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): 

...you were talking about cancer pain and that's a completely different 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 they go ahead with MAiD (euthanasia) in those cases?

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

 

Senator Yonah Martin (BC) agreed that Canada has not done a full review of the law. She said that the numbers show an increasing number of MAiD deaths and an increasing number of problematic situations.

Senator Martin asked the following question (Question at 20:21:30):

What do the current outcomes tell you that makes the 2027 expansion of MAiD for mental illness alone unsafe.

My response (paraphrased):

It is impossible to expand MAiD to mental illness when you consider how the current law is working and also how the language is set in the law.

If you cannot determine irremediability then obviously people would not qualify based on a mental illness. But if someone (a psychiatrist) from their own professional experience says that the person's condition is irremediable (will not get better) then it would lead to a situation of doctor shopping where people who want to die by MAiD, based on mental illness alone, would go to that specific psychiatrist because that's the one who is willing to approve them.

They (the doctors) only have to say, according to the law, that they are "of the opinion" that the person fits the criteria of the law.

Canada should not be considering the expansion of the euthanasia law to include people with mental illness alone but rather Parliament needs to fully review the law.