The Evolution of Medicine under Legal Compulsion

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.

Gordon Friesen

Previously published installments have been:

Gordon Friesen, Monday, January 12, 2025. (Article Link).
Maid in Canada (MIC), January 19, 2025. (Article Link).

The Evolution of Medicine under Legal Compulsion

By Gordon Friesen

‘Homicide’ is the only English word which precisely indicates the taking of human life.

Criminal Code of Canada [i]

      "* A person commits homicide when, directly or indirectly, by any means, he causes the death of a human being.

      * Homicide is culpable or not culpable.

      * No medical practitioner or nurse practitioner commits culpable homicide if they provide a person with medical assistance in dying"

Hence: MAID is homicide, permitted as medical treatment.    

The revolution thus produced, in medical culture, may be crudely grasped in the fact that one Canadian hospital is actually being sued for refusing to kill its patients.[ii]

Nor has this dramatic transformation come from organic demand among medical professionals. It is the result of legal compulsion.

“Parliament in legalizing MAiD, affirmed that, in certain cases, a desire to bring about one’s death is rational, understandable, and can be assisted without violating the Criminal Code.”[iii]

Confronted with this Parliamentary proclamation, the Canadian Psychiatric Association (and Canadian Psychiatry more widely) have been attempting to invent a professional framework for the ethical homicide of patients exhibiting mental disorders only.

And yet, in spite of an obvious interest in harmonizing the practice of its members with decreed legal doctrine (and despite giving MAID-favorable theorists full latitude to develop their case since 2016):[iv] CPA has been unable --over the last 10 years-- to produce a positive endorsement of homicide for mental disorder alone.

Or as stated on the CPA web page:

“There are compelling legal, clinical, ethical, moral and philosophical questions that make this issue particularly challenging. At this time, the CPA has not taken a position on whether MAID should be available in situations where a mental disorder is the sole underlying medical condition.” [v]

One reason why psychiatrists might oppose medical homicide, concerns scientific disagreement as to whether MAID and suicide are different, at all; and the clinical difficulty of establishing such a difference even if it did exist.

(a difference, as earlier noted,[vi] which the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention[vii] and the American Association of Suicidology[viii] [ix] both deny).

The idea, here, is not that mental illness causes uniform incapacity, but that the wish to be poisoned, specifically, should not be received as a capable request.

A more specific reason, for opposing medical homicide, for mental illness alone, concerns the similar difficulty of determining whether any patient's disorder might be considered "irremediable".

These problems are both cited in a formal American Psychiatric Association policy statement rejecting medical homicide for mental illness alone. Significantly, this is a purely psychiatric policy (unlike its Canadian counterpart) proactively established in the absence of legal coercion[x]

Homicide-friendly professionals apparently believe that they can make capacity and irremediability judgments which are "close enough".

For those opposed, however, the whole scheme looks like sending out colorblind hunters, to harvest certain species of game birds... but only the green ones.

Whether or not our friends from Maid-in-Canada actually deny these difficulties, they do apparently believe that a complete ban (or "categorical exclusion") cannot be justified. I take this to mean (correct me at need) that certain extreme cases must not be denied.

Unfortunately, the practical operation of legal permission cannot be restricted to extreme cases only. In a resource deficient systemic environment, rigor will inevitably be sacrificed to normalization. Homicide work will naturally be done by doctors favorable to that practice. And since there is no prohibition of "doctor shopping", it is the most zealous of these who will test limits and set standards, just as in our experience of MAID to date.

Indeed, once the good people of Salem were told that Witches walked among them,[xi] it quickly became possible to find a great number of these. And so also with persons for whom homicide is imperiously proclaimed, by Parliamentarians, to be a psychiatrically indicated treatment.

Finally: MAID-in-Canada has dismissed, as "speculative", my assertion that medical homicide for mental illness would lead to that of incapable patients more generally.[xii]

One man's "speculation", however, is another man's prudent forethought.

In reality, the liquidation of incapable patients is a strict ethical necessity of representing homicide as medical care. For medicine is ideally an objective science. And (allegedly) beneficial medical remedies can not be ethically withheld from anyone who might (allegedly) benefit from them: not for reasons of age, of mental capacity, or of anything else.

