental illness. Their letter to the AMAD Committee stated:

...there is no accurate way to determine when a mental disorder is incurable, no way to distinguish between suicidality and a MAID request, and no way to adequately protect vulnerable patients.

“People can and do recover from prolonged suffering related to mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and substance use when provided with appropriate, evidence-based treatments and supports,”...

A letter from from 90 disability rights groups, including the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, to the AMAD committee stated:

In its 2025 Concluding Observations on Canada, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities called on Canada to repeal Track 2 MAiD, halt the planned expansion to mental illness and bring its MAiD regime into compliance with Canada’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

We are pleased that the AMAD Committee is recommending that euthanasia for mental illness, as the sole criteria, not be implemented. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition now calls on the AMAD Committee to do an in-depth complete review of Canada's euthanasia law, especially now that it has been operating for 10 years.

The EPC presentation to the AMAD Committee on May 5 stated that Canada needs to do a complete review of it's euthanasia law, which was actually part of the original euthanasia law that was implemented in June 2016. I stated:

...Parliament needs to examine how the current law has led to outcomes like the death of Kiano Vafaeian (26) died by MAiD in Vancouver on December 30, 2025. Parliament needs to completely review the euthanasia law.

More broadly, Canada’s assisted dying law is vague. While Health Canada provides guidance, the legal framework allows for wide interpretation and it lacks effective oversight.

Because of time constraints, I will highlight one key issue.

Sections 241 (3) and 241 (3.1) of Canada's Criminal Code states that medical practitioners or nurse practitioners are required only to be “of the opinion” that the eligibility criteria are met. That, in practice, makes accountability extremely difficult, even impossible to prosecute a medical or nurse practitioner in Canada, even when the MAiD death is clearly wrong or deeply disturbing.

The MDRC reports and cases that have already been submitted to you speak to that reality.

Canada should not be considering the expansion of the euthanasia law to include people with mental illness alone but rather Parliament needs to fully review the law.

Canada has surpassed 100,000 euthanasia deaths since legalization. Many of these deaths have been controversial and were outside the original intent of the law.

The EPC urges the government to consider the many stories associated with our euthanasia law that have been publicized world-wide and recognize that the law needs to be reviewed.

We look forward to presenting to the AMAD Committee when they provide a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law.

They finally blinked.

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her substack on June 15, 2026.

I would have qualified.

By Kelsi Sheren

Wednesday is June 17.

That’s the day Bill C-14 got Royal Assent in 2016. The day MAID became law in Canada and that is the exact day a joint parliamentary committee is expected to table their report recommending an indefinite pause on expanding assisted dying to people whose only diagnosis is a mental illness.

Someone chose that date.

I came back from Afghanistan with PTSD. A traumatic brain injury. Major Depressive Disorder. Treatment-resistant depression. Hearing loss. I spent years on eleven different medications. None of them worked. I was suicidal for over a decade.

The system told me I would never work again, or be a functional part of society.

Under Canada’s current eligibility criteria, I would qualify for MAID today.

Not because I’m dying. Not because there’s genuinely nothing left to try but because the criteria have been expanded, quietly, legislatively, until the threshold is low enough to catch people like me.

Before we talk policy, here’s what treatment-resistant actually means in this country.

It doesn’t mean nothing works. It means nothing on the approved list has worked. Nothing funded and nothing inside the box the system built.

By the clinical definition, I was treatment-resistant. Eleven drugs. Years of therapy. The official options, exhausted. A MAID assessor could have looked at my file and written “irremediable” and they would have been following the rules.

They would have been wrong.

What saved my life wasn’t on the approved list. Plant medicine. I used psychedelics and integration therapy, CDT with a veteran psychiatrist who never gave up on me, I was fortunate enough to go through Health Canada’s Special Access Program. It’s a regulatory pathway that technically allows doctors to request access to treatments that haven’t been approved yet in Canada for patients with serious conditions when conventional options have failed. It exists because approvals take years and some people can’t wait.

The SAP took months. It was expensive. It was exhausting. My doctor had to navigate paperwork most physicians have never seen. Most people who need it don’t know it exists. Most of the ones who know about it can’t fight through it. Most of the ones who fight through it get denied. This was all for a mushroom!

Track 1 MAID can be approved and administered the same day you apply.

The system that makes it hard to access a treatment that might save your life built a same-day pathway to end it. That’s not a bureaucratic accident. That’s a choice, they are making this choice about people and decided they aren’t worth the research and effort.

The committee heard from 44 witnesses. Received 32 briefs. Sixteen chairs of psychiatry departments across Canada, current and former signed a letter saying

DO NOT DO THIS.

More than 90 disability and mental health organizations said the same.

The problem they all named is the same one I’ve been saying for years. There is no clinical definition of psychiatric irremediability that holds. No test. No threshold. Depression, PTSD, schizophrenia people recover from all of it, sometimes after years, sometimes after decades, when they finally get care that works. You cannot tell someone their suffering is permanently beyond reach and then sign a death certificate based on that guess.

According to sources who spoke to the National Post, the committee is expected to recommend an indefinite pause. Not a permanent no. Not a yes. An indefinite pause.

