Parliamentary Committee to recommend no expansion of euthanasia for mental illness.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Sharon Kirkey reported in the National Post on June 15, 2026 that the Special Parliamentary Euthanasia Committee will recommend that the Canadian government not expand euthanasia for mental illness alone. 

When Canada passed Bill C-7 in March 17, 2021, one of its provisions was the expansion of euthanasia for the sole criteria of mental illness. The federal government has delayed euthanasia for mental illness alone several times. 

Currently, on March 17, 2027 doctors and nurse practitioners will be allowed to kill patients, by lethal poison, when their sole underlying condition is a mental illness. The new parliamentary report that will be released on June 17, 2026. It will recommend that euthanasia for mental illness alone be indefinitely paused.

Bill C-7 expanded euthanasia for people who do not have a terminally condition, but had a grievous and irremediable medical condition and the law was expanded to permit euthanasia for an incompetent person, as long as that person had been previously approved for euthanasia.

In order to expand euthanasia to people who do not have a terminal condition a two track law was created. Track 1 is for people with a terminal condition who are approved with a same day death. Track 2 is for people who do not have a terminal condition but who could be approved with a 90-day reflection period. Track 2 euthanasia is essentially designed for people with disabilities and has caused the deaths of people who are living in poverty, are homeless, or have untreated medical conditions.

Kirkey reported:

A special parliamentary committee is expected to recommend that the federal government halt the expansion of MAID to those whose sole condition is a mental disorder, the latest development in a drawn-out and controversial chapter in the country’s assisted-death regime.

The joint committee of senators and MPs struck to revisit Canada’s preparedness for medical assistance in dying for those with mental illness alone is expected to recommend an “indefinite pause” on the expansion, two sources told National Post. They spoke on the condition of anonymity as they are not authorized to speak on the committee’s behalf.

Kirkey also stated that a group of Senators plan to write a dissenting report.

The Special Committee on Euthanasia heard testimony from 44 witnesses, including a presentation by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, and they received 32 briefs. Kirkey reported:

Sixteen current and former chairs of psychiatry departments across Canada, and more than 90 disability and mental health organizations, appealed to the joint committee to halt extending MAID to include mental disorders as the sole underlying medical condition.

Kirkey noted that Québec and Alberta have specifically excluded euthanasia for mental illness alone through provincial guidelines and Nova Scotia indicated that they were ready to expand euthansia for mental illness alone.

On May 5, EPC presented to the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying. Our presentation focused on the need to provide a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law, which Bill C-14 (the bill that legalized euthanasia in Canada in 2106) had required.

There have been many controversial euthanasia cases lately including the euthanasia death of Kiano Vafaeian (26) on December 30, 2025 who had Type 1 diabetes. Kiano, who lived in Ontario, flew to Vancouver to be killed by Ellen Wiebe in a funeral home. Other recent controversial euthanasia deaths include James MacLean, of London Ontario, who approved a death at a Tim Horton's coffee shop. MacLean was also involved in a euthanasia death where he declared the man dead who wasn't dead, causing incredible distress for the family. (In this death MacLean used left-over euthanasia poison from previous euthanasia deaths.) In another case, a man cried out help me while being killed by euthanasia.

Tamara Jansen (MP) introduced Private Members Bill C-218, last year. If passed, Bill C-218 would prevent euthanasia for mental illness as the sole criteria. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition urges you to support Bill C-218.

Prime Minister Mark Carney stated that he would follow the recommendations of the committee. It is unknown whether the Liberal government will introduce their own legislation or pass Bill C-218.

MAiDed In A Funeral Home

This article was published by Kelsi Sheren on her substack on February 20, 2026.

He Paid for the Drugs That Ended His Life

By Kelsi Sheren

Kiano flew from Ontario to BC to end his life with (MAID) euthanasia. The Dr. Who ended his life not only did it after another Ontario Dr, Dr. Tepper, wouldn’t kill him at MAIDHOUSE after his mother went to the media to stop the death.