Our immediate interest (in capacity) lies with the mentally ill,[xiii] children,[xiv] infants,[xv] mature minors,[xvi] and demented seniors.[xvii]

Logically inevitable expansions of medical homicide are projected for each of these groups. These extensions may usefully be viewed as a cluster of poisonous flowers, all growing from the same infected root. Legal acceptance of any one will naturally facilitate acceptance of the others also.

This logical putrefaction can only be stopped as it began: with legislative action.

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

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[i]    Criminal Code of Canada (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46) https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46

[ii]   Schadenberg, Alex, Court case to force all healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia began on January 12 in Vancouver, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, January 13, 2026 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2026/01/court-case-to-force-all-healthcare.html

[iii]  Government of Canada, Final Report of the Expert Panel on MAiD and Mental Illness, 2.2 (suicidality) https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/corporate/about-health-canada/public-engagement/external-advisory-bodies/expert-panel-maid-mental-illness/final-report-expert-panel-maid-mental-illness.html#a223

[iv]  Canadian Psychiatric Association, Task Force on Medical Assistance in Dying Member Survey Results 2016, (see question 2) https://www.cpa-apc.org/wp-content/uploads/CPA-MAIDTF-16Surv-Rep-FIN-EN.pdf

[v]   Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), Canadian Psychiatric Association
https://www.cpa-apc.org/medical-assistance-in-dying-maid/

[vi]  Friesen, Gordon, Medical Homicide for the Treatment of Mental Illness: The Role of Decisional Capacity, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, January 12, 2026 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2026/01/medical-homicide-for-treatment-of.html

[vii]  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/

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

[ix]  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/

[x]   American Psychiatric Association, APA Official Actions, Position Statement on Psychiatric Participation in Physician Assistance in Dying (2025)  https://www.psychiatry.org/getattachment/b63d8852-2acd-4074-8358-81471cbd4633/Position-Psychiatric-Part-in-PAID.pdf

[xi]  Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project https://salem.lib.virginia.edu/home.html

[xii]  Carlson, Kim; Magennis, Paul, Misinformation at Parliament: What Happened on October 28th Veterans and people with mental illness deserve better advocacy, Maid in Canada, Nov 29, 2025 https://maidincanada.substack.com/p/misinformation-at-parliament-what

[xiii] Mark S. Komrad M.D., Psychiatric Times, June 1, 2021, "Oh, Canada! Your New Law Will Provide, Not Prevent, Suicide for Some Psychiatric Patients" https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/canada-law-provide-not-prevent-suicide; June 15, 2021 (video) Are Psychiatrists who Assist in Suicide Betraying Their Professional Values?  accessed December 28, 2022 https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/psychiatrists-suicide-betraying-values

[xiv] The Netherlands plans to extend euthanasia to children, Schadenberg, Alex, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, April 14, 2023 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-netherlands-to-extend-euthanasia-to.html

[xv]  Schadenberg, Alex, Is Euthanasia of Newborns with Disabilities next? Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, January 16, 2026 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2026/01/is-euthanasia-of-newborns-with.html

[xvi] Schadenberg, James, Government report recommends euthanasia for children and euthanasia by advanced directive, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, February 16, 2023 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2023/02/government-report-recommends-euthanasia.html

[xvii]     Schadenberg, Alex, Belgian Bioethics Committee supports eugenic euthanasia for advanced dementia, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, December 12, 2025 https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2025/12/belgian-bioethics-committee-supports.html

Great news. France's Senate Essentially Kills the Euthanasia Bill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have great news. The political deadlock in France has resulted in France's euthanasia bill, that had passed in the French National Assembly on May 27, 2025 was essentially rejected by the French Senate on January 21, 2026.

Thomas Mangin reported for Euroactiv on January 21 that:

France’s end-of-life bill has become mired in political deadlock, exposing deep ideological divisions over whether doctors should be allowed to provide patients with the means to end their lives, or assist them in doing so.

The impasse deepened on Wednesday evening, when the French Senate rejected Article 4 of the bill, which sought to define the conditions under which patients could access medical aid in dying. In an unusual alignment, conservatives and socialists voted together, albeit for sharply different reasons.

For senators from the conservative ranks, the version of this article adopted by the National Assembly in May 2025 was seen as too permissive, particularly the provision allowing people suffering from incurable illnesses to obtain, at their request, a lethal substance prescribed by a doctor.

