Important insight into decision to reject euthanasia for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

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, which is also the 10th Anniversary of the legalization of euthanasia in Canada.

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 is not over.

Possibly the most interesting parts of the AMAD Committee report were the supplemental reports from the members of the Committee. 

Dr Marcus Powlowski MP

The supplemental report (starting at page 63 of the report) from AMAD Committee Chair, Marcus Powlowski, (Liberal MP from Thunder Bay - Rainy River) and a physician is most interesting. Powlowski's arguements may influence Canada's future euthanasia debates.

Powlowski first examined Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) with regard to not permitting euthanasia for mental illness alone. he writes:

Unfortunately, the discourse about whether to allow MAiD for mental illness seems to have been largely reduced to the somewhat simplistic question of whether not allowing it is a violation of the Charter. The argument being if we allow MAiD for physical illness, but do not allow it for those with mental illness, we discriminate against those with mental illness (under s.15) and inappropriately restrict their liberty or threaten their security (s.7)...

Powlowski explains his position on Canada's Charter:

I think the courts ought to conclude, as did our committee, that not allowing MAiD for mental illness, until such time as some fundamental concerns are addressed, is a reasonable limitation under s.1. These fundamental concerns are the difficulty/perhaps even impossibility of determining irremediability of mental suffering (a core requirement under the law), and the lack of ability to distinguish suicidality from rational decision making in someone with a mental illness (I will return to this issue, and explain why it is so important, at the end of this submission). Numerous witnesses cited these concerns as reasons why we should decline to expand MAiD to this population.

The Supreme Court of Canada Carter decision did not obligate the government to permit euthanasia for mental illness alone, but even when interpreted in that manner, I agree with Powlowski that not permitting euthanasia for mental illness is a reasonable limitation.

Powlowski then deals with the question of "readiness" to expand euthanasia to people with a mental illness alone.

In addition, although some, perhaps a majority, of MAiD providers assured us of their readiness to provide MAiD for mental illness, and the adequacy of existing safeguards, we also heard disturbing stories of questionable conduct by some MAiD providers. Given what we heard it is hard not to conclude that some providers take an exceedingly expansive interpretation of what constitutes "serious and incurable illness, disease or disability", what constitutes an "advanced state of irreversible decline in capability"; and what constitutes "enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable". Furthermore, we heard stories of doctors with a seemingly cavalier attitude towards ending a life. 

Although we were assured that mechanisms, such as Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, would provide adequate safeguards, we were presented with scant, if any, evidence to indicate that such bodies have, as of yet, seriously pursued allegations of misconduct by MAiD providers. This does not mean that colleges have not received complaints or looked into them. As the president of the Nova Scotia College of Physicians and Surgeons pointed out- colleges only publish the reports of hearings when there has been a finding of wrong doing. That being said the paucity of any prosecutions of providers, combined with the suggestion by a number of witnesses that in fact there seems to be a lacunae of law enforcement when it came to MAiD ought to give rise to concern. Several witnesses suggested the criminal system, the medical colleges, and at times government Ministry's responsible for MAiD provision (BC), all allegedly treat enforcement as someone else's responsibility. Given the lack of evidence to the contrary it is frankly difficult to believe that the system is ready to expand.

This may be the most important comment by Powlowski. As the chair of the committee he recognizes that Canada's euthanasia law lacks effective oversight and is saying that expansion to people with mental illness alone would not be safe.

Further to that, his comments are important to the argument by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) that Parliament needs to completely review the law. The evidence suggests that the law lacks oversight, but further to that, the original law required a complete review and that has not happened.

Powlowski then argues that since Canada's law requires a person to have an irremediable medical condition, that the law would need to be amended to approve euthanasia for mental illness alone. He wrote:

But perhaps we will never be ready for MAiD for mental illness as the law is currently written. Numerous very experienced psychiatrists told us of seemingly irremediable cases where for some reason patients, after prolonged periods of seemingly irremediable suffering, the person eventually got better and started to enjoy life again. Furthermore, what evidence there is seems to suggest psychiatrists can not accurately predict who will not get better. 

Perhaps the simplest solution to the legal question is to recognize the requirement of irremediability as being dispositive of the issue. The law as written requires irremediability. If there is really no way to accurately determine irremediability it would seem we would need to change the law if we want to allow for MAiD for mental illness.