Committee co-chair Marcus Powlowski said in May it could come back in “three or four or five or twenty years.” Three senators on the 17-member committee are expected to file a dissent.

The Globe and Mail says the government is prepared to table legislation stopping the 2027 expansion if the committee recommends it.

I’ll believe it when I see it signed.

Kiano Vafaeian was 26.

Type 1 diabetes since he was four. Partial blindness in one eye. Depression that his mother Margaret Marsilla said was seasonal it got bad in fall and winter.

He was denied MAID by multiple Ontario doctors. So he went to BC.

On December 29, 2025, he texted his family to say he was dying the next day.

On December 30, he was administered MAID in a Vancouver funeral home.

His parents weren’t notified of the approval. They found out he was dead days later. His death certificate listed a qualifying condition his family says isn’t in his medical records.

He was 26 years old.

Irremediable. Right up until he wasn’t.

The report tables Wednesday. Two days from now. The 10th anniversary of the slow role into one of the largest eugenics programs the world has seen since World War 2. This government the one that has delayed and reconvened and deferred on this file for a decade has to decide what to do with it.

An indefinite pause doesn’t fix the oversight failures. It doesn’t address the doctor-shopping problem Kiano’s case laid bare. It doesn’t fund the mental health system people are trying to access before they give up. It doesn’t make the Special Access Program faster than a death form.

But it’s the first time in ten years the door hasn’t moved forward, and we have a real chance to shut the death industry down.

KELSI

PRE SALE: DO NO HARM? How the Healthcare Industry Legalized Murder. https://a.co/d/0cxrJwru

Parliamentary Committee to recommend no expansion of euthanasia for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Sharon Kirkey reported in the National Post on June 15, 2026 that the Special Parliamentary Euthanasia Committee will recommend that the Canadian government not expand euthanasia for mental illness alone. 

When Canada passed Bill C-7 in March 17, 2021, one of its provisions was the expansion of euthanasia for the sole criteria of mental illness. The federal government has delayed euthanasia for mental illness alone several times. 

Currently, on March 17, 2027 doctors and nurse practitioners will be allowed to kill patients, by lethal poison, when their sole underlying condition is a mental illness. The new parliamentary report that will be released on June 17, 2026. It will recommend that euthanasia for mental illness alone be indefinitely paused.

Bill C-7 expanded euthanasia for people who do not have a terminally condition, but had a grievous and irremediable medical condition and the law was expanded to permit euthanasia for an incompetent person, as long as that person had been previously approved for euthanasia.

In order to expand euthanasia to people who do not have a terminal condition a two track law was created. Track 1 is for people with a terminal condition who are approved with a same day death. Track 2 is for people who do not have a terminal condition but who could be approved with a 90-day reflection period. Track 2 euthanasia is essentially designed for people with disabilities and has caused the deaths of people who are living in poverty, are homeless, or have untreated medical conditions.

Kirkey reported:

A special parliamentary committee is expected to recommend that the federal government halt the expansion of MAID to those whose sole condition is a mental disorder, the latest development in a drawn-out and controversial chapter in the country’s assisted-death regime.

The joint committee of senators and MPs struck to revisit Canada’s preparedness for medical assistance in dying for those with mental illness alone is expected to recommend an “indefinite pause” on the expansion, two sources told National Post. They spoke on the condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to speak on the committee’s behalf.

Kirkey also stated that a group of Senators plan to write a dissenting report.

The Special Committee on Euthanasia heard testimony from 44 witnesses, including a presentation by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, and they received 32 briefs. Kirkey reported:

Sixteen current and former chairs of psychiatry departments across Canada, and more than 90 disability and mental health organizations, appealed to the joint committee to halt extending MAID to include mental disorders as the sole underlying medical condition.

Kirkey noted that Québec and Alberta have specifically excluded euthanasia for mental illness alone through provincial guidelines and Nova Scotia indicated that they were ready to expand euthansia for mental illness alone.

On May 5, EPC presented to the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying. Our presentation focused on the need to provide a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law, which Bill C-14 (the bill that legalized euthanasia in Canada in 2106) had required.

There have been many controversial euthanasia cases lately including the euthanasia death of Kiano Vafaeian (26) on December 30, 2025 who had Type 1 diabetes. Kiano, who lived in Ontario, flew to Vancouver to be killed by Ellen Wiebe in a funeral home. Other recent controversial euthanasia deaths include James MacLean, of London Ontario, who approved a death at a Tim Horton's coffee shop. MacLean was also involved in a euthanasia death where he declared the man dead who wasn't dead, causing incredible distress for the family. (In this death MacLean used left-over euthanasia poison from previous euthanasia deaths.) In another case, a man cried out help me while being killed by euthanasia.

Tamara Jansen (MP) introduced Private Members Bill C-218, last year. If passed, Bill C-218 would prevent euthanasia for mental illness as the sole criteria. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition urges you to support Bill C-218.

Prime Minister Mark Carney stated that he would follow the recommendations of the committee. It is unknown whether the Liberal government will introduce their own legislation or pass Bill C-218.

The UK will debate the Leadbeater assisted suicide bill again.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The UK will once again debate the Kim Leadbeater assisted suicide bill, that died on the order paper in the House of Lords earlier this year. The bill originally passed, on November 29, 2024 at second reading, in the UK House of Commons, by a vote of 330 to 275.