Ellen[Wiebe] has a record of dancing on the line of “acceptable” MAID deaths.

“On Oct. 27, 2024 a British Columbia judge intervened to prevent Dr. Ellen Wiebe, or any other doctor, from causing the death of a mentally ill Alberta woman. Justice Simon Coval granted a 30-day injunction to the woman’s common-law partner, one day before her death was scheduled to take place at Wiebe’s Vancouver clinic. A civil claim alleges Wiebe approved the woman’s request for MAID after a single Zoom meeting and without consulting her doctors. Wiebe declined to comment when contacted by National Post.”

On December 11, 2025, pharmacy records show that 26-year-old Kiano Vafaeian filled a series of prescriptions at Macdonald’s Prescriptions Ltd. in Vancouver.

The prescriber listed on each receipt: Dr. Ellen Wiebe. The most prolific MAID “PROVIDER” in the country.

The NON FDA APPROVED FOR KILLING DRUGS dispensed were:

• Midazolam injection
• Propofol injection
• Rocuronium bromide injection
• Bupivacaine injection
• A line item labeled “1 MAID”

The drugs

Each receipt lists a “Patient Pays” amount. In total, the records show hundreds of dollars paid directly by the patient on top of the flight he took across the country and $300-495 he paid KORU funeral home to be killed there.

This combination of drugs is consistent with a standard intravenous Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) protocol in Canada. Midazolam is used to sedate. Propofol induces deep anesthesia. Rocuronium causes paralysis and respiratory arrest. Bupivacaine may be used in certain protocols. The medications are administered by a physician once legal eligibility criteria are met.

Nineteen days later, on December 30, 2025, Kiano Vafaeian died under Canada’s assisted dying death regime, but not at Ellen’s Willow Clinic location in Vancouver where normally she ends their life. This time it was much, much darker.

Kiano took himself, by himself to a FUNERAL HOME where he met Ellen. Koru Cremation in Vancouver to be exact. According to official documentation, the location of death was Koru Cremation in Vancouver — a funeral home.

The receipts raise a stark and uncomfortable reality: the medications used in assisted death are prescribed, dispensed, and financially transacted like any other pharmaceutical product. The documentation shows the patient paid for the prescriptions issued in his name.

Under Canadian law, MAID is a legal medical procedure if strict eligibility criteria are met. Mental illness alone is not currently sufficient to qualify. A patient must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, be in an advanced state of irreversible decline, experience intolerable suffering, and possess decision-making capacity.

Kiano’s mother has publicly alleged that approval for MAID was based primarily on mental illness. Dr. Wiebe has publicly stated she has never approved a patient who did not meet all legal criteria.

Those are two conflicting narratives, pro death and pro life.

The receipts do not answer whether the legal criteria were properly applied. They do not reveal the assessment process. They do not explain how eligibility was determined.

What they do show is this. A 26-year-old young man with mental health issues and diabetes flew himself to a different province away from his family, obtained and paid for the medications used to kill him.

That fact alone forces a deeper question about the structure of Canada’s assisted dying system. When assisted death becomes a prescription, dispensed with a receipt and a debit transaction, what does that say about how the system conceptualizes suffering, autonomy, and medical responsibility?

Supporters and cowards call it “compassion and choice.”

People with two eyes and a brain call it abandonment and normalization of state sanctioned killing.

The documentation does not resolve that moral divide but it puts a clear line in the sand. It does make one thing undeniably clear. This was not an abstract policy debate, this was the killing of a 26-year-old young man who deserved real help, REAL healthcare and a system that wouldn’t let him fall through the cracks.

But what he got was a Dr who knows how to work the system, drugs that are NOT FDA approved for killing and a system who valued him more dead than alive.

It was a set of prescriptions.
A named physician.
A pharmacy counter.
A transaction.

And a young man who did not live to see the new year.

