Food Bank clients asking for euthanasia because of poverty.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Meagan Nicholls who is a director of a food bank in Mississauga Ontario, near Toronto, wrote an article that was published by Maclean's Magazine on November 30, 2022 stating that:

“Clients are telling us they're considering medically assisted death or suicide because they can’t live in grinding poverty anymore.”

Nicholls states that demand on the food bank has increased by 60% since the pandemic. She stated that in the past they served 19,000 people per year and they are now serving 30,000 people per year. She also said that the increase in the cost of food has led to a 30% increase in demand for the food bank this year.

Nicholls then writes:

Meanwhile, the government has weakened our social safety net to a disheartening degree. At the provincial level, Ontario Works (our welfare system) and the Ontario Disability Support Program are woefully underfunded. We’re at the point where clients on these programs are telling us they’re considering medically assisted death or suicide because they can’t live in grinding poverty anymore. A client in our Food Bank 2 Home delivery program told one of our staff that they’re considering suicide because they’re so tired of suffering through poverty. Another client asked if we knew how to apply for MAID for the same reasons. We can’t underestimate the effect that poverty has on someone’s mental health. Our clients live with constant worry, and cut corners on needed items like medication, fresh food, or warm clothes—constantly living under that stress takes its toll mentally, emotionally and physically.

I don’t know how to ring the alarm bell any louder. When people start telling us they’re going to end their life because they can’t live in poverty anymore, it’s clear that we’ve failed them.

This is a significant article because Nicholls is genuinely shocked that people would be seking to be killed because of poverty. 

Since expanding euthanasia to people with chronic conditions who are not terminally ill, Canada has had a large number of euthanasia of people with disabilities who are asking to be killed because of poverty, homelessness and an inability to get necessary medical treatment.

Links to more stories of the euthanasia experience in Canada:

• Man changed his mind about euthanasia after receiving a wheelchair lift (Link)
• Veterans affairs offers euthanasia to former paralympian (Link).
• Veterans affairs worker advocates euthanasia for PTSD (Link).
• Canadian man claims that he was pressured to request euthanasia (Link).
  
• Why did they kill my brother (Link).
  
• Manitoba woman died by euthanasia based on inadequate home care (Link).
• Quebec man seeks euthanasia based on changes to home care (Link). 
• Alberta man requests euthanasia based on poverty (Link).
• Ontario man approved for euthanasia because he can't get medical treatment (Link).
• Shopping for doctor death in Canada (Link).
• Gwen is seeking euthanasia because she can't access medical treatment (Link).
• Euthanasia for disability and poverty (Link).
• Euthanasia for Long Covid and poverty (Link).
• Canada's MAiD law is the most permissive in the world. (Link).