The House of Lords debated multiple amendments to the Leadbeater bill. The bill was so flawed that the House of Lords (timed-out) before ever voting on the bill.

Lauren Edwards, (Labour MP) for Rochester and Strood, said she would bring back the Leadbeater bill while members of the governing Labour party are also talking about passing legislation to over-ride the requirement that the House of Lords pass the legislation.

The BBC news story by Harry Farley stated:

By bringing exactly the same legislation, Edwards is threatening to trigger rarely used powers to override peers' objections should they refuse to pass it again.

Bills usually only become law if both Houses of Parliament agree on its final wording.

But the powers under the Parliament Act, which have only been used seven times in the last century, mean that if MPs pass an identical bill in two consecutive parliamentary sessions, peers cannot block it a second time. 

The Lords can suggest amendments which, if agreed by the Commons, would be added to the bill. But if they do not pass the bill as a whole before the end of the next session - usually in around a year's time - the unamended bill could become law even without their approval.

Dr Gordon MacDonald

Gordon MacDonald, CEO of the Care Not Killing Alliance urged his supporters to help them to fight the dangerous bill:

MPs will vote on the Bill on 11 September. To stop the Bill, we are now planning a summer campaign for which we need to raise an additional £45k to fund summer campaign spending.

The wind is blowing our direction. The House of Lords Leadbeater bill debate identified multiple problems with the language in the bill.

Also, Scotland defeated their assisted suicide bill on March 17, 2026 by a vote of 69 to 57. The Scottish bill originally passed at Second Reading by a vote of 70 to 56. 13 MSP's who originally supported the Scottish bill, at the final vote, changed their vote.

I predict that the British House of Commons vote will be very closer this time and it is likely that the assisted suicide bill will be defeated. 

The Canadian experience with euthanasia is crucial for defeating the UK assisted suicide bill. The UK House of Commons cannot ignore the multiple problematic stories from Canada. Sadly, these stories concern a person who already died by euthanasia, but these stories are changing the assisted suicide debate world-wide.

More articles on this topic:

• Great news. Scotland's assisted suicide bill is rejected (Read). 
• UK assisted suicide bill will likely die in the House of Lords (Read). 
• UK assisted suicide bill makes deception and coercion easier (Read). 
• Disabled House of Lords member harassed for opposing assisted suicide (Read). 
• Strong opposition to assisted suicide during House of Lords debate (Read).

The US Supreme Court blocks execution using nitrogen gas.

The euthanasia lobby developed killing method using nitrogen gas.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Alex Schadenberg

The New York Times published a news article on Thursday, June 11, 2026 reporting that the US Supreme Court decided that execution by nitrogen gas was likely unconstitutional based on it being "cruel and unusual punishment.'

The news article by Rick Rojas and Abbie Van Sickle, for the New York Times reported that:

The Supreme Court’s decision was unsigned and included no reasoning, which is typical in such emergency rulings. Dissent came from three of the court’s conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch.

The Supreme Court decision blocked the execution by nitrogen gas of Jeffery Lee (49) who will remain on death row.

The Supreme Court decision was at the last minute as the execution of Lee by nitrogen hypoxia was scheduled to take place at 6 pm that day. Lee would have been the 8th person in Alabama to be executed by nitrogen gas and the 9th in America.

Lee, who originally opted for execution by nitrogen gas, changed his mind and requested death by firing squad after witnesses from previous deaths by nitrogen hypoxia reported:

“prisoners convulsing, shaking vigorously, and gasping for breaths.”

Why is this important to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition?

On September 23, 2024 an American woman (64) died inside a Sarco capsule set up near a cabin in Merishausen, Switzerland. The Sarco pod was invented by Philip Nitschke and promoted by The Last Resort assisted suicide group.

The Sarco pod works by strapping a person into the pod, closing the pod and then filling it with nitrogen gas.

Based on those who witnessed nitrogen gas capital punishment deaths, it shouldn't surprise people that the American woman was found dead in the Sarco pod with strangulation marks on her neck as she would have been convulsing, shaking vigorously and gasping for air as she died.

On September 24, 2024 I published an article stating that the Swiss police had made arrests related to the Sarco death pod and on September 29, 2024 I published an article explaining why the Sarco death method constitutes torture.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) , who support assisted suicide, described the nitrogen gas execution death of Kenneth Smith, as a:

method that constitutes torture, violating international human rights treaties ratified by the U.S.

The ACLU also stated that:

Veterinary scientists, who have carried out laboratory studies on animals, have largely ruled nitrogen gas out as a euthanasia method due to ethical concerns. Authorities in the U.S. and Europe have issued guidelines discouraging its use for most mammals, citing potential distress, panic, and seizure-like behavior.

Death by Nitrogen gas is not acceptable for animals and is defined as a method that constitutes torture and yet Nitschke described the death as looking exactly as expected.

The US Supreme Court will likely determine that death by nitrogen hypoxia is cruel and unusual punishment. At the same time, death lobby activists are promoting the development of killing techniques that include death by nitrogen gas.