I called KORU to see if this was an option, unbelievably shocked how easy and dark it sounded “a provision” This is the dark country of Canada.

This appeared on Kelsi Sheren’s Substack and reposted with permission.

Grieving parents demand changes after son (26) was euthanized in Canada.

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

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, 

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have written several articles about the euthanasia death Kiano Vafaeian. Kiano was killed by Dr Ellen Wiebe on December 30, 2025. On February 5, we published a 15 minute interview with Kiano's mother Margaret Marsilla (Article Link).

Yesterday, the New York Post published an article by Kristine Parks explaining that Kiano's parents are committed to repealing Track 2 euthanasia deaths in Canada. 

Track 2 refers to euthanasia approvals for people who are not terminally ill but rather have a "grievous and irremediable" medical condition. The terms "grievous and irremediable" are not defined in the law.

Parks explains:

The grieving parents of a 26-year-old man are speaking out against Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) laws, arguing the system failed to protect their “vulnerable” son from being euthanized, despite a history of mental illness.

Kiano Vafaeian was euthanized on Dec. 30, 2025, in British Columbia.

Parks reports how Marsilla describes her son's condition

His family says he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age four and began struggling with mental health after a car accident at 17.

His mother, Margaret Marsilla of Ontario, said his depression was often seasonal, yet he became “obsessed” with MAID after losing vision in one eye in 2022.

“He kept on emphasizing about how he could get approved,” Marsilla told Fox News Digital. “We never thought there would be a chance that any doctor would approve a 22- or 23-year-old at that time for MAID because of diabetes or blindness.”

Kiano was originally approved for euthanasia and scheduled to die on September 22, 2022 after a doctor approved Vafaeian’s request, at the MAiDHouse, a euthanasia clinic in Toronto. The family launched a public pressure campaign on social media to prevent the death of their son which resulted in the doctor changing his mind.

Marsilla told Parks that her son was initially angry about not being euthanized but then things improved and in 2024 Kiano was living with his parents. But then in the fall of 2024 he started talking about euthanasia again. Parks reports:

The family said Vafaeian was rejected by multiple doctors in Ontario before he sought out Dr. Ellen Wiebe, a prominent MAID provider, in British Columbia. Marsilla believes Wiebe “coached” her son on what to say to meet the criteria for “Track 2” patients — those whose natural deaths are not reasonably imminent.

Vafaeian’s parents say they were not notified of the approval and only learned of his death days after it occurred. They noted his medical records did not substantiate the “severe peripheral neuropathy” listed on his death certificate as a qualifying factor.

Kiano's mother and stepfather told Parks:

“This whole process came to us as a shock,” said Joseph Caprara, Vafaeian’s stepfather.

In 2021, eligibility for MAID was expanded to include applicants with “grievous and irremediable conditions” whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable.

The family is now advocating for the repeal of this “Track 2” provision and the passage of Bill C-218, a legislative effort to restrict MAID for patients whose underlying issue is solely mental illness.

“Realistically, safeguards for patients would be reaching out to their family members, giving them a whole bunch of different treatment options,” Marsilla said. Instead, she claims the current system allows doctors to approve and euthanize patients within 90 days on Track 2.

“How is that safe for patients?” she asked.

Marsilla wrote on facebook that:

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

Parks continues:

Caprara said their family hopes sharing their story will expose the risks these laws pose to the “vulnerable and disabled” and give states and other countries pause before implementing similar legislation.

“We don’t want to see any other family member suffer, or any country introduce a piece of legislation that kills their disabled or vulnerable without appropriate proper treatment plans that could save their lives,” he said.

Parks reports Dr Ellen Wiebe's response:

“Like my colleagues, every patient I approve for Track 2 has unbearable suffering from a grievous and irremediable medical condition (not psychiatric) with an advanced state of decline in capability and consents to MAID fully informed about treatments to reduce the suffering.”

