Euthanasia academic activist pushes euthanasia for mental illness in Canada.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Jocelyn Downie, Canada's long-time pro-euthanasia activist academic is pushing for the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness alone.

An article by Luis Millán that was published in the Lawyers Daily on June 22 reports on the passage of euthanasia Québecs expansion Bill 83 on June 11, nearly three months after the federal government passed of Bill C-7.

Canada has two separate euthanasia laws, the federal law and the Québec law. The federal government legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide by creating an exception in the Criminal Code whereas Québec legalized euthanasia by defining it as a healthcare.

When Canada's parliament passed Bill C-7 it permitted euthanasia for mental illness, but with a two year hold (sunset clause) on the practise in order to develop protocols for killing.

Professor Jocelyn Downie

Millán interviews Jocelyn Downie concerning her thoughts on the further expansion of (MAiD) euthanasia in Canada. Millán writes:

According to Dalhousie law professor Jocelyn Downie, it’s “past time to stop debating” whether individuals with mental illness should be allowed to have access to MAiD. Instead, efforts should be focused on how to regulate and implement it.

“It’s all about the how because the whether was decided when Parliament accepted the sunset clause,” said Downie, who was part of the plaintiff’s legal team in Carter and who led a group of experts exploring what the federal and Quebec governments should be doing in response to the Truchon decision. “The how part is provincial, and it’s about developing clinical practice guidelines, training programs, and operating at the level of the clinician-patient relationship, which is regulated provincially.”

Downie also recommends requiring one of the assessors be a psychiatrist where a mental disorder is the reason for the request. Refusal of established treatments should be a red flag for extra caution as it would lead to questions over the individual’s decision-making capacity. “This doesn’t justify excluding the person, but it does justify a very careful assessment of capacity,” said Downie.

Downie wants euthanasia for mental illness to be implemented quickly. Her comment on the issue of refusing treatment recognizes that Canada's euthanasia law does not require a person, who is not dying, to try effective treatments whereas protocols in the Netherlands and Belgium require people, who are not dying, to try effective treatments.

Canada's federal government and the Québec government have both established committee's to discuss the further expansion of euthanasia in Canada. 

A recent Health Canada report indicated that the number of euthanasia deaths increased by 35% with 7595 reported (MAiD) euthanasia deaths in 2020.

Further information:

• Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia deaths increased by 35% in 2020 (Link). 
• Government committee examining further expansions of Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law (Link). 
• Québec debating protocols for expanding euthanasia law (Link).
  
• Canada passed Bill C-7 permitting euthanasia for mental illness (Link).