Essentially this means that France's euthanasia bill is dead. Mangin further reported:

Facing the stalemate, Health Minister Stéphanie Rist confirmed that she would not withdraw the bill – a move that would, in effect, bury the issue – and said discussions would continue. However, she expressed regret that future debates would now focus on provisions set out in Article 4, whose substance was rejected in the vote.

The future of this central article remains uncertain, as it must now return to the National Assembly to be reworked – and adopted – before being sent back to the Senate. In order to reach a compromise, concessions are thus likely from the bill’s most ambitious backers on its most divisive points.

An article by Hélène de Lauzon that was published by the European Conservative on January 22 provides further insight. de Lauzon reports:

Later that evening, an amendment proposed by Les Républicains (LR) was adopted, completely rewriting Article 2 of the original bill and making it impossible to introduce euthanasia in France. The article now says:

• Everyone has the right to the best possible relief from pain and suffering. 

• Everyone is entitled to this right until their death, without any voluntary intervention intended to cause death.

Anne Chain-Larché, Vice-President of the Senate, who initiated this amendment, defended it by stating that she rejected a society in which the administration of a lethal substance could be considered ‘care.’ She said her proposal “directly addresses the central argument used in favour of assisted dying: the fear of suffering without relief. Whereas the proposed law transforms this fear into a justification for a right to die, the amendment offers a strong, enforceable and legally secure guarantee of relief. It demonstrates that freedom and dignity do not imply the possibility of causing death, but the effective assurance that society will not allow anyone to suffer without response.”

Once this key amendment was adopted, the senators proceeded to methodically rewrite a whole set of provisions in the bill. Aware that the text will be returned to the National Assembly for review, the senators added additional safeguards, such as the collective conscience clause requested by religious institutions. The offence of obstruction of euthanasia (which could have been punishable with up to two years in prison and a hefty fine) was dropped from the bill, despite the government’s support.

France needs to seriously consider the experience with euthanasia in Québec and completely reject killing people by poison. Québec legalized euthanasia based on "exceptional circumstances" in 2015. The French Canadian province now has the highest euthanasia rate in the world.

Previous articles on the French euthanasia debate.

• UN Committee launches investigation into France's euthanasia bill (Link).
• France's National Assembly votes to legalize euthanasia (Link).

A Milestone of Misplaced Mercy

This article was published by Amy Hasbrouck on her Substack on January 20, 2026.

Amy Hasbrouck

By Amy Hasbrouck

Amy is a founder of Tourjours Vivant - Not Dead Yet and the past President of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

Sometime this spring, Canada will achieve a milestone of misplaced mercy; the 100,000th person will die by euthanasia. There are about 60 cities in Canada that have populations of 100,000+ people.

Legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was sold to the public as an exceptional measure to be used in exceptional cases; people with intractable pain or suffering at the end of their lives could control the time, place and manner of their deaths. What could possibly go wrong?

Disability rights activists sounded the alarm, early and often about the dangers of legalizing assisted dying, both before and following legalization.

In 1996, the Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) passed a resolution stating “…The CCD opposes any government action to decriminalize assisted suicide because of the serious potential for abuse and the negative image of people with disabilities that would be produced if people with disabilities are killed with state sanction…” The reasons for this position were laid out in a 2002 Report which found that:

“there are serious risks to persons with disabilities in societies where assisted death is regarded as a solution to the suffering and anxiety that many experience as they near the end of their lives. For most people in that circumstance, assisted death may be regarded as ‘merciful’ because it relieves them of the physical and mental ordeal they would otherwise have to endure. For people with disabilities, however, the ‘mercy’ is often seen in terms of ending a life that is perceived by others to be devoid of value because of the individual’s disability...”

The report concluded: 

“Until it can be convincingly demonstrated that all Canadians enjoy full equality and security of the person, regardless of disability, as guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then any steps toward legalized assistance in dying should be resisted.”

In 2010, CCD submitted a brief to the Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care, describing how barriers, discrimination and devaluation of disability combine to create deadly compassion, where ending disabled lives is seen as a kindness.