Jocelyne Downie

Powlowski suggests that based on irremediability that many euthanasia deaths for physical illness also do not qualify within the law. He writes:

We did, I would acknowledge, hear the argument that perhaps with some physical illness irremediability is not certain either (the argument was most forcibly made by Professor Downie- a law professor not a medical clinician). To the extent that there are such cases I would suggest it would be more appropriate to question whether MAiD is appropriate in any such case where there is uncertainty over the medical prognosis - rather than to accept the conclusion of those practitioners who suggested they were "comfortable" with making a decision about irremediability even if there was inherently some inability to come to that conclusion with reasonable certainty. 

Powlowski then answers the question about the role of parliament and the role of the courts. He writes:

I would suggest the elected legislature is totally justified in drawing a line, in deciding that we are unwilling to support the state enabling physicians to taking the life of someone who, perhaps, would have gotten better. The decision of whether we do so is a moral decision and very much a reflection of what we value as a society. As such it is a decision more appropriately made by those of us who are elected by the members of society, and who are ultimately accountable to the people- at the poll box, rather than the unelected courts.

This is important since Claire Brosseau and the euthanasia lobby are seeking an emergency court decision that would approve Brosseau for death by lethal poison based on mental illness alone. The euthanasia lobby want the court to legislate from the bench by approving that Brosseau be killed. 

EPC is intervening in the Brosseau court case concerning euthanasia for mental illness alone.

Powlowski made many more important comments but his closing argument is important:

In recommending that we not extend MAiD to those with mental illness we are not suggesting embarking on a new path of prohibiting suicide, or further trying to limit people's autonomy. We are suggesting the state decline to provide assistance to people with mental illness ending their lives and decline to allow medical professionals to actively do it for them.

EPC opposes killing people but we are not limiting a persons autonomy but rather we oppose the state giving doctors and nurse practitioners the right in law to kill people. When a doctor or a nurse pracitioner kills you, it is not about autonomy, it is about someone else killing you.

The EPC presentation to the AMAD Committee on May 5 urged Parliament to do a complete review of the 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.

In April 2026, Canada surpassed 100,000 euthanasia deaths since legalization. Many of these deaths have been controversial and were outside the intent of the law.

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.

Canada's disabled deserve supports, not faster path to death

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Krista Carr

Krista Carr, the CEO of Inclusion Canada had a special article published in the London Free Press on June 15, 2026.

This article was published two days before the report of the Special Joint Euthanasia Committee report recommending that the Canadian government not extend euthanasia to mental illness alone.

Carr explains that the Canada's original euthanasia law that was passed in 2016 was essentially limited to people with a terminal condition who were suffering.

Carr suggests that most Canadians believe that the law remains the same, but in fact Canada's law was expanded in 2021 to include people with disabilities who are not terminally ill. Carr explains:

But Canada’s MAID framework has evolved significantly since then. In 2021, Parliament expanded the law through Bill C-7, creating two pathways for assisted death. The first pathway applies to people whose natural death is imminent and expected soon (reasonably foreseeable).

The second — known as “Track 2” — allows separate access to MAID for individuals with disabilities who are not dying.

This expansion fundamentally changed the scope of assisted dying in Canada.

Track 2 means that assisted suicide may be available to people living with disabilities even when they are not nearing the end of life. Thousands of Canadians have already accessed MAID through this pathway. Between 2021 and 2024, a total of 2,050 people died from Track 2 MAID.

Carr explains the significance with expanding the law.

People with disabilities and disability organizations across the country have warned that Track 2 creates serious risks. Many individuals seeking MAID have described suffering related not to medical conditions alone but to poverty, housing insecurity, social isolation or lack of disability supports.

These are not medical failures. They are social failures.

For people with intellectual disabilities and many others in the disability community, the concern is straightforward: no one should feel that assisted suicide is easier to access than the supports needed to live with dignity.

Carr suggests that Canada's euthanasia law combined with homelessness, poverty and a gap in disability supports, combined poor access to mental health and community supports has created a serious problem for people with disabilities. Carr writes:

Against this broken backdrop, expanding assisted death beyond end-of-life situations risks sending a troubling message — that the suffering created by social inequality can be addressed through assisted suicide rather than social reform.

And now Parliament is once again debating whether to expand MAID further to also include mental illness. But what happened to suicide prevention? Are people with disabilities not entitled to the same suicide prevention as everyone else?

Carr then comments on the recent parliamentary hearings by the Special Joint Committee on Medical Aid in Dying, that yesterday recommended to parliament that euthanasia for mental illness not be implemented in Canada. Carr continued

Legitimate questions have been raised about whether Canada’s current framework adequately protects people who are living with structural disadvantage. 

These questions are now before the courts. A coalition of disability organizations, including Inclusion Canada, has launched a Charter challenge arguing that Track 2 violates equality rights and the right to life guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The case asks whether Canada’s laws are discriminating against people with disabilities by allowing assisted death in circumstances where death is not imminent. 