Petition: We demand a review of Dr Wiebe's (MAiD) euthanasia practise (Link)

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports Kiano's parents, Margaret Marsilla and Joseph Caprara's direction and we share in the grieving of their son.

More articles about the euthanasia killing of Kiano Vafaeian:

• One mother's mission (video). Her son was killed by euthanasia (Article Link).
• Tragic euthanasia death of young man with mental illness (Article Link).
• 23 year old scheduled for euthanasia remains alive (Article Link)

One Mother's Mission (video). Her son was killed by euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition interviewed Margaret Marsilla, the mother of Kiano Vafaeian (26) who was poisoned to death by euthanasia in Vancouver by Dr Wiebe on December 30, 2025. This 15 minute video - One Mother's Mission, explains how Kiano died by euthanasia.

Sign our Petition: We Demand a Review of Dr Ellen Wiebe's MAiD Practice (Read)

Kiano was not terminally ill. Kiano was a diabetic that resulted in him becoming legally blind and experiencing some neuropathy. But Kiano was driven to seek death by euthanasia based on his mental health. 

Kiano's mother explains in the interview how shocking it was for her to learn on January 3, 2026. Kiano was originally approved to be killed by euthanasia in September 2022, but his death was averted, at that time, when his mother launched a social media campaign, with the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, to change the mind of the euthanasia doctor.

Since then Kiano has been subsequently turned down, in Ontario, for euthanasia based on him not fulfilling the requirements of Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law.

But Dr Wiebe, in Vancouver approved Kiano's death and killed him on December 30, 2025.

More articles about Kiano Vafaeian:

• Petition: We Demand a Review of Dr. Ellen Wiebe's (MAiD) Euthanasia Practice (Read).
• Tragic euthanasia death of a young man with mental illness (Read). 
• 23-year-old scheduled to be killed by euthanasia remains alive (Read).

Doctor admits to killing patient with mental illness by euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Bill C-218 is a private members bill that is being debated in Canada. If passed Bill C-218 would prevent euthanasia for mental illness alone in Canada.

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

An article that was published in the Toronto Star on December 13, 2025 titled: Should MAiD be extended to include those with mental illness? is a debate between Dr Ellen Wiebe, Canada's most notorious euthanasia killer and Dr John Maher, a psychiatrist and ethicist who focuses on caring for people with severe and persistent mental illnesses.

Dr Ellen Wiebe

Based on the language of the law, if MAiD for Mental Illness alone begins in March 2027, Dr Maher's patient group would possibly qualify to be poisoned to death in Canada. 

The article begins:

Dr. Ellen Wiebe: I believe that Canadians have a right to control their dying proces and that those rights shouldn't be limited by a diagnosis. If someone has a psychiatric illness, they should have the same right to choose MAiD as someone with a physical illness.

Dr John Maher: I oppose MAiD for mental illness because it robs people of hope. It normalizes suicide.

Wiebe: I have done probably 1,000 MAiD assessments. The law says that two clinicians must assess and fine someone eligible for MAiD.

Maher: I know you've done 1,000 but that's my concern; that the criteria are so easily met. I worry that people will go doctor shopping until they get the answer they want.

Dr. John Maher

Dr Wiebe believes that euthanasia should be available for people with psychiatric conditions. The debate continued:

Wiebe: The guidelines say a person is eligible for MAiD when no reasonable treatments remain. What is "reasonable" is decided by the clinician and the patient together. A condition is considered incurable when it's symptoms cannot be sufficiently or enduringly relieved.

Maher: But patients don't know whether their condition is incurable. They can't. They come to you for treatment, for your professional expertise.

Wiebe expresses that there are no clear euthanasia guidelines in Canada. The debate continues:

Wiebe: The issue is that we don't know exactly what causes each psychiatric condition. We know there are genetic factors. We know there are brain structure factors. We know there are brain chemistry factors. The difference between psychiatric illnesses and neurological conditions such as dementia is unclear.