The Sarco death pod was invented by Philip Nitschke, who lost his medical license in Australia. The 64-year-old American woman who died in the Sarco pod, with the death being organized by The Last Resort Swiss assisted suicide group that was led by Florian Willett, a former spokesperson for the euthanasia group Dignitas and Fiona Stewart, the wife of Philip Nitschke.

The death lobby supports medical homicide (euthanasia) for people with mental illnesses.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The death lobby sells the concept of giving doctors the right to kill their patients (euthanasia or assisted suicide) by assuring legislators that the killing will be limited to rare circumstances. 

In Canada, the death lobby argued that medical homicide would be limited to terminally ill people who are fully competent, freely choosing and suffering. The original Canadian euthanasia law claimed to have "tight" safeguards that including a restriction based on having a "terminal" condition.

The reality was that the Canadian law lacked effective definition. Therefore, from the beginning it was designed to quickly expand from killing the few to killing the many.

The strategy of selling killing based on it being limited to rare circumstances is used in every jurisdiction when debating the legalization of poisoning.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) argues that once legal, the assisted killing law inevitably expands because it is discriminatory to allow doctors to kill one group of people while restricting doctors from killing another group of people with similar conditions. EPC has been vilified for our honesty.

Konia Trouton

The Globe and Mail published an opinion article on June 13 by Dr Konia Trouton titled: Why are the rules different for MAiD depending on what you have? Trouton is not only a euthanasia doctor but she is also a co-founder and past president of CAMAP (Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Practitioners) and she helped develop the curriculum for training doctors to poison (kill) their patients.

Trouton's article justifies euthanasia for people who are not terminally ill, but living with mental health conditions, something that is never promoted when a jurisdiction is debating the legalization of medical homicide. 

Trouton argues that John Scully who is living with chronic mental illness, should have equal access to medical homicide.

According to Trouton, who is a euthanasia lobby leader, John Scully qualifies to be killed because he can no longer self-manage his life and he needs a personal support worker to help him live his life.

A definition, such as this, represents a very wide group of people. These people deserve to receive societal support (caring) not medical homicide.

Trouton's comments are very eugenic. She is willing to kill Scully because he has a diminishing quality of life. Yet almost every elderly person or person's with disabilities has a diminishing quality of life.

Trouton's medical homicide approval criteria opens the door to medical homicide to the many not the few.

When debating the legalization of euthanasia or assisted suicide, the death lobby sells the concept of legalization as being for the hard cases, the few who are suffering and nearing death. Once legal, the death lobby moves to expand the law. Trouton is arguing that euthanasia should be approved for people with a mental illness alone.

I oppose killing people, but the next time a jurisdiction debates the legalization of euthanasia or assisted suicide, the opposition needs to refer to Trouton's article which proves that the death lobby believes that medical homicide should apply to not only terminal conditions, but also chronic conditions and mental health conditions.  

The death lobby wants medical homicide for the many but will sell it by claiming that it will be for the few.

Further information on this topic:

• It is impossible to determine if a psychiatric condition is irremediable (Read).
• Euthanasia for mental illness. Court cases and Committee hearings (Read).
• Canadian psychiatrists: No to euthanasia for mental illness (Read).
• A psychiatrist told the parliamentary committee that depression qualifies for MAiD (Read). 
• Psychiatric euthanasia (youth) and suicide prevention in the Netherlands (Read). 
• Euthanasia: No evidence base for futility and irremediability in psychiatric disorders (Read). 
• Euthanasia activist says that Canada must allow euthanasia for mental illness (Read). 
• Medical homicide as a psychiatric treatment (Read). 
• Grieving parents demand changes after son (26) was euthanized in Canada (Read).

Register for the next Compassionate Community Care - Visitor Training Program on June 17/18.

Kathy Matusiak Costa

Register for the free online Being With My Story Visitor Volunteer Training program on taking place on June 17 and 18. Learn how to  be an effective caring visitor of people in your community.

 

Register online (Registration Link).

The online training is provided by Compassionate Community Care (CCC) and is co-hosted by CCC Executive Director, Kathy Matusiak Costa and Alex Schadenberg, EPC Executive Director.

Alex Schadenberg

Gain the confidence to journey with people in your community who are lonely, socially isolated, sick, or dying, to renew their hope and purpose to live until they die.

 

The Training Workshop is composed of two sessions, each session is two hours held on: 

Wednesday June 17 (7 pm - 9 pm) (EST)

Thursday June 18 (7 pm - 9 pm) (EST)

With Kathy Matusiak Costa, Executive Director of Compassionate Community Care, and Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. 

Register online now: (Registration Link)

 

Compassionate Community Care: 

383 Horton St. E, London, ON N6B 1L6
Office: 519-439-6445 

info@beingwith.org • www.beingwith.org

CCC Helpline: 1-855-675-8749

 

Charitable registration # 824667869RR0001

Parliamentary committee to deliver report on euthanasia for mental illness on June 17.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Globe and Mail reported on June 11 that the Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying will be releasing their report on euthanasia for mental illness alone on June 17, which happens to be the 10th Anniversary of the legalization of euthanasia in Canada.

Register for the EPC Zoom event on June 17 at 2 pm (Eastern Time) (Link).

