Medical Homicide for the Treatment of Mental Illness: The Role of Decisional Capacity

The following post is part of a structured, multi-week, simultaneously published exchange between Kim Carlson and Paul Magennis, authors of  MAiD in Canada, and Gordon Friesen, President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. These alternating messages will explore deeply divergent views on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), and no mutual endorsement is implied. 

Medical Homicide for the Treatment of Mental Illness: 

The Role of Decisional Capacity

Gordon Friesen

Gordon Friesen, January 10, 2026

(N.B. Some readers may find the term "medical homicide" to be unnecessarily pejorative. I respectfully disagree. It is the taking of human life, itself, which causes such anxiety, not the words chosen to represent it.

"Homicide", is a neutral, Latin, technical term. It may be "culpable", or "non-culpable". It is for advocates of so-called "medical assistance in dying" to explain why this allegedly "medical" instance should be viewed as one, rather than the other.)

On October 28, 2025, at our Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Parliamentary Press Gallery Conference in support of Bill C-218 (introduced to prohibit the practice of medical homicide for mental illness alone) I made the following statement regarding the decisional capacity reasonably required for such practice:

"the symptoms of mental illness often make that sort of (...free, informed, competent, adult) choice impossible."

In a later critique of our Conference, Maid in Canada (M.I.C) responded:

"Some mental illnesses can impair decision-making in certain circumstances, but it is simply untrue that they always do — or even often do. In reality, most people living with mental illness retain the ability to make serious and informed decisions about their lives, including end-of-life decisions, most of the time."

I do not disagree with much of this quote as written.

I do, however, consider it irrelevant to the question posed here: Does compromised decisional capacity provide a serious reason to oppose the practice of medical homicide, particularly for the treatment of mental illness alone? Clearly, I think it does.

In judging that claim I believe we must consider two things: first, the standard of decision-making capacity ethically required for medical homicide; and second, whether those people most likely to access medical homicide, for reasons of mental illness, actually meet that standard.

(Please note: it is not the case that we must prove capacity deficit in all sufferers of mental illness. We must only show that those people most likely to consider a recourse to medical homicide, are themselves, most likely to fall short of the exceedingly high capacity bar, which must logically be set for that practice.

For our concern is not with "most  people ...  most of the time (my emphasis)". It is with the most severely afflicted people, in the worst possible times.)

As M.I.C. further notes, "capacity is always presumed unless there is a clear reason to question it". And in a medical context, it is easy to understand why.

Since medical procedures are normally understood to be of great benefit, obtaining consent should be as easy as possible. But there are, indeed, times when society intervenes to deny decisional capacity, and hence, to deny the operation of autonomous choice. Basic procedure, in such cases, requires that capacity be proportional to the importance of the decision in review.

Traditionally, there is no decision considered more important than that of voluntary death (such as refusal, or withdrawal, of care). And contested autonomy will accordingly be most frequent in these. But, the medical homicide of a person suffering from mental illness, alone, is a much weightier choice than any typical removal of care. For in this case, there is no preexisting, organic, survival crisis. From a somatic perspective, the patient may be in excellent health.

Logically, then, it is the strictest possible standards of capacity ever seen in the treatment of mental illness --being those related to immediate prevention of suicide-- which should automatically apply to any request for medical homicide.

To be clear on this point:

1) It is clinical standard of care, for psychiatrists, to presume that suicidal desires result from cognitive distortions produced by mental illness. (And it is these distortions which are understood to impair decisional capacity.)

2) As for the claim that a desire for medical homicide is fundamentally different from common suicidality: The Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention denies any such distinction;[i] and the American Association of Suicidology --which once held a position differentiating the two-- has since withdrawn it.[ii] [iii] Furthermore, most psychiatrists recognize that such a distinction (even if it existed) could not be clinically established.[iv]

Finally, those who believe we might potentially tell the difference, between medical homicide request and ordinary suicidal ideation, base their suggestion on the hypothetical possibility of ruling out mental illness to begin with (a position, which ironically argues against any access to medical homicide for the mentally ill).[v]

(Yet, even were this a valid line of reasoning, psychiatrists frequently fail to detect serious mental illness. And depression has long been observed to exist in a large proportion of medical homicide deaths.)[vi]

Taken together, these facts would seem to indicate: a) that the nexus of suicidality and capacity impairment presents an insurmountable clinical obstacle to any ethical scheme of voluntary medical homicide; b) that this difficulty becomes exponentially greater for persons with mental illness; and c) that it would be ethically unthinkable to permit medical homicide as a treatment for mental illness itself.