Maher: Psychiatric illnesses are treatable. Dementia is not. They are very different. Dementia is a neuro-degenerative disease. Most psychiatric disorders can be treated. And you cannot predict who will recover and who won't.

I have seen people recover after 20 years of severe psychotic illness. I have treated patients who were told they would never improve, and they did. There is an accumulation of wisdom. And respectfully, you don't have the psychiatric expertise that I do.

Wiebe tries to convince a psychiatrist that she understands psychiatry. Wiebe outlines the euthanasia death of a person with mental illess:

Wiebe: No I use professional guidance. I provided MAiD for mental illness before legislation excluded it. My patient, E.F., had seven years of treatment by numerous psychiatrists for a severe conversion disorder (a psychiatric condtion where a person experiences unexplained physical symptoms.)

Maher: Yes, a very shocking case that she got approved; a woman whose suffering was real but whose illness was psychiatric, not terminal.

Wiebe: The issue was how much more she had to suffer. She had the right to say, "I am not suffering anymore."

Maher: Agreed. Our laws allow patients to refuse treatment, unlike in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, where doctors must ensure that all reasonable medical and psychiatric treatments have been attempted and proven ineffective before assisted dying can be considered.

Wiebe: For E.F. I reviewed extensive psychiatric documentation. I was satisfied she met the criteria for MAiD. She suffered from 5 physical conditions (including migranes, digestive failure, and limited mobility) that together caused unbearable suffering and tried every treatment that was considered possibly effective.

Maher: You may believe she did, but I know psychiatrists who reviewed the case and were shocked by the treatments that were not attempted.

You have said that you would provide MAiD to people on wait-lists for treatment, by assessing their suffering at that point in time. But the law says patients must have an irremediable condition. That condition is not met if someone does not wait for treatments that may help.

We have a system that doesn't provide adequate care. Only one in three Canadians receive adequate mental-health care in a timely manner, and only one in five children.

Maher points out that the psychiatric euthanasia case that Wiebe carried-out was shocking. The debate continued:

Wiebe: People who choose MAiD want death to be certain. They do not want secrecy. They want to be able to invite their friends. For E.F. we had 10 family members and friends present to support her, tell her how proud they were and give her hugs. That is not suicide.

Maher: I acknowledge that patients with mental illnesses are suffering. These are terrible diseases. But if someone is taking steps to arrange their own death - that is a suicidal plan.

If you are going to offer someone death, you rob them of hope. If you are going to say, "There is nothing more we can do," then it should be true.

Wiebe wants to assure us that E.F.'s death was supported by her family but Maher points out that she was robbed of hope. The debated continued:

Wiebe: MAiD providers must determine whether a patient has the capacity to make a sound medical decision. Patients must be able to understand the consequences of both treatment and refusing treatment.

We are not talking about life or death. We are talking about dying now or dying later.

For mental health cases, I am more likely to need additional corroboration. I would also consult psychiatrist colleagues when I have questions.

It is concerning that Wiebe would suggest that these are not cases of life or death, the debate continued:

Maher: Many people suffering from mental illnesses are pushed to the fringes of society, facing both stigma and poverty. Many people I work with survive on food banks and live in bedbug  and cockroach infested rooms. You walk into these places and think, this cannot be Canada. To then offer them death deeps their vulnerability.

Wiebe: Most of our assisted dying patients are wealthy, well-educated and in charge of their lives.

We do have some vulnerable people, and it factors into our assessment. I look at people in the places you describe, with cockroaches, and ask myself; if the patient were rich, would he want to live longer? I cannot make him rich, and he has a horrible illness causing unbearable suffering, so I let him make his decision.

Maher states that many of his patients, with mental illness, live in poverty, while Wiebe states that most of her killings are wealthy people. The debate continues:

Maher: I understand your goal of relieving suffering. I understand your goal of respecting what patients want. But what confuses me is how you can offer MAiD to people with mental illness who could recover and live long, full lives. How are you able to do that?

