Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Dr Ramona Coelho has written another excellent article about Canada's experience with legalized euthanasia. Her most recent article, that was published by the Hub on January 5, 2026, explains how Canadians with disabilities are feeling pressured to die by euthanasia rather than providing them the support that they need to live. The data referred to in this article is based on the 2024 euthanasia report. Ramona writes:
Dr Ramona Coelho
At his appointment, a Canadian man with ALS, a neurodegenerative disease, was told by his specialist that he was the only patient left in the practice who had progressed this far; everyone else at his stage of the disease had chosen MAiD.
As a physician who writes extensively on the topic of Canadian euthanasia and assisted dying, called medical assistance in dying (MAiD), I hear stories like his often. They reveal a truth that Health Canada’s Sixth Annual Report on MAiD mentions but barely analyzes: MAiD deaths among people with ALS far exceed natural ALS deaths. Health Canada suggests this is because treatments are limited, but that explanation is insufficient.
People with ALS, like many disabled Canadians, have many health-care needs but face limited services, inadequate disability supports, and fears of burdening others. When their MAiD deaths outnumber natural deaths, it likely reflects a system unable or unwilling to provide what they need to live.
This pattern of system failure is evident in individual stories like Sathya Kovac’s, who had ALS. “It was not a genetic disease that took me out, it was a system.” The system failed to provide adequate home care but gave her MAiD instead. Her experience echoes warnings from the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: MAiD can create a perceived duty to die among those who feel unsupported.
Health Canada’s report relies primarily on data from MAiD assessors and providers, but it does not include the detailed case reviews such as conducted by Ontario’s MAiD Death Review Committee (MDRC), of which I am a member. Without this scrutiny, Canadians cannot be reassured that coercion, deprivation, or system failures are not contributing to deaths. While Ontario’s MDRC reports included recommendations to Health Canada, it has declined to implement them, despite previously producing national MAiD guidelines. This abdication leaves no one responsible for preventing harm.
The scale of the program continues to grow. MAiD now accounts for 5.1 percent of all Canadian deaths. In 2024 alone, 16,499 Canadians died by euthanasia. Since legalization through 2024, 76,475 Canadians have died under the program. Health Canada maintains MAiD shouldn’t count as a cause of death, yet on a proportional basis, it is Canada’s fourth leading cause of death.
Track 2 MAiD, for people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable, rose 17 percent in one year, with 62 percent of these cases occurring in Quebec. Of these recipients, 56.7 percent were women, younger than Track 1 recipients (for people whose death is reasonably foreseeable), and women in both tracks were more likely than men to live in lower-income neighbourhoods. These patterns should alarm anyone concerned about structural vulnerability.
The report also downplays poverty and unmet care needs as factors in choosing MAiD, relying on limited statistical evidence. Some findings are based on postal code data, which, as disability activist Gabrielle Peters notes, can misclassify lower-income residents who live in subsidized housing located within middle-income neighbourhoods. This likely understates the true burden of poverty among MAiD recipients. The analysis also minimizes the many patients who cite fear of being a burden, loneliness, or social isolation as drivers of their suffering, all of which represent a profound social failure.
Ramona has provided an excellent analysis of how Canada's euthanasia program is causing Canadians with Disabilities to feel compelled to be killed.
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