In 2013, CCD launched Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, which produced 245 webcasts in English and French from 2013 to 2020, as well as providing testimony to parliament on multiple occasions, met with the Trudeau Government, and offered feedback on implementation of Canada’s Euthanasia program. But disability rights activists were ignored, dismissed and disregarded.

Since Health Canada’s reporting system is retrospective – after the fact – we will probably never know the exact date Canada reaches this landmark. It might happen in March of 2026, five years after the MAiD law was amended to make access to euthanasia easier, broader and faster. Most certainly the 100,000th euthanasia will occur less than ten years after adoption of the MAiD law in June of 2016.

The eighth annual report (for calendar year 2026), probably won’t mark the milestone when it is released in the fall of 2027. The details – who was the 100,000th person killed, when did they die, what factors contributed to their decision, and what might have been done to prevent the euthanasia – will be obscured by that annual report, just as they have been shrouded by every other report released by Health Canada. There are some things we know.

• Every person who requests and receives euthanasia has a physical or mental limitation which, in combination with barriers in the environment, (lack of housing or home care, poverty), denial of health- or palliative, and discrimination, results in a disability, (as defined by the United Nations) whether or not they self-identify as disabled.
• If MAiD were classified by statistics canada as a “cause of death” it would have been the fourth leading cause of death as of 2023 (15,342 MAiD deaths declared in the 5th annual report)(6th Annual report stated 16,499 for 2024 with 76,475 from legalization until December 31, 2024)
• Canada has not met its obligations under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

As we prepare to pass this milestone, we have an opportunity to tap the brakes. A bill is pending in parliament that would exclude mental illness as the sole underlying medical condition from eligibility for MAiD. Bill C-218 is a private members bill that is scheduled for debate in the next few weeks.

DWD thinks they can control the narrative. Not anymore.

The following article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her Substack on January 14, 2026.

By Kelsi Sheren

This article was prompted by a public request from Dying With Dignity Canada (DWDC) asking me to remove a post for the sake of “accuracy,” citing an alleged impersonation.

The request itself is not the issue.

The issue is the assumption that an advocacy organization can quietly characterize me to media as spreading “misinformation” or “disinformation,” assume that narrative won’t reach me, and further assume that I don’t get a right of reply.

Organizations are free to disagree. Debate is necessary in a functioning democracy. Free speech still exists—at least it’s supposed to.

If someone is impersonating DWDC, that’s for them to deal with. That is not my concern here and not my problem.

What is my concern is an organization lobbying government to expand assisted death to the mentally ill and to so-called “mature minors,” while simultaneously framing families as “the greatest risk” to MAiD.

Families are not the risk.

Families are often the last line of resistance when systems fail, care is inaccessible, and death is offered faster than help. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make it true—it just makes it convenient. When advocacy groups stop arguing their case openly and start managing critics behind the scenes, this stops being about accuracy.

It becomes about control.

What matters is how quickly the discussion moved away from engaging substantive concerns and toward managing optics — particularly when those concerns involved young people, psychiatric suffering, disability, and irreversible outcomes.

That moment clarified something essential:
The debate around Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in Canada is no longer primarily about ethics or safeguards.

It is about narrative control, and we all know it.

That realization is the catalyst for what follows. Canada now operates the most expansive assisted-death regime in the world. This is not rhetoric. It is a matter of scope, speed, and institutional alignment. You can thank people like DWD who lobby our government for this expansion.

MAiD was introduced as a narrow, compassionate exception — end-of-life relief for people facing imminent death and unbearable physical suffering. Less than a decade later, it has expanded into a bureaucratic system capable of approving death for people who are not dying, including those with chronic illness, disability, and psychiatric suffering.

According to Health Canada:

• 15,427 Canadians died by MAiD in 2023, representing 4.7% of all deaths that year
• 16,499 Canadians died by MAiD in 2024
• 17,000 + Canadians died by MAiD in 2025 (waiting for final data) our rough estimate based on historical increase each year since legalization.
• 76,475 people have died by MAiD since legalization on record.
• 94,000 if we include 2025 data that hasn’t been released yet.

This is not a marginal medical practice. It is now a structural feature of how Canadians die.

Supporters often point to the fact that so-called “Track 2” MAiD — for those whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable — represents a smaller percentage of cases. That framing misses the point.