Stephanie Levitz, a senior reporter for the Globe and Mail, reported on June 11 that Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski, who is co-chair of the Parliamentary Committee, stated on June 10 that the committee had met for 4 hours on June 9 and has decided the outcome of the report.

Levitz reported that the committee members did not indicate the outcome of the report but the government has stated that they will follow the recommendations of the committee report.

Currently euthanasia for mental illness alone is scheduled to begin in Canada on March 17, 2027.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition hopes that the parliamentary committee will recommend the reversal of the expansion of euthanasia to mental illness alone, but we also hope that this report will recommend a full review of Canada's euthanasia law, which was required in Canada's original euthanasia law but has never happened.

I had the opportunity to speak to the parliamentary committee on May 5, 2026 where I stated:

Instead of expanding MAiD further, Parliament needs to examine how the current law has led to outcomes like the death of Kiano Vafaeian (26) died by MAiD in Vancouver on December 30, 2025. Parliament needs to completely review the euthanasia law.

More broadly, Canada’s assisted dying law is vague. While Health Canada provides guidance, the legal framework allows for wide interpretation and it lacks effective oversight.

I concluded by stating:

Canada should not be considering the expansion of the euthanasia law to include people with mental illness alone but rather Parliament needs to fully review the law.

Canada's parliament needs to do a complete review of it's euthanasia law.

Lawsuit filed to overturn New York and Illinois assisted suicide laws

The Institute for Patients' Rights joined two federal lawsuits, one in New York and one in Illinois, with a coalition of national and state-based disability and patient advocacy organizations. For both states, Not Dead Yet, United Spinal Association, and the National Council on Independent Living, are organizational plaintiffs. 

For New York, other organizational plaintiffs include: Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley, Regional Center for Independent Living, and Self-Initiated Living Options, Inc. Two individuals are named plaintiffs as well, Anita Cameron and Jose Hernandez.

In Illinois, the individual plaintiffs are Ebony Payne, Pam Heavens, and Nooshig Luz Salvador. Joining them are additional organizational plaintiffs: Progress Center for Independent Living, and Chicago ADAPT.

Both lawsuits state assisted suicide law violates core protections under the U.S. Constitution and federal civil rights laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. 

The suit argues that the assisted suicide statutes in New York and in Illinois will single out people with disabilities and other vulnerable individuals, placing them at risk of premature death rather than ensuring access to care, support and suicide prevention services.

“Assisted suicide laws in New York and Illinois create a separate and unequal system in which people with life-threatening disabilities are offered death instead of the support programs everyone else gets,” said Matt Vallière, president/executive director of plaintiff organization Institute for Patients' Rights. “These legal actions are about affirming that every person has inestimable value and dignity, regardless of age, disability, or prognosis, and ensuring that no one is treated as disposable under the law.” 

José Hernández, an individual plaintiff for New York, a person with disabilities, and a member of plaintiff organization United Spinal Association, spoke about how America once cared about preserving lives and prioritizing treatment to extend life. His mother was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer when she was 28 years old and he was only eight. Doctors estimated she would live for only six months.

“At the time, assisted suicide was not available, and thankfully so,” Hernández said. “Doctors did everything they could, her insurance paid for life-saving treatment, and my mother survived for 13 years. If she had chosen to end her life, I would have missed out on 13 years of goodnight kisses, home-cooked meals, and the opportunity to be raised by a mother who made me the strong man I am today.”

Representing the Illinois plaintiffs, Ebony Payne said, “I joined the lawsuit because of personal experiences that brought me really close to death and the people who I leaned on to do the right thing became the people to do the opposite. The Illinois law is a trainwreck and is not what you expect from people who are obligated to do no harm.”

These are the 4th and 5th lawsuits in the federal court system. These lawsuits put us one step closer to the Supreme Court and total victory over a eugenic public policy that undermines the inestimable value and dignity of each one of us. Onward and upward!

Join the EPC zoom event on June 17. Ten years of killing, what's next?

Join the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition on June 17, 2026 at 2 pm (Eastern Time)  (Registration Link) for one hour of information followed by discussion as we reflect on 10 years of legal euthanasia (poisoning people to death) in Canada.

We will discuss how and why Canada expanded it's killing regime, what the law actual says, and where we should go from here.

Register for free in advance for this zoom event on June 17 at 2 pm (Eastern Time): (Registration Link).

The world is shocked by Canada's killing machine, it is time for Canada to provide a complete review of the law. It is time for Canada to begin to dismantle the killing machine it has built. 

This is a sad occasion as Canada surpassed 100,000 known euthanasia deaths, since legalization, in April 2026. The number of euthanasia deaths is disturbing. The reasons for these killings are often terrifying.

 We oppose killing people. 

Presenters will include: Gordon Friesen, EPC President, Alex Schadenberg, EPC Executive Director, and Kelsi Sheren. 

We will be sharing crucial information. Time will be provided for your questions. 

Register for free for this informative zoom event on June 17 at 2 pm (ET): (Registration Link).

Americans Are of Two Minds About the ‘Moral Acceptability’ of Suicide?

This article was published by National Review online on June 9, 2026.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

Gallup just issued its annual poll on “moral acceptability.” I was struck by the dramatically different results in the two questions about suicide.

