Canada will soon surpass 100,000 euthanasia deaths.

I predict that Canada will surpass 100,000 euthanasia deaths sometime in April 2026.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

We recently received the 2025 fourth quarter Ontario euthanasia report from the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario. 

The report stated that in Ontario there were 5303 reported euthanasia deaths in 2025 which was up from 4944 in 2024, which represented a 7.2% increase. This was up from 4641 euthanasia deaths in 2023 which represented a 6.5% increase that year. 

This indicates that the growth in euthanasia deaths is increasing, not stabilizing.

The report indicated that all Ontario MAiD deaths, in 2025, were clinician administered (euthanasia). In jurisdictions that legalize both euthanasia and assisted suicide, nearly all of the deaths are euthanasia.

Health Canada released the Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada on November 28, 2025.

The 2024 report stated that there were 16,499 reported (MAiD) Canadian euthanasia deaths which was up by 6.9% from 15,427 in 2023.

Since Ontario represents 39% of Canada's population, I conservatively predict that the number of euthanasia deaths in Canada increased by 7% in 2025 and I estimate that there were approximately 17,650 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2025.

According to Health Canada, from legalization until December 31, 2024 there were 76,475 Canadian MAiD deaths. Based on my prediction that there were about 17,650 euthanasia deaths in 2025, I predict that there were around 94,125 MAiD deaths in Canada from legalization until December 31, 2025. 

I predict that Canada will surpass 100,000 euthanasia sometime in mid - late April 2026. 

From exception to expectation.

When Canada legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide, that we called MAiD to make us feel better about poisoning people to death, we were told that it would be for people who were terminally ill and suffering. We were sold killing as a last resort solution and we were assured that it would not be common but rather it would be an exception. There was nothing further from the truth.

Canada immediately experienced euthanasia deaths that did not fit the euthanasia sales pitch. In November 2016, only a few months after legalization, we were contacted about a woman who died by euthanasia in British Columbia, who may have only had a bladder infection. 

What made the case even more grievous was that the euthanasia doctor didn't bother to do any tests to determine whether or not the woman was actually dying and when the family expressed concern about the death approval, the euthanasia doctor waived the 10-day waiting period, killing the woman within 3 days.

More recently there have been several concerning euthanasia deaths that have been published by the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario. To list a few:

• A woman was killed by euthanasia after her husband requested it for her (Read). 
• A man sought euthanasia after experiencing hospital overcrowding (Read). 
• A man with an essential tremor, who was lonely died by euthanasia (Read).  
• Some euthanasia deaths were driven by homelessness, fear and isolation (Read).
• Ontario Coroner's euthanasia report: Poor at risk of coercion (Read).
• Ontario: At least 428 non-compliant euthanasia deaths (Read).

Other notable Ontario euthanasia data:

In 2025 final consent was waived in 250 Ontario euthanasia deaths. 

One of the outcomes of passing Bill C-7 in March 2021 was that the legislation allowed doctors to kill someone who was incapable of providing final consent, as long as the person had consented to be killed while still competent. 

Therefore 1 in 21 Ontario euthanasia deaths was done to someone who was not capable of providing final consent.

Organ donation after euthanasia:

The Ontario report indicated that in 2025 only 31 of the 5303 people who died by euthanasia also became an organ donor. Some might suggest that this is insignificant, but the circumstances for approving organ donation after euthanasia are limited. Many people with a terminal condition do not have healthy organs. Since only 30% of the euthanasia deaths take place in the hospital, it is very difficult to kill someone outside of a hospital and then retrieve their organs in time for donation purposes.

Euthanasia based on disability in Ontario.

For people who were approved to be killed by euthanasia and self-identified as having a disability, the disability was: 20.37% mobility, 11.47% pain related, 7.09% flexibility, 5.36% dexterity, 2.34% hearing, 1.28% memory. Other disabilities were listed but were less common.

The youngest person to be killed by euthanasia in 2025 was 20 years old while the oldest person was 108. The average age was 78.