What matters is not only how many people die, but what is being normalized, and how difficult it has become to scrutinize that normalization.

MAiD did not expand because Canadians suddenly became more terminally ill.
It expanded because the systems meant to treat suffering failed — and MAiD filled the gap.

Policy enabled the shift. Narrative normalized it.

MAiD now operates in a country where:

Psychiatric care often comes with multi-year waitlists

Disability supports are fragmented and difficult to access

Pain management is inconsistent or unavailable

Housing for disabled Canadians is scarce

Crisis lines and mental-health services are overwhelmed

In this environment, assisted death is not a neutral option. It becomes the only reliably accessible intervention. Consent cannot be evaluated in a vacuum. When the alternative to death is neglect, autonomy becomes a fragile and contested concept.

This debate is not theoretical. It has names.

Alan Nichols - died by MAiD in 2019. After his death, his family testified before Parliament questioning whether he met eligibility criteria and whether his capacity and consent were properly assessed. His case raised a disturbing reality: when families believe something has gone wrong, there is no meaningful appeal mechanism. The challenge arrives only after death.

“Sophia,” a Toronto woman with chemical sensitivities, pursued MAiD after being unable to secure housing that would not worsen her condition. Her case became a public flashpoint because it exposed the uncomfortable truth that social failure can make death appear rational.

Her story forced a question that advocacy language often avoids:

Is MAiD still “choice” when life itself has become inaccessible?

Kiano Vafaeian - In December 2025, Kiano Vafaeian, a 26-year-old Canadian, died under MAiD.

Kiano lived with diabetes, vision impairment, and depression. According to his mother, he had previously been prevented from proceeding with MAiD and was actively seeking help. She has stated that in the final approval process, no meaningful effort was made to connect him with alternative treatment, family support, or long-term care. She alleges that his death was approved by a prominent MAiD provider, Dr. Ellen Wiebe, despite the fact that MAiD based solely on mental illness is not legally permitted until March 17, 2027.

His mother wrote that the system made no meaningful effort to connect him with treatment, family support, or other medical options before approving a lethal intervention — a haunting example of how vulnerability can meet death faster than care.

His death generated public alarm because it involved a young, vulnerable person whose suffering was shaped by both medical and social factors — the very conditions Canada insists are protected by safeguards.

These cases do not “prove” universal abuse. They prove something else:
When safeguards are largely procedural and accountability arrives late — or not at all — families become the final line of oversight.
Dying With Dignity Canada does not operate in isolation. It functions through a layered institutional structure that aligns advocacy, clinical authority, disability framing, fundraising, and communications. Responsibility for the MAiD narrative does not rest with any single clinician or staff member. It is organizational.

DWDC is overseen by a Board of Directors that determines advocacy posture, partnerships, and acceptable risk. This is where decisions are made about how aggressively MAiD expansion is pursued and how criticism is handled.

Boards do not write press releases. They authorize the posture from which those press releases emerge.

DWDC’s executive team and staff operationalize that strategy. Communications, donor engagement, public education, and media responses are handled by professionals whose job is to translate policy goals into moral language: choice, autonomy, dignity.

When DWDC requests content removal or issues public “corrections,” those actions originate here. DWDC maintains a Clinicians’ Advisory Council composed of physicians, many of whom are MAiD assessors and providers.

Among them is Dr. Ellen Wiebe, one of the most prolific and publicly visible MAiD providers in the country

This matters structurally. When high-volume providers also help shape public understanding and advocacy strategy, the line between neutral medical assessment and ideological momentum becomes blurred.

This is not an accusation of intent. It is an observation of institutional coupling.

DWDC also maintains a Disability Advisory Council, described as addressing “myths and misunderstandings” around MAiD and disability.

Structurally, this council functions as a legitimizing buffer. It allows the organization to claim disability inclusion while continuing to advocate for expanded eligibility, including non-terminal and psychiatric contexts.

Criticism can be reframed as misunderstanding rather than confronted directly.

DWDC presents itself as a civil-liberties organization advocating for choice and autonomy. In practice, it now functions as narrative infrastructure for MAiD.

The language is consistent:

• Compassion replaces consequence
• Choice replaces eligibility thresholds
• Autonomy replaces systemic failure

When advocacy becomes tightly coupled to state policy, criticism is no longer treated as disagreement. It is treated as a threat to legitimacy.