The first question asked about “doctor assisted suicide.” Close to a majority, 49 percent, of respondents answered that committing suicide with a doctor’s help is morally acceptable, while 45 percent responded that it is not.

The other question asked simply about the moral acceptability of “suicide.” Strikingly, only 21 percent said that it is morally acceptable to take one’s own life, while a whopping 70 percent said it is not. Indeed, suicide was one of the lowest “morally acceptable” behaviors in the entire poll. Only cloning humans, polygamy, and extramarital affairs had a lower moral acceptability rating.

That’s quite a paradox. So, what’s going on? Why the wide disparity in answering two questions that are about the same issue?

Some thoughts.

First, the doctor part of the “doctor assisted suicide” brings the authority of the medical profession into the question, which I think grants the act added moral acceptability.

Second, many people judge the “why” of the deed as much as they do the “what.” I think that when suicide is or seems to be motivated by serious or terminal sickness, chronic pain, or disability, many people believe that self-killing becomes less morally questionable. But if motivated, say, because a business failed or a beloved spouse died, it remains morally problematic.

Third, there has been a several-decades-long social and political campaign — supported ubiquitously by the media and popular culture — to valorize doctor-assisted suicide, while these same social institutions still (weakly) promote suicide prevention in cases not involving illness.

Finally, it seems to me that asking about “moral acceptability” when pondering this issue is the incorrect question. I think that suicide is wrong — there is always hope for a better tomorrow, a moment of joy, a change of mind and heart — even in the most extreme situations of illness. I have seen it up close and personal.

But I don’t think it is “immoral,” per se. (It would be for me because of the teaching of my church.) None of us knows what could drive us to such depths of despair that we kill ourselves, and thus, I don’t judge people who attempt or do it. (That said, I do understand that the moral stigma against suicide prevents many deaths — which is why assisted suicide activists don’t call it suicide).

But do you know what I think is immoral? Encouraging, validating, facilitating, or assisting suicide. People who do that are not mired in the depths of despair, and their support for someone’s self-termination may make the difference between life ending or continuing.

Here’s my bottom line: All life matters, including the lives of people who want to die. All suicidal people deserve to have their lives saved, if possible, just as do people who are drowning in a river or trying to escape a burning building.

Thus, the morally acceptable answer to all suicide ideations should be universal, regardless of the “why”: rescue and prevention, which is to say, love.

Prescription Poison will be released in July 2026

The Prescription Poison film (43 minutes) will be released on July 24, 2026. 

Watch the Prescription Poison trailer.

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

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

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is asking American supporters, to organize screenings of the film. You may also want a speaker, such as Alex Schadenberg, to lead a discussion forum, after the screening. 

For early screening plans contact us at: info@epcc.ca

Donations to cover the cost of the film are still required. Donations are made to the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: (credit card online Link) or (Paypal donation Link) or send an E-transfer to info@epcc.ca or call the EPC office at: 1-877-439-3348.

The cost to order and screen the film will be available soon.

The Prescription Poison film will be available on July 24.

The film features: Denise Leipold, Margaret Marsilla, Victor Nieves, Professor William Peace (RIP), Ales Primc, Alexander Raikin, Jessica Rodgers, Alex Schadenberg, Wesley J Smith, Dr Sarah Smith, Nir Solomon, Dr William Toffler.

Euthanasia doctors refuse to share the killing curriculum with Canada's parliament

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On May 5, 2026 I had the opportunity to speak before the Parliamentary MAiD Committee that is examining the expansion of Canada's euthanasia law to include people with the sole criteria of mental illness. Presenters are only given 5 minutes, so I presented on the need for Canada's parliament to do a full review of the euthanasia law.

The Parliamentary Committee is examining and making recommendations as to whether or not Canada should permit euthanasia for mental illness alone beginning on March 17, 2027. Prime Minister Carney has stated that he will institute the recommendations of this report.

Meagan Gillmore published an article for Canadian Affairs on June 4, 2026 concerning the fact that (CAMAP) the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers have refused to share the euthanasia training curriculum with the parliamentary committee. 

Gillmore explained that on April 14, the Parliamentary Committee agreed to ask CAMAP to share it's euthanasia training curriculum but CAMAP has not only not shared it's killing curriculum with the Parliamentary Committee, it has indicated that it will not share the curriculum.

Remember, CAMAP has been receiving more than 3 million dollars per year from the federal government to develop it's killing curriculum. Based on this reality, one would think that the federal government, in some way, actually owns the killing curriculum.

Gillmore reports why CAMAP has said no to providing the curriculum:

The module about MAID and mental disorders is a live online class, making it impossible to provide the committee with a copy of the curriculum, the association told Canadian Affairs in an email. 

CAMAP does not intend to make its curriculum public, the association also said.

“CAMAP recognizes that there is significant public interest and ongoing discussion regarding MAID and mental disorders,” CAMAP’s email says. 

“However, the purpose of the curriculum is not public advocacy or public education; rather, it exists to support health-care professionals in understanding and applying the existing legislative and clinical framework within their practice.”

This is a ridiculous response. The euthanasia for mental disorders module is only done online, so why can't they share a recording of this online class?