Impaired decisional capacity, therefore, is clearly a serious argument against the ethical practice of medical homicide (especially) for mental illness.

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

---

[i] Canadian Society for Suicide Prevention , Statement on MAID for mental illness, December 2022 https://suicideprevention.ca/media/casp-issues-statement-about-maid-for-mental-illness/

[ii]  American Association of Suicidology, Update on Physician Assisted Death Previous Statement https://suicidology.org/aas-update-on-physician-assisted-death-previous-statement/

[iii] Good Old News: In Early 2023, Suicidology Group Withdrew Statement NDY Protested, Not Dead Yet, July 10, 2023. https://notdeadyet.org/good-old-news-in-early-2023-suicidology-group-withdrew-statement-ndy-protested/

[iv]  More Canadian Psychiatrists Respond: No MAiD For Mental Illness, Impact Ethics, November 28, 2023 https://impactethics.ca/2023/11/28/more-canadian-psychiatrists-respond-no-maid-for-mental-illness/

[v] Abdi Sanati, Does suicide always indicate a mental illness? London Journal of Primary Care, 2009, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4222167/

[vi]  Ganzini, Linda; Goy, Elizabeth R.; Dobscha, Steven K.; Prevalence of depression and anxiety in patients requesting physicians' aid in dying: cross sectional survey, BMJ, October 7, 2008 (shows three of 9 deaths = 33%) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18842645/

Canadian woman was approved for euthanasia is now being treated by US doctors.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Jolene Van Alstine

On December 10, 2025 Joe Warmington reported for the Toronto Sun that Glenn Beck, an American political commentator, offered to cover the cost of medical treatment in America for Jolene Van Alstine, who lives in Regina Canada. 

Van Alstine was approved for euthanasia rather than provided surgery or medical treatment for her rare medical condition.

On January 7, 2026, Joe Warmington reported for the Toronto Sun that Glenn Beck has helped Van Alstine receive treatment and her condition is improving. Warmington wrote:

If not for American Glenn Beck, Canadian Jolene Van Alstine could have been dead today.

The day Jan. 7, 2026, was the day Jolene was eligible to end her life with medical assistance under the supervision of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program.

Thankfully, that’s not happening now. Instead, the 45-year-old Saskatchewan wife and mother has not only chosen to live but is fighting hard. She’s getting a lot of help and prayers from across Canada and the United States.

Warmington continued:

Things are going in a better direction for Jolene. For this first time in years, things are looking up for a change.

A lot of that credit goes to iconic American conservsative podcaster and journalist Beck, who used his platform, respect and clout to put out a cold call to the American medical community to see if they would assist keeping this woman alive and also help her deal with her chronic gland issues best described as a rare and extremely painful parathyroid disorder.

Warmington explains what happened:

There is currently no Saskatchewan surgeon able to perform the operation she required.

Beck offered to fly Jolene and her partner Miles Sundeen to the Norman Parathyroid Center near Tampa, which pledged to cover the cost of her surgery or treatment.

The team of doctors are first providing treatment for Van Alstines condition with the hope of averting surgery.

Jolene Van Alstine recent selfie

Warmington explains:

Jolene said doctors told her “if it brings my parathyroid levels down to low normal, then I don’t need another surgery, I need an endocrinologist who deals with patients who need monitoring of their calcium, vitamin D and magnesium levels and can adjust them as needed.”

However, “if it does not bring my levels down then there is still another gland inside me somewhere that is overactive.”

Another operation is possible. But hopefully not.

Either way, she’s still in pain and discomfort. However, Jolene is starting to see a light at the end of what has been a very dark three-year tunnel. Now she has hope.

Warmington stated that Beck has been regularly calling Van Alstine about how she is doing. Jolene said that she is doing a lot better now. She told Warmington that:

“I never wanted to go through with MAID but I lost hope,” she said. “I’m Roman Catholic. Suicide is a sin, but I just couldn’t stand the pain and nausea and vomiting and overheating 24/7.”