Wiebe: I think providing MAiD for people with mental illnesses will be similar to Track 2 cases now (where death is not reasonably foreseeable). When I see someone with chronic fatigue or chronic pain, I need to know they have tried accepted treatments. I will be doing the same when the time comes for mental illness. I have learned from providers in Belgium, where assessments take at least a year, and I hope we will be doing those kind of assessments here.

I have experience with mental illness in my practice and also in my family. My stepson has suffered from schizophrenia for 20 years. He doesn't always make decisions that his parents approve of, but I respect his rights.

Maher completes his part of the debate stating that killing people with mental illness essentially means killing people that may recover and may have years to live a full life while Wiebe responds by saying that MAiD for Mental Illness alone is the same as Track 2 euthanasia, that kills people who are not terminally ill.

Kiano (26) - Determined to be Killed.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Sign the EPC Petition Demanding a review of Dr Ellen Wiebe's euthanasia practice (Petition Link).

Rupa Subramanya wrote an insightful article about the death of Kiano Vafaeian that was published by The Free Press on January 26, 2026. 

Kiano was the 26 year-old Ontario man was killed by euthanasia by Dr Ellen Wiebe on December 30, 2025. Subramanya also wrote about Kiano in 2022 when he was first approved to be killed at the MAiDHouse euthanasia clinic in Toronto, but the killing was called off when his mother launched a campaign to save the life of her son, who was then 23.

Subramanya stayed in contact with Kiano making his death both tragic and personal. Subramanya wrote:

Marsilla had just learned that her 26-year-old son, Kiano Vafaeian, was approved for “medical assistance in dying” (MAID), Canada’s government-run assisted-suicide regime. He was blind, struggling with complications from type 1 diabetes, and living in public housing in Toronto. He also suffered from depression.

Vafaeian was not terminally ill—and did not need to be to end his own life. In Canada, MAID patients must show only that they have a condition that is “intolerable” and cannot “be relieved under conditions that they consider acceptable.” These people often feel beset by enduring illness, unresolved social hardship, and other afflictions, all of which blur the line between medical suffering and the hardships of daily life itself.

Just to be clear, Kiano was partially blind and was being financially helped by his mother. Subramanya continues:

I met Vafaeian three years ago, after his mother accidentally found an email that laid out the scheduled date, time, and location of his assisted suicide—just two weeks before it was set to take place at a Toronto facility called MAiDHouse. Shocked, she called the doctor and pretended to be a woman seeking MAID. She recorded the conversation and sent me the tape. The doctor postponed Vafaeian’s scheduled killing, then said he wasn’t going through with it, without explanation.

Vafaeian was furious at his mother, telling me that she had violated his right as an adult to choose death. We stayed in touch for about two years, and he often talked about getting back at her. He also talked about coming to visit me in Ottawa, and I promised to track him down in Toronto someday. He was bright, curious, and funny, with a beautiful smile that immediately put you at ease. He also never gave up on wanting to die.

Subramanya explains how Canada legalized killing by euthanasia and she explains the incredible growth of euthanasia in Canada. She then interviews Dr. Sonu Gaind, a University of Toronto psychiatry professor. Subramanya writes:

When I told Gaind about Vafaeian and what he had been through, Gaind responded: “I’m not denying his suffering, but it doesn’t paint a picture of someone who is constantly suffering. That contradiction should trouble people.”

He said that Canada’s assisted-suicide system “has been set up so that if the person says their suffering is intolerable, assessors will say, ‘Who am I to question that?’ ”

Kiano recently re-applied for euthanasia, but this time his application was through Dr Ellen Wiebe in Vancouver British Columbia. British Columbia has the second highest provincial euthanasia rate at 6.7% of all deaths.