Canadians should agree on one principle: people with disabilities deserve the same commitment to dignity, support and opportunity as anyone else. 

Persons with disabilities deserve the same response other Canadians receive when they are suffering: investment in supports, housing, and mental health services, not a faster path to death. Our politicians should be helping people live meaningful lives, not end them.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports the challenge by Inclusion Canada to eliminate Track 2 euthanasia (people who are not otherwise dying). We agree that Canada's euthanasia law focuses on killing people with disabilities with Track 2 cases being exclusively for people with disabilities.

We also thank Krista Carr and Inclusion Canada for their leadership. 

Mental illness will be indefinitely excluded from euthanasia in Canada.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

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, which is also the 10th Anniversary of the legalization of euthanasia in Canada.

The AMAD Committee decided whether Canada should 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 has decided that Canada should not implement euthanasia for mental illness, but the battle is not over. 

EPC is intervening in a court case concerning euthanasia for mental illness alone. Claire Brosseau and the euthanasia lobby are seeking an emergency court decision that would approve Brosseau for death by lethal poison based on mental illness alone. In essence, the euthanasia lobby want the court to legislate from the bench by approving that Brosseau be killed.

Even though the parliamentary committee is recommending that euthanasia for mental illness be indefinitely excluded from the law, a judge may legislate from the bench that Brosseau, and in turn others, can be killed by euthanasia based on mental illness alone.

Marcus Powlowski (MP)

Marcus Powlowski, the co-chair of the AMAD Committee a Liberal MP from Thunder Bay - Rainy River, and a physician provided some excellent insight into his reasoning in the report. He wrote:

In addition, although some, perhaps a majority, of MAiD providers assured us of their readiness to provide MAiD for mental illness, and the adequacy of existing safeguards, we also heard disturbing stories of questionable conduct by some MAiD providers. Given what we heard it is hard not to conclude that some providers take an exceedingly expansive interpretation of what constitutes "serious and incurable illness, disease or disability", what constitutes an "advanced state of irreversible decline in capability"; and what constitutes "enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable". Furthermore, we heard stories of doctors with a seemingly cavalier attitude towards ending a life. (page 64)

In his comments, Powlowski appears to agree with EPC that there needs to be a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law. The report recognized our statement to the Parliament Committee on May 5 by including our statement on page 28:

Alexander Schadenberg, of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, asserted that, rather than expanding MAID,

Parliament needs to examine how Canada’s euthanasia law is actually functioning. How has the law been implemented? Is it achieving its intended outcomes? Are there abuses of the law based on its original intention? Does the law require amendments?

There were presenters that commented, at the parliamentary committee, on potential abuses associated with Canada's euthanasia law, but only EPC pointed out that parliament was required to provide a complete review of the law in 2020, but it never did. Sign our petition urging Canada's parliament to completely review the law. (Petition Link)

Secondly Powlowski suggests that, based on the language of the law, euthanasia for mental illness should never be permitted. He writes:

But perhaps we will never be ready for MAiD for mental illness as the law is currently written. Numerous very experienced psychiatrists told us of seemingly irremediable cases where for some reason patients, after prolonged periods of seemingly irremediable suffering, the person eventually got better and started to enjoy life again. Furthermore, what evidence there is seems to suggest psychiatrists can not accurately predict who will not get better. (page 64)

EPC supports Bill C-218 which is the private members bill that was introduced by Tamara Jansen (MP) to prevent euthanasia for mental illness alone in Canada.

Now that the Parliamentary Committee on euthanasia has decided to prevent the expansion of euthanasia to mental illness alone, EPC once again urges Canadians to sign our petition in support of Bill C-218. (Petition Link).

The best way to prevent euthanasia for mental illness is for parliament to pass Bill C-218. 

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.

• Mental illness will be indefinitely excluded for euthanasia in Canada (Read).

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is pleased that the Canadian Government AMAD Committee has recommended that Canada not extend the law 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 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).

Dr Paul Saba

Dr Paul Saba, a family physician in Lachine QC, said that:

90 percent of people who die by suicide have a mental disorder at the time that they end their lives. Most who attempt or complete suicide do not truly want to die - they want to escape their emotional distress.

A Harvard School of Public Health study found that 9 out of 10 people who attempt suicide but survived did not die by suicide after receiving treatment. With proper care, the desire for suicide often disappears.

I have given my life caring for people at their lowest. What I've learned is that True Compassion means supporting people through their dark times, not ending their lives.

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.