She said she found herself “sleeping underneath a cooling blanket at night with the temperature turned down anywhere from 16.5 C to 13 C, sometimes sleeping on the cold bathroom floor with cold water running in the shower, throwing up my medications into a bucket in the bathroom and them fishing out my pills and then having to actually retake them (the ones I threw up) because a lot of them can’t be filled early because they are controlled substances.”

She joked that sometimes she thought about sitting in a Saskatchewan snowbank.

Her sense of humour was starting to show Wednesday, and she managed to put a smile on her face. She knows she’s not out of the woods yet. But she’s in a more positive mood knowing so many care about her and that the medical community is working hard on her problem now.

“I’m just praying that I get treatment, whether it be medication or surgery. I just want to feel well again,” she said.

In a couple of weeks, Jolene hopes to have a better idea of just where she stands.

Jennifer Brady

The December 10th article concluded with Van Alstine stating that she does not want to die by euthanasia (MAiD), she wants to receive effective treatment for her medical condition. Van Alstine is not the first Canadian to face this scenario.

An article by Angela McIvor that was published by CBC News on September 18, 2024 reported that Jennifer Brady, who lives in Nova Scotia, was approved for MAiD (euthanasia) after being unable to obtain treatment for Lymphedema.

The good news is that an update to the story that was published by CBC News on September 18, 2025 explained that Brady won a 6-year court battle with the Nova Scotia government and has received treatment in New Jersey.

McIvor had to fight to be approved for treatment, but had no problem being approved for euthanasia.

Allison Ducluzeau

In December 2023 I published an article about Allison Ducluzeau who lives in Victoria BC. Decluzeau was diagnosed with abdominal cancer and offered MAiD (euthanasia) rather than treatment. she was successfully treated at the Institute for Cancer Care at Mercy Medical Centre in Baltimore.

Allison Ducluzeau was offered euthanasia but not medical treatment. The Ducluzeau story concerned the fact that she was suing the BC Ministry of Health for the cost of the successful treatment that she received in Baltimore.

The wedding picture of Ducluzeau was taken in Hawaii. After Ducluzeau went into remission she decided to get married.

Van Alstine, Brady and Ducluzeau were all able to die by euthanasia but were not offered medical treatment for their conditions. Brady and Ducluzeau were successfully treated in the US. These are three out of many stories of Canadians who were denied or not offered effective medical treatment.

What does it mean to coerce someone to death?

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

What does it mean to coerce someone to death?

Coercion the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats. 

Subtle coercion means manipulating someone into doing something they don't want to do through non-physical, often gradual tactics.

This week I received a call from a woman who was very upset about the euthanasia death of her nephew who was in his 50's, was never married and had multiple health issues.

She told me that she spoke to him a few days before his death and during the conversation she realized that he was being offered euthanasia. She spoke to him about it and he told her that he wants to live.

Being offered euthanasia is common. Every major hospital in Canada has a MAiD team that not only approves and carries out the death, but they also offer death.

After his death she received a call from an immediate family member of the nephew concerning his death. The family member described the death with glowing language. 

When she stated that she had spoken to the nephew recently and he told her that he wanted to live, the immediate family member responded by saying it was for the best.

Who wanted the nephew to die?

Was it a medical practitioner?

Was it the immediate family member(s)?

Was it the nephew, even though he said to his Aunt that he wanted to live?

Subtle coercion is often all that it takes when someone is experiences multiple health issues and needs the love and support of close family members, but instead is told, it is for the best.

The woman who called me wanted to know how she could be assured that she would not be killed by euthanasia?

I told her that the law is problematic but the Life Protecting Power of Attorney for Personal Care clearly states that you do not want euthanasia or assisted suicide, as well as it lists how you would want to be treated or not treated. 

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has documents that are designed for all 50 states and for the different Canadian provinces. (Article about the Life Protecting Power of Attorney)

“Disability Issues Lesson 4: Please Do Not Use The R Word”

Meghan Schrader

By Meghan Schrader

Meghan is an instructor at E4 - University of Texas (Austin) and is a member of the EPC-USA board. 