Why can't the Parliamentary Committee receive the guidelines for how CAMAP is supporting health-care professionals in killing people within the framework of their practice?

So what is CAMAP trying to hide?

There has also been significant criticism of the killing curriculum. Catherine Frazee, a disability leader and academic, who was part of the CAMAP curriculum team, resigned, along with two other members, based on serious problems with the killing curriculum. Gillmore reports:

Three resigned from a working group that developed a curriculum module to assess how vulnerability can impact MAID requests. In interviews with Canadian Affairs, they raised concerns that the curriculum ignored how homelessness and loneliness could impact a person’s MAID request. They also expressed concern that the MAID curriculum discouraged health-care providers from challenging patients’ negative views about their disability. 

The curriculum “presumes that disabled people’s lives are not just harder, but plausibly unlivable,” Catherine Frazee, an academic who resigned from the working group, wrote in an article published in an academic journal in April.

Gillmore stated that CAMAP shared the outline of topics but not the curriculum from each of the 8 killing training sessions. 

So why can't CAMAP share the curriculum with a Parliamentary Committee?

What does CAMAP have to hide?

How much money did the federal government give CAMAP to develop a killing curriculum?

Just to put the icing on the killers cake, last month Gillmore wrote about the CAMAP curriculum team members who had resigned, for an article that was published by Canadian Affairs on May 5, 2026. Gillmore reported Catherine Frazee outlining a few concerning cases:

In one case, a homeless, 19-year-old man with cerebral palsy who was fleeing an abusive home was approved. In another case, a young man with disabilities was approved after expressing fear that he would never have a family of his own.

Catherine Frazee

Gillmore explains why Frazee is concerned with the outcome of Canada's euthanasia law.

 Most assessors did not appear bothered by these cases, says Frazee. 

“It was that lack of hesitation or doubt that really troubled me,” said Frazee.

The curriculum included a fictitious scenario about a mother of young children who was recently paralyzed because of a spinal cord injury. The woman said she wanted MAID because she did not want someone to help her use the bathroom. 

The working group said that the woman’s distress over needing help from others was a personal value and should not be questioned, Frazee said.

Frazee was concerned that there was no discussion about challenging a patient’s negative attitudes about living with a disability. 

Frazee resigned from the CAMAP curriculum team in August 2023 when her suggestions for change were simply denied.

CAMAP’s killing curriculum, that they have refused to share with a Parliamentary Committee, is funded by Health Canada and accredited by the College of Family Physicians of Canada, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the Canadian Nurses Association.

The Canadian government needs to do a complete review of it's euthanasia law. Canada's euthanasia law is dangerous and insane.

Almost 24,000 Canadians died waiting for treatment in 2025.

How many of these people died by euthanasia rather than wait for treatment?

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

This is not new news but 23,746 Canadian patients died on waitlists between April 1, 2024 and March 31, 2025. The Canadian government data released by Second Street in November 2025 does not indicate how these Canadians died, but it is likely that a fairly large percentage of them died by euthanasia.

Canada's euthanasia law does not require a person to first attempt effective treatments before being killed nor does it define euthanasia as a last resort, meaning, there are no effective treatments for the condition.

Canada's law only requires a person to have a terminal condition to be approved for Track 1 euthanasia, which includes no waiting or reflection period or have a grievous and irremediable (not defined in the law) medical condition to be approved for Track 2 euthanasia, which has a 90 day waiting period.

Terminal condition is not defined by a 6 month or 12 month terminal prognosis, but rather it is an undefined terminal condition, which is why someone with diabetes can qualify.

On March 17, 2026 I published an article estimating that approximately 17,700 Canadians were killed by euthanasia in 2025, an increase of approximately 7% from 16,499 in 2024. I also estimated that Canada would surpass 100,000 euthanasia deaths since legalization in April 2026.

We know that people are "choosing" death by euthanasia based on wait times for surgery and other treatments, but we do not know how many people who died by euthanasia did so because of treatment wait times.

The Second Street think tank report indicated that the 23,746 figure is low since the report did not include every region of the country and some provinces only shared the data on deaths of people who were waiting for surgery and didn't share data related to diagnostic tests.

Euthanasia complications challenge the "good death" narrative.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On May 27 an article by Brian Williams and Sharon Kirkey that was published by the London Free Press on May 27, 2026  reported on the euthanasia deaths by Dr James MacLean. 

Dr James MacLean is one of the few doctors to be sanctioned for unprofessional conduct related to his euthanasia deaths. One of the complaints included a euthanasia assessment that was done at a Tim Horton's coffee shop while another concerned a "botched" euthanasia death whereby MacLean declared the man dead, when he wasn't dead...

Sharon Kirkey wrote a difficult article that was published by the National Post on June 3, 2026 concerning euthanasia complications that challenges the "good death" paradigm that is sold by the euthanasia lobby. Kirkey wrote:

An Ontario man groaned, grimaced and repeated “help me” while undergoing doctor-assisted death after one of the drugs didn’t produce the anticipated level of sedation, initially leaving him conscious.

Kirkey suggests that people should be informed that some euthanasia deaths involve significant suffering.

