Euthanasia activist says that Canada must allow euthanasia for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Jocelyn Downie

Tristan Hopper reported for the National Post on April 9 that Jocelyn Downie, a long-time euthanasia academic told Canada's Parliamentary Committee on euthanasia, that is studying euthanasia for mental illness alone, that parliament must stick to the March 17, 2027 timeline and permit euthanasia based on mental illness alone. Downie threatened the committee by stating:

“What will happen, if there is an extension or an exclusion, is that people will die by suicide”

Downie is saying that the answer to suicidal ideation is suicide and people will die by suicide if they do not have access to euthanasia.

The threat that people who are denied euthanasia will die by suicide is a pressure tactic that is not true. 

The Supreme Court of Canada accepted the suicide argument in Carter when it struck down Canada's laws that protected people from being killed by euthanasia, but the Supreme Court was wrong.

If the premise that people will die by suicide if euthanasia is not available to them is correct then Canada's suicide rate should have gone down after euthanasia became an option for people who are not terminally ill.

But Canada's suicide rate has increased.

According to the Government of Canada suicide mortality statistics, there were 3,978 recorded suicide deaths in Canada in 2016, the year that Canada legalized euthanasia. In 2021, the year that Canada expanded the euthanasia law to people who are not terminally ill, there were 3,927 recorded suicide deaths. In 2023, two years after extending euthanasia to people who are not terminally ill, there were 4,735 reported suicide deaths in Canada, representing a greater than 20% increase from 2021.

I am not arguing that Canada's increase in suicide deaths was directly related to Canada's expansion of euthanasia, but I am saying that if Jocelyn Downie was correct, the suicide rate should have decreased, whereas in fact it has significantly increased.

Canada has had a massive increase in deaths by euthanasia.

Health Canada released their Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada on November 28, 2025 (2024 deaths) which indicated a 6.9% increase from the Fifth Annual report (2023 deaths).

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

In 2025, we know that euthanasia increased by 7.3% in Ontario and 11% increase in Alberta. 

 

I predict that in 2025, the increase in Canadian (MAiD) euthanasia deaths was greater than 7% with the number of euthanasia deaths being approximately 17,700.

 

Clearly, there is no indication that the massive growth in Canadian euthanasia deaths has resulted in a lower rate of other suicides.

Suicide rates do not decrease in jurisdictions that have legalized euthanasia or assisted suicide.

Senator Stanley Kutcher

In December 2020 I responded to a statement by Canadian Senator Stanley Kutcher who said:

in jurisdictions, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, where assisted death is legal, that the suicide rates have decreased. He then stated that there is no link between assisted death and the rate of suicide in jurisdictions where it is legal.

The problem with Senator Kutcher's statement was that he was absolutely wrong. 

In the article I explain that in jurisdictions that have legalized euthanasia or assisted suicide, there are no jurisdictions, that over a long period of time, have experienced a decrease in suicide deaths.

Further to that, in February 2022 bio-ethicist David Albert Jones published an article explaining that: In Europe, suicides rise after ‘right-to-die’ is legalised. Jones provided a comparison between European countries that have legalized assisted dying and those that had not legalized it and found that countries that had legalized assisted dying experienced an increase in suicide rates compared to countries that had not legalized assisted dying who generally had a lessening of the suicide rate.

In other words, Downie is using a false argument to scare monger Members of Parliament into approving euthanasia for mental illness alone. Downie uses court decisions to uphold her position but the Justices are not suicide prevention experts and in fact are wrong in their assumption that legalizing euthanasia will prevent suicide. 

Minimally speaking, legalizing euthanasia does not lead to a decrease in suicide rates and the data suggests that legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide has a suicide contagion effect leading, long term, to higher suicide rates.

More articles on this topic:

• Legalizing assisted suicide does not decrease other suicide deaths (Read).
• Suicide rates in jurisdictions that have legalized assisted death are not decreasing (Link).
• Legal assisted suicide encourages other suicide (Link).
• The Supreme Court of Canada was wrong on assisted dying (Link).