As I’ve said, I think it’s valuable for all euthanasia opponents to keep abreast of various trends in policy and culture that impact people with disabilities, in order to ensure that opposition to euthanasia remains linked to broader efforts to promote the inclusion and dignity of people with disabilities. So, this is a disability issues lesson about the terms “retard” and “retarded.”

Despite my facility with words, my Nonverbal Learning Disorder comes from a mild brain injury that I got while I was being born, and back in 1995, when “retarded” was still a formal medical term, a clinician accurately described my visual-spatial skills as falling into the “moderately retarded” range.

When I was growing up, bullies loved few things more than to band into groups that would follow me around and call me a “retard.” Sometimes random people I had never met would walk up to me at school to tell me that I was “retarded.” Often when bullies used that term, they followed it up by saying things like, “Everyone hates you,” and “I’m going to throw acid on you in science class.” Or, since the bullies knew how often my “retarded” visual-spatial skills caused me to get lost, they would try to disorient me on purpose, so that they could, you know, remind me that I was “retarded.”

Therefore, it hurts me to read that some people have decided to use the r word as what USA Today called “a principled stand against what they call "cultural Marxism" being imposed on the country by progressives.”

If that’s you, please stop. Using the r word reinforces a pattern of people from all ideologies and political perspectives using disabled people to make a political point. This is not a partisan issue; I’ve seen people who identify as political progressives and all other backgrounds engage in harmful behavior. I am quoting the aforesaid USA Today article simply because it recounts more recent uses of the r word by powerful, visible people.

It is not necessary to use the r word to take a political stand; there are plenty of other ways for people bickering over politics to express that they do not like their opponents’ ideologies. Yet, despite decades of disabled people and disability rights advocates asking people not to use the r word, people from across the ideological spectrum can’t seem to get the memo.

As most readers probably know, President Trump used the term “seriously retarded” to refer to Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz and then proudly doubled down on his use of the term. (Waltz then played ableist political rhetoric frisbee by telling President Trump to get an MRI.) Apparently Elon Musk has used the r word repeatedly, and radio host Seth Rogan has stated, “The word ‘r-----ed’ is back and it’s one of the great culture victories.”

No. Using a term connected to disabled people’s personal experiences of hate and abuse is not a “cultural victory.” Irrespective of who a person is or what other political beliefs they hold, it is perfectly reasonable for disabled people to want a culture where the terms “retard” and “retarded” are treated like slurs.

Regardless of anyone’s intent, the r word is intertwined with humanity’s history of undermining the intrinsic human worth of disabled persons. Therefore, I urge all euthanasia opponents to refrain from using the r word as an act of respect.

At least 15 Canadian prisoners have been killed by euthanasia since legalization.

Alex Schadenberg

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On December 3, 2025, Canada's Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness responded to a request by Garnet Genuis (MP) (Sherwood Park - Fort Saskatchewan Alberta) reported that from legalization until September 2025 - 15 federal inmates have been killed by (MAiD) euthanasia.

Considering the fact that Canada abolished the death penalty in two main stages: first for civilian crimes in 1976 (Bill C-84), replacing it with a mandatory life sentence, and then completely for all military offences in 1998. The last civilian executions happened in December, 1962, with the final military executions in 1945.

This is not the first concern about this issue. Tristan Hopper wrote an article that was published in the National Post in May 2023 asking if Euthanasia of Canadian prisoners is a form of capital punishment?

Hopper wrote that, at that time, nine prisoners had died by euthanasia in Canada. The APTN network reported that the first three prisoners to die by euthanasia were indiginous Canadians who remained shackled during the killing.

Ivan Zinger

Hopper's report stated that Ivan Zinger, Canada's Correctional Investigator, told Kathleen Martens, the reporter for the APTN network, that euthanasia should never be done in the prison. He stated:

“Under no circumstances should the procedure of MAiD be dealt with inside a penitentiary,”

“That is highly problematic, unethical and immoral in my view. I think we would be the only jurisdiction in the world who would do that.”Kim Beaudin, vice-chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and a member of corrections’ National Aboriginal Advisory Committee opposes (MAiD) euthanasia being done in prisons. 

According to Canada's Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness December 3 report that of the 15 Canadian prisoners who died by euthanasia, 14 were killed in an external facility and 1 died in the correctional facility.