Cases of MAID that do not proceed as planned were highlighted last week in media reports involving the 2024 death of Bradley Stewart, an Ontario man who resumed breathing after being pronounced dead by a London, Ont., family doctor and MAID provider — a traumatic experience his siblings who witnessed his mishandled death are still recovering from.

Brian Williams and Sharon Kirkey wrote in an article published by the London Free Press on May 27, 2026 that:

He’d (MacLean) ordered a MAID medication kit, but it wasn’t ready when he arrived at the pharmacy. He went to the home with a kit he already had.

According to the college, MacLean administered a sedative follow by propofol, a drug used during surgery that, in high doses, puts people in a coma.

The final drug customarily used paralyzes the muscles. Deprived of oxygen, organs shut down, one by one, until the heart finally stops. But MacLean was unable to find the neuromuscular-blocking drug in his kit.

MacLean declared the man dead, when he wasn't dead. He left the scene of the crime. He was then informed that the victim wasn't dead yet, so MacLean returned and pumped him with more lethal poison. 

The family was traumatized.

Kirkey also reported about another case known as “Mr. D.,” an 87-year-old man with congestive heart failure who died by euthanasia in 2023. Kirkey describes the euthanasia death.

The MAID provision took place at his home, the same day he was transferred home from hospital.

Once settled, two intravenous sites were established.

The doctor administered the first drug, midazolam, a Valium-like sedative. Next lidocaine was injected to numb the vein and prepare it for the next injection, propofol, a coma-inducing drug that can burn and sting upon injection.

Midazolam is meant to put people in a deep state of relaxation. People often fall asleep.

However, “During the first three minutes. Mr. D experienced signs of physical and psychological distress, including groaning, guarding (tensing muscles) and grimacing,” reads the case review.

“Mr. D did not experience expected sedation” from the midazalom and remained conscious.

“His behavioural signs of distress escalated to repeated verbalizations, including ‘help me’ that continued until sedation was achieved with propofol and a comatose state was confirmed,” according to the case report.

Kirkey explains that the family experienced significant distress related to their father's euthanasia death:

“These unfortunate end-of-life circumstances created profound distress for the family. They witnessed their father suffering with physical and psychological distress and these final memories stay with them.”

The family “shared reflections such as powerlessness to change the course of their father’s final suffering, anguish regarding the decision to support their father through the MAID process and immense grief and sorrow regarding their final memories with their father,” according to the case review.

Studies show that complications with euthanasia do happen. Kirkey reports:

In a survey of 335 Canadian emergency doctors, three reported having seen MAID patients come to emergency because of IV failure.

A 2022 study of 3,557 MAID deaths in Ontario and Vancouver between 2016 and 2020 found complications in 41 cases (1.2 per cent). Most fell into one of two categories, the authors reported: obtaining or maintaining IV access, or prolonged time to death requiring a second kit of MAID medications.

Kirkey further describes the death of Bradley Stewart. Stewart, had liver cancer, had fell unconscious three days before his death. Kirkey reports:

MacLean was called to the house three days later, after Stewart had become unresponsive. Stewart was surrounded by his siblings, family members and friends. His three chihuahuas were perched on his bed. MacLean injected midazalom and propofol. But missing from his briefcase was a third drug that paralyzes the muscles and stops breathing. After injecting the propofol, and unable to hear a heartbeat, he pronounced Stewart dead and left.

I questioned in my previous article, if MacLean used left-over drugs from a previous killing? After reading this article it is clear that MacLean used left-over drugs from previous killings.

Kirkey writes that the death had a profound effect on the family. The family was upset about the minimal penalty that MacLean received. Kirkey writes:

They’re angry that despite finding serious concerns with Maclean’s MAID practice — including a second complaint involving his assessment of a MAID patient outside a Tim Hortons — MacLean wasn’t brought before a disciplinary hearing by his licensing college. Instead, he agreed to a minimum of six months’ clinical supervision, among other voluntary undertakings. He is permitted to continue practising MAID.

“It literally was a slap on the wrist,” Townsend said.

“It shocks me because, in a lot of jobs, that’s the kind of action that would have got someone fired and yet they are literally saying it’s remediation,” Stewart-Mott said.

“They had the ability to suspend his doing MAID but never went down that road.”

Dr Ramona Coelho

Dr Ramona Coelho a London family physician and former member of the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario’s MAID death review committee. told Williams and Kirkey in the May 27 article:

“What is striking is not only the seriousness of the concerns identified in these cases, but the limited regulatory response,”

“The level of scrutiny and accountability applied to MAID is inconsistent with how other serious medical procedures are regulated,”

Dr Coelho commented on the notion that Canada's euthanasia law operates well.

The federal government “frequently points to the absence of criminal findings or disciplinary action as evidence that the MAID system is functioning safely,” she added.

“Cases such as these, along with those documented (by the coroner’s MAID death review committee) confirm that important gaps in oversight and accountability remain.”

The Chief Coroner of Ontario established the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee that published multiple reports underlining the concerns with the law. Even though that report found cases of people who had no actual medical condition or who died by euthanasia based on poverty or a lack of proper housing, none of those cases were then brought to the CPSO to determine if any sanctions should be applied to the doctors and nurse practitioners who caused those deaths.