It is impossible to determine if a psychiatric condition is irremediable.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I had the opportunity to speak to the Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (euthanasia) on May 5, 2026 (Link to my testimony).

During the question / answer session MP Peter Schiefke (Vaudreuil) commented on his personal experience with cancer and stated that he supported euthanasia for people who are going through significant pain and near the end of life and then asked: 

What would be the argument that you would give to somebody who says that by denying someone who's sole illness is mental illness the right to access MAiD, wouldn't that be denying them their autonomy and the freedom to make choices that they deem necessary to make themselves?

I responded (paraphrased): 

I don't consider them to be an identical statement because you were talking about cancer pain and that's a completely differing thing than psychological pain. 

We are hearing psychiatrists say to us very clearly that to access a grievous and irremediable medical condition for psychiatric conditions would assume that there is a clear consensus or a clear way to say that this person is not going to get better and psychiatrists are saying that it is not possible to say that. So we are talking about a diagnosis that is not able to be confirmed as irremediable and yet the question is can be go ahead with MAiD (euthanasia) in those cases?

If it were a physical condition and we would say that condition is not irremediable, they are not dying and likely to get better, then the doctor would say that we cannot accept you for MAiD (euthanasia) and yet we are saying with mental health that we can't determine irremediability but we might do it anyway.

Even though psychiatrists are saying that it is impossible to declare a psychiatric condition as being irremediable (will not get better) some psychiatrists will decide that a person has an irremediable psychiatric condition and then approve euthanasia. People who are living with suicidal ideation and want to die by euthanasia will then doctor shop and go to that psychiatrist, who would become known as the euthanasia psychiatrist.