I have always opposed capital punishment because I do not believe that the government should have the right in law to kill it's citizens.

In the same way, I do not believe that medical practitioners should have the right in law to kill people.

Canada’s Dr. Death — Ellen Wiebe Poisoned The Wrong Person This Time.

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her substack on January 8, 2026.

Article: The tragic death of a young man with mental illness (Link)

By Kelsi Sheren

Canada doesn’t lack villains. It lacks accountability. Trust me there are plenty of killers in this country and a significant amount aren’t the terrorist we harbour—its the Dr’s we employ.

If you want to understand how this country slid from “medical assistance in dying” to medical abandonment of the vulnerable, you don’t need to look at Parliament first. You need to look at Dr. Ellen Wiebe.

Ellen Wiebe is not obscure. She is not misunderstood. She is not a reluctant participant in a tragic system. She is one of the most prominent, outspoken, and ideologically committed MAiD killers in the country.

Ellen Wiebe

At a public event I attended on Salt Spring Island, she openly stated — without hesitation, without discomfort — that she has been involved in over 1,000 assisted deaths. She did not say this with gravity, she laughed actually. She did not say it with restraint, she was proud of this.

She said it as résumé, bragging about killing.

Canada is now expected to accept this as normal. I on the other hand, refuse.

This is the woman defenders of MAiD point to as experienced, compassionate, trustworthy. This is the physician organizations like Dying With Dignity elevate, protect, and cite while lobbying for ever-broader eligibility — including people who are poor, disabled, traumatized, or mentally ill.

And this is the doctor who approved the euthanasia of Kiano, a young man living with mental illness, despite Canada’s own acknowledgement that MAiD for mental illness is not supposed to be legal until 2027.

A loophole was found, several we said would be used and abused. Safeguards evaporated. A life was taken, one that was preventable.

That is not an outlier. That is a pattern of behaviour no one seems to want to stop.

Ellen Wiebe has repeatedly framed death as a solution — not a last resort — and suffering as justification enough. She has spoken publicly about MAiD as though resistance to it is naïve, emotional, or regressive. She does not speak like someone burdened by gravity. She speaks like someone convinced she is right.

That should terrify you, and when you look into her eyes you see nothing but death and darkness. Because certainty is what allows systems to stop asking questions, and its why she speaks with “authority.”

Mental illness is not terminal, not at all actually. Crisis is not consent, although these killers would like to think their untouchable. Despair is not clarity, quite the opposite actually.

Every suicide-prevention framework on earth is built on this understanding — except inside Canada’s MAiD apparatus, where the rules change the moment a white coat and an ideological mission enter the room. Ideology will kill more Canadians than anything else with a regime like this pro death cult at the helm.

Dying With Dignity insists this is about autonomy. But autonomy without protection is coercion. Choice without alternatives is abandonment. And death offered in a country that refuses to properly fund mental health care is not freedom — it is convenience.

What Margaret Marsilla is living through now is the consequence of elevating doctors who no longer see rescue as their role.

Her son lived once because people intervened. He died later because the system didn’t.

And Ellen Wiebe signed off, she has a pattern of this behaviour.

Canada once recoiled at figures like Harold Shipman and called them monsters. Today, we build platforms, panels, and praise around physicians who boast about body counts — as long as the paperwork is clean and the language sounds kind. Thats what the CAMAP conferences are for. To sit with other killers of the country and find other ways to kill more.

That is how ethical collapse happens. Not loudly. Not overnight. But gradually, bureaucratically, and with applause. The slow drip so many of you hear me speak about. The boiling pot.

Ellen Wiebe is not “helping people die.” She is wiping Canadians off the face of the earth, acting like she is helping people. The devil is real and lives very much inside her.

And until this country confronts what it has turned doctors like her into — not saviours, but executioners with good PR— more families will be destroyed, more loopholes will be exploited, and more vulnerable people will be quietly erased.

Kiano deserved care.
He deserved protection.
He deserved time.

Kiano

See Kiano’s mothers most recent post. Her anger is valid, her rage will know no bounds and thankfully this women won’t let the murder of her son go. Ellen killed the wrong person this time.

“With a broken heart, I am sharing that my baby boy Kiano passed away on December 30, 2025, after being euthanized.