That is why responses increasingly take the form of corrections, requests for removal, or claims of misinformation, rather than open engagement with substance.

Institutions confident in their moral position invite scrutiny.
Institutions reliant on optics attempt to manage it.

Legacy media faces structural pressure when covering MAiD:

• Question MAiD and risk accusations of ableism
• Investigate approvals and risk accusations of stigma
• Platform critics and invite reputational backlash

The result is a predictable pattern:

Emotionally compelling terminal cases are highlighted. Psychiatric and non-terminal approvals receive limited sustained scrutiny. Critics are framed as ideological rather than empirical.

This creates a feedback loop:

Advocacy supplies the language →
Media repeats it →
Policymakers cite consensus →
Dissent is labeled misinformation.

At no point is the central question fully confronted:

What does consent mean when the alternative is neglect?

Requests to remove posts, public corrections without engagement, and appeals to “accuracy” that avoid substance are signs of narrative fragility — not strength.

Assisted death is irreversible. That alone demands a higher standard of scrutiny than Canada currently allows.

Canada has not yet decided whether MAiD is a last-resort medical intervention or a policy response to social failure. But the trajectory is obvious to anyone with two eyes.

A society that offers death faster than care is not compassionate.

It is administratively efficient and efficiency, paired with silence, is where real harm begins.

This conversation is not anti-choice. It is anti-denial. Free speech does not require institutional permission — especially when

the stakes are life and death.

KELSI SHEREN

Footnotes

1. Health Canada, Fifth Annual Report on MAiD in Canada, 2023 (15,343 MAiD deaths; MAiD 4.7% of all deaths).
2. Health Canada, Sixth Annual Report on MAiD in Canada, 2024 (16,499 MAiD deaths; 76,475 since 2016).
3. Health Canada 2023 report, Track split (Track 2 = 4.1%).
4. Health Canada 2024 report, Track split (Track 2 = 4.4%).
5. Court dispute reported re: 27-year-old approved for MAiD and capacity concerns.
6. B.C. injunction halting planned MAiD in contested eligibility case.
7. Reporting on “Sophia” case and housing/social failure context.
8. Alan Nichols testimony to Parliament and reporting on the case.
9. Justice Canada: mental illness sole underlying condition ineligible until March 17, 2027.
10. Health Canada news release on the delay and rationale.
11. “This doctor has helped more than 400 patients die. A judge just blocked one of her cases” The National Post
12. DWDC Maid for Mental Illness
13. DWDC For Mature Minors

Petition: We Demand a Review of Dr. Ellen Wiebe’s (MAiD) Euthanasia Practice.

We Demand a Review of Dr Ellen Wiebe's Euthanasia Practice.

Sign and share the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Petition: (Petition Link). 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition petition to The Honourable Josie Osborne, the BC Minister of Health, Conservative Health Critic Anna Kindy, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC.

Dear Hon. Josie Osborne,

We demand a complete review by the British Columbia Ministry of Health and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC into Dr Ellen Wiebe’s euthanasia practice.

There have been many controversial euthanasia deaths associated with Dr Wiebe and we believe that there may be many more concerning deaths that were carried out by Dr Wiebe.

We believe that it is possible that Dr Wiebe has participated in non-compliant euthanasia deaths and legal sanctions or sanctions on her medical license are likely.

Until an investigation is completed, Dr. Wiebe’s medical license should be temporarily suspended in order to protect people.

Sign and share the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Petition (Petition Link).

Background information.

On January 6, 2026 Margaret Marsilla published a message on her facebook page about the tragic death of her son, Kiano by euthanasia carried out by Dr Ellen Wiebe. Kiano was living with mental illness. Margaret stated on her facebook page (1):

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.

Brieanna Charlebois reported for the Canadian Press on December 19, 2024, that a Vancouver man who was on a psychiatric day pass died by MAiD at Ellen Wiebe’s clinic(2):

The family of a 52-year-old man who received medical assistance in dying while on a day pass from a Vancouver hospital’s psychiatric ward has launched a constitutional challenge to the procedure’s legal framework.