More data will be released by the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario and more data will be gathered from other provinces in the near future. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition will keep you up-to-date on these developments.

Medical homicide as psychiatric treatment.

All or nothing: medical homicide as psychiatric treatment

Gordon Friesen

By Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

When medical homicide is debated, the question always revolves around a balance between the (alleged) needs of that small number, who wish to die, and those of larger society, to protect others from the dangers.

In Canada it was judicially decided (wrongly in my opinion) that an 'absolute' (or 'categorical') ban was not warranted ('Carter vs Canada').

Pro-death cultists are now attempting to replicate that reasoning in the case of medical homicide for mental disorders alone. But this case will be much more difficult to make. For two things have changed in the meantime:

1) Mental illness presents a completely different context from earlier assumptions surrounding end-of-life euthanasia.

And,

2) We now possess a decade of experience, of deep social harms which were largely unsuspected when 'Carter' was first decided.

As for the first point, psychiatric homicide runs afoul of the 'irremediable condition' requirement of Canadian euthanasia. For no one can determine when psychiatric disorders are incurable. Moreover, it also contravenes the basic understanding that euthanasia will (always) be the result of a fully voluntary, informed, and capable decision.

Death-cult apologists do not entirely contest these points. However, in keeping with their all-or-nothing "no categorical exclusion" playbook, they would like to state this question more narrowly: as whether any person, with any mental disorder, in any circumstance, might ever display proper decisional capacity (or irremediable condition).

Unfortunately, however, to frame the conversation in this way, involves pretending their adversaries actually believe otherwise. In the recent debate with Maid-in-Canada, for example, such was their immediate response to our central messaging, to the effect that the symptoms of mental illness often make that sort of choice impossible:

“He (Friesen) tries to soften this by saying that mental illness often makes that sort of choice impossible, but his position seems clear: he seems to believe it is self-evident that people with mental illnesses cannot make these kinds of serious decisions.”

And so it is that the authors create a completely fanciful portrait, of my thinking, which they may then reject as "categorically false.”

Sadly, MIC continue with this charade, also, in portraying the meaning of third party references. They notably use one (and only one) phrase, without context, to dismiss the very real capacity concerns shown by the Canadian Association of Suicide Prevention:

“MAiD and suicide can, at least in principle, be distinguished”.

This snippet, they say, shows that CASP does not support my (supposed) denial of all decisional capacity among the mentally ill. However, let us explore the full thought of CASP on this crucial ‘overlap’ of medical homicide and common suicidality:

"there may be little to no overlap between MAiD and what we traditionally understand as suicide in those people seeking MAiD at the end of life. In contrast, the risk of overlap increases precipitously for those seeking MAiD for chronic, non-life threatening conditions and, in particular, for mental disorders."

Although we may disagree with the implied trivialization of medical homicide at the end of life, we strongly agree with the conclusion ultimately reached: that the serious (and generally admitted) capacity problem, of differentiating "rational" desires from common suicidality, creates a much larger potential, for social harm, when the subject is medical homicide for mental illness, than if that problem is considered in the original end-of-life context, or even that of "grievous and irremediable (physical) condition". Hence the rationale for a complete prohibition (in this more limited circumstance) becomes that much stronger also.

Practically speaking, this means that Bill C-218, for mental illness alone, stands a far greater chance of surviving constitutional challenge, than did previous law prohibiting all forms of consensual homicide.

But if that were not enough, let us consider the following, from the same source:

“Regarding the capacity for a patient to consent to MAiD, the very nature of mental disorders may impair the decision-making capacity of the patient. Those suffering from a mental disorder are routinely encouraged to avoid making major decisions while in the midst of their suffering. The decision of ending one’s life prematurely is enormous and grave and must not be made while in the throes of mental illness.”

There is not much ambiguity in the meaning of that paragraph.

The capacity/suicidality problem clearly constitutes an extremely serious motive for prohibiting the use of homicide as a treatment for mental illness.

No medical homicide for mental illness. Support Bill C-218