Four years ago, here in Ontario, we were able to stop his euthanasia and get him some help. He was alive because people stepped in when he was vulnerable and not capable of making a final, irreversible decision.

Tragically, the Canadian system later allowed something very different to happen in Vancouver—where a doctor named DR ELLEN WIEBE AKA DR DEATH #2 approved his death based on mental illness. This approval occurred despite euthanasia for mental illness being banned until 2027. Somehow, DR DEATH #2 found a loophole in the system, one that now demands to be exposed so that no other parent has to endure this.

This is disgusting on every level. And I promise I will fight this tooth and nail for my son and other parents who too have children that suffer from mental illness.

As a mother and after watching and reading countless stories from other families, I can say this experience was not only devastating, but deeply disturbing. The actions of DR ELLEN WIEBE reveal a pattern of coldness and disregard for vulnerable human life that I can no longer stay silent about, just that scary smile shows her entitlement for taking peoples lives…..

No compassion.

No protection.

No effort to save a life, only to end it.

This is not healthcare.

This is a failure of ethics, accountability, and humanity.

No parent should ever have to bury their child because a system—and a doctor—chose death over care, help, or love.

In time, I intend to pursue accountability against DR ELLEN WIEBE and to stand alongside other families and associations who have been harmed by these same decisions. I know we are not alone.

Thank you to everyone who has supported our family, prayed for us, and stood by us through all these years of pain and hope. Please keep our family in your prayers during this unbearable time

Margaret & Joe

As a woman living with mental health challenges, I oppose euthanasia for mental illness.

This letter was sent to EPC by Liz Boersma, who has lived with mental health challenges.

If this law had been passed in 1978, I might not be alive today.

• Guide to supporting Bill C-218 (Link).
• No MAiD for Mental Illness (Link).

My Mental Health Challenges

I am a 74-year-old woman who has lived with a mental health condition called cyclothymia for nearly fifty years. Dark moods visit me when I least expect them, affecting my sleep and flooding me with shame, and negative, fearful and even suicidal thoughts. Feelings of condemnation and physical exhaustion weigh me down, making the simplest tasks feel like climbing a mountain. I also experienced postpartum depression with each of our three children. With the expert help I received, however, I learned to “ride the wave” until the dark feelings lifted.

Treatment and Support

Hundreds of hours of counseling from therapists and psychiatrists, along with medications, exercise, prayer, meditation, support groups (including Recovery lnc.—Dr. Abraham Low’s self-help system), nutritious food, reading, journaling, volunteering, and hobbies all contributed to my wellness, so I could stay as plugged into life as possible. 

Happily married for 48 years, my husband and I raised three children. My husband, the steady rock of the family, gave our children a sense of safety. All three completed university and have established homes and careers of their own, in insurance, education and church ministry, despite the instability and confusion of my condition. Our children have confronted me with the pain they endured. Despite the hardships, we had the advantages of a steady income, church community, and good neighbours. A beloved elderly church friend came over twice a week for four years, to help me through postpartum depression and beyond.

As a child I dreamed of becoming a teacher. A nervous breakdown during my first year of college robbed me of my confidence, so I worked for a while as a file clerk and receptionist. Thanks to an encouraging mentor, I was given a second chance. I completed my teacher training at S.F.U., hoping never to experience depression again. Unfortunately, a year and a half into my career, I had another breakdown. My husband and I were married at the end of the school year, and I left teaching. From then on part- time work was all I could manage. My jobs included secretarial, tutoring and child-care services.

To my delight, I was given a second chance at teaching, a do-able part-time position, when my children were teenagers. During that rewarding decade I also dealt with cancer and elderly parents. These stressors added to the challenges I already had. Even though I had much to learn about self-care, I was able to persevere and-contribute to the world around me.

Family of Origin

My mother, a survivor of the World War II occupation of the Netherlands, immigrated to Canada in 1957 with her husband and three young children. With no social safety net or counseling services, my mother coped the best she could. She struggled greatly with loneliness and anxiety. My father worked very long hours, leaving the bulk of the childcare to my mother. “I get up and I do,” she would say. With courage and perseverance, she raised five children who are all successful in their fields—the flower business, and the film and travel industries. Similarly, my paternal grandmother raised nine capable children despite living with food insecurity, chronic depression, and the PTSD she developed after World War II. The resilience of my mother and grandmother shaped my approach to mental illness, which is why recent legislative changes trouble me so deeply.

Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD)

The Government of Canada website on assisted suicide states:

“Important: On February 29, 2024, legislation to extend the temporary exclusion of eligibility to receive MAID in circumstances where a person’s sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness received royal assent and immediately came into effect. The eligibility date for persons suffering solely from a mental illness is now March 17, 2027.”

If Bill C-218 is not passed, I will qualify to be assessed for assisted suicide as of March of 2027. If this law had been passed in 1978, I might not be alive today. In my most vulnerable moment, dark waves of depression overwhelming my reason, I will be asked if I find the experience intolerable. I might be strongly tempted to say yes. Yet I have never been sorry that I held on through the suffering, which I would not wish on anyone, until the mood passed. If I said yes, I could die by the hand of a medical professional. It would be a yes borne out of desperation, believing I was worthless—a burden to everyone I loved. I am so glad I have never been asked.

Offended and Deeply Concerned

Along with many other members of the mental health and disability communities, I feel offended and deeply concerned. I feel offended by legislation that tells me and so many others, “We agree that you would be better off dead.”

A 2022 study published in the Lancet Psychiatry, found that comprehensive mental health care, the kind of care I was so fortunate to receive, “significantly reduces suicide risk among people with mood disorders.”

Sadly, after all the efforts made by me and medical professionals to treat my condition, I now live in a country that invests millions of dollars to “end lives where a persons’ only underlying condition is a mental illness,” a marked shift from previous requirements.

My Hope for Canada, My Beloved Adopted Country

You cannot have it both ways: build a great nation on one hand and bring in laws that allow medical professionals to kill patients on the other. Euthanasia has been practiced and tolerated as a social value in the Netherlands. My relatives tell me the results have been disastrous. Disabled people, including those with mental health conditions and dementia end up feeling increasingly disrespected.

With proper treatment, support and accommodation, many people with mental illness lead fulfilling lives and are valuable members of society. As a person living with mental health challenges, support Bill C-218 and oppose euthanasia for mental illness.

Tragic euthanasia death of young man with mental illness

The following message was sent out by Margaret Marsilla on her facebook about the tragic death of her son, Kiano by euthanasia by Dr Ellen Wiebe. Kiano was living with mental illness. Support Bill C-218. Say No to MAiD for Mental Illness (Link).

Please offer Margaret your condolences. Her facebook message is below

With a broken heart, I am sharing that my baby boy Kiano passed away on December 30, 2025, after being euthanized.

Four years ago, here in Ontario, we were able to stop his euthanasia and get him some help. He was alive because people stepped in when he was vulnerable and not capable of making a final, irreversible decision.

Tragically, the Canadian system later allowed something very different to happen in Vancouver—where a doctor named DR ELLEN WIEBE AKA DR DEATH #2 approved his death based on mental illness. This approval occurred despite euthanasia for mental illness being banned until 2027. Somehow, DR DEATH #2 found a loophole in the system, one that now demands to be exposed so that no other parent has to endure this.

This is disgusting on every level. And I promise I will fight this tooth and nail for my son and other parents who too have children that suffer from mental illness.

As a mother and after watching and reading countless stories from other families, I can say this experience was not only devastating, but deeply disturbing. The actions of DR ELLEN WIEBE reveal a pattern of coldness and disregard for vulnerable human life that I can no longer stay silent about, just that scary smile shows her entitlement for taking peoples lives…..

No compassion.

No protection.

No effort to save a life, only to end it.

This is not healthcare.

This is a failure of ethics, accountability, and humanity.

No parent should ever have to bury their child because a system—and a doctor—chose death over care, help, or love.

In time, I intend to pursue accountability against DR ELLEN WIEBE and to stand alongside other families and associations who have been harmed by these same decisions. I know we are not alone.

Right now, we are making arrangements for my son’s funeral this Saturday Jan 10. Details will be shared once finalized.

Thank you to everyone who has supported our family, prayed for us, and stood by us through all these years of pain and hope. Please keep our family in your prayers during this unbearable time

Margaret & Joe

Previous stories of Kiano seeking death by euthanasia (Articles Link).