The case filed in the B.C. Supreme Court says the businessman and father of three, who had chronic back pain and long-term mental illness, suffered wrongful death in December 2022. Charlebois reported that the case, “...accuses Dr Ellen Wiebe and her clinic of malpractice. None of the allegations have been proven in court.”

The family was seeking damages for an alleged wrongful death as well as a declaration that the man’s Charter rights were breached and that the MAiD framework is invalid and unconstitutional.

This was not the first controversial MAiD approval associated with Dr Wiebe. On October 26, 2024, a Vancouver judge granted a 30-day injunction to prevent the euthanasia death of a woman (3). The woman’s common law husband petitioned the court claiming that the woman did not have an “irremediable” medical condition.

On October 29, Lisa Steacy reported for CTV News Vancouver that Justice Simon R Coval signed an injunction on Saturday October 26 preventing Dr Wiebe from killing an Alberta woman on Sunday October 27 by MAiD (4). Steacy reported that the claim stated that the woman did not qualify for MAiD, not even for a Track 2 approval because the woman did not have an irremediable medical condition.

Some of Dr Wiebe’s deaths were not reported in the media but were reported by researchers. A research article by Alexander Raikin published by The New Atlantis in December 2022 tells how Ellen Wiebe provided euthanasia to a man who had been rejected for euthanasia in his own city (5):

In another CAMAP seminar recording, we learn of a man who was rejected for MAID because, as assessors found, he did not have a serious illness or the “capacity to make informed decisions about his own personal health.” One assessor concluded “it is very clear that he does not qualify.” But Dying with Dignity Canada connected him with Ellen Wiebe, a prominent euthanasia provider and advocate in Vancouver. She assessed him virtually, found him eligible, and found a second assessor to agree. “And he flew all by himself to Vancouver,” she said. “I picked him up at the airport, um, brought him to my clinic and provided for him,” meaning she euthanized him.

Dr Wiebe has a history of controversial euthanasia cases. She is the doctor who entered a Jewish care home to complete a euthanasia death, even though she knew that the care home had a policy of not permitting euthanasia on the premises (6).

Dr Wiebe stated in an essay published in the Economist Magazine in August 2018 that she is not concerned about euthanasia errors (7):

“I agree that one day I may make an error in my assessment and not realise that someone has been pressured into a decision to hasten their death. And the other independent assessor might make the same error. That might mean a person would die earlier than she or he may have preferred.”

“Should that error be the reason hundreds or thousands suffer needlessly against their will at the end of life?”

We demand a complete review by the British Columbia Ministry of Health and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC into Dr Ellen Wiebe’s euthanasia practice.

There have been many controversial euthanasia deaths associated with Dr Wiebe and we believe that there may be many more concerning deaths that were carried out by Dr Wiebe.

We believe that it is possible that Dr Wiebe has participated in non-compliant euthanasia deaths and legal sanctions or sanctions on her medical license are likely.

Until an investigation is completed, Dr. Wiebe’s medical license should be temporarily suspended in order to protect people. 

Sign and share the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Petition (Petition Link).

Endnotes:

(1) Schadenberg, A. (2026, Jan 7). Tragic euthanasia death of a young man with mental illness. Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Blog. https://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2026/01/tragic-euthanasia-death-of-young-man.html

(2) Charlebois, B. (2024, Dec 19). Family who says B.C. man received MAID on psychiatric day pass files wrongful-death lawsuit. Vancouver Sun. https://vancouversun.com/news/family-bc-man-received-maid-wrongful-death-lawsuit

(3) A.Y. v. N.B., 2024 BCSC 2004. https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/sc/24/20/2024BCSC2004.htm

(4) Steacy, L. (2024, Oct 29). B.C. judge halts woman’s medically assisted death. CTV News Vancouver. https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/bc-judge-halts-womans-medically-assisted-death/

(5) Raikin, A. (2022, Dec 16). No Others Options. The New Atlantis. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/no-other-options

(6) Lazaruk, S. (2018, Jan 05). Jewish care home accuses doctor of ‘sneaking in and killing someone’. Vancouver Sun. https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/jewish-care-home-accuses-doctor-of-sneaking-in-and-killing-someone

(7) (2018, Aug 27). Canada’s example of assisted dying refutes those who argue against it. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/08/27/canadas-example-of-assisted-dying-refutes-those-who-argue-against-it