Subramanya continues by interviewing Kiano's mother:

Marsilla, his mother, told me that she thought her son was doing well. Their strained relationship seemed to be on the mend, and she set him up in September with a fully furnished condominium near her office in Toronto, including a live-in caregiver. Marsilla also drafted a written agreement promising him $4,000 a month in financial support. They went out for dinner to celebrate the plan. He signed the agreement, she said, and talked about moving in before winter.

Vafaeian texted her afterward to say that he was “looking forward to a new chapter.” He asked for help paying down his debts, and told his mother that he was saving her money so they could travel together. He flew to New York City to buy a pair of newly released Meta Ray-Ban glasses, praised by some people as a breakthrough for those who are blind. Marsilla was uneasy about him traveling alone, but he texted her photos and videos of the glasses. Then he admitted that he was afraid to use them, worried they wouldn’t work, and thought he had wasted her money.

Marsilla believed that her son was doing much better and then everything changed. Subramanya writes:

In October, she bought Vafaeian a gym membership and 30 personal training sessions, all of which he used. “He was so happy that he was working out and getting healthy,” she told me. Then, abruptly, he walked away from all of it: the condo, the caregiver, the money. “Something snapped in his head,” Marsilla told me.

On December 15, Vafaeian checked into a luxury resort in Mexico. On Instagram, he posted photos of himself posing with staff at the resort’s El Detalle restaurant—smiling, relaxed, and seemingly at ease. A concierge who remembered Vafaeian said that he seemed happy. He asked his mother to join him, but she said no. After two nights, he checked out and flew to Vancouver.

Three days later, a text message from Vafaeian to his mother delivered stunning news: He was scheduled to die by MAID the next day. He told his sister Victoria that if any family members wanted to be there when it happened, they should catch the last flight from Toronto. “We were obviously freaking out,” his mother told me. She said that she criticized him for “throwing this on us now—right before Christmas,” and then asked: “What’s wrong with you?

Marsilla tried to convince her son to go back to Toronto and to live. Subramanya reports:

Vafaeian said that her son told them he had asked for security to be present if they showed up at the MAID facility in Vancouver to try to stop him. She took it as a sign that he was wavering about ending his life. She thought the same thing when Vafaeian told his mother the next day that his assisted suicide had been postponed by “paperwork.”

Marsilla urged him to come home to Toronto, offered to buy him a plane ticket, and told him that she was praying for him and had Christmas gifts waiting. He refused. “No, I’m staying here. I’m going to get euthanized,” he said, according to Marsilla.

Marsilla learned later that her son was to be killed by Canada's notorious euthanasia doctor, Ellen Wiebe, who has been involved with some of the most controversial euthanasia deaths. Subramanya explains:

Wiebe has described assisted dying as “the best work I’ve ever done” and “incredibly rewarding.” I asked her what she meant when she said in 2018 that she provides “what is right up to the edge of the law, and never beyond, of course,” but “beyond where some providers would work.” She replied: “I have a very strong, passionate desire for human rights. I’m willing to take risks for human rights, as I do for abortion.”

Subramanya continued:

“No,” she replied without hesitation. Then she began talking about blindness, even though I had not mentioned it. “Just because it’s worth living for somebody who is blind doesn’t mean life is worth living for someone else who is blind,” Wiebe told me. How could she be so certain? She said: “We have long, fascinating conversations about what makes their life worth living—and how you make the decision when it’s been enough.”

Wiebe, who has used a wheelchair for 34 years, firmly rejected the argument that disability itself should not qualify someone for assisted death. “People will say quadriplegics can be happy, that their suffering isn’t intolerable,” she told me. “But the person themselves has to decide: Is this intolerable to me?”

Subramanya interviewed several leaders concerning Wiebe's assertions:

David Lepofsky, a blind lawyer and disability-rights advocate in Toronto, said that focusing on suffering rather than pain invites broad, subjective interpretations—and that the MAID process lacks any independent safeguards before death is delivered. “Blindness doesn’t cause pain,” Lepofsky said. “Millions of us live good, independent lives.”

Trudo Lemmens, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Toronto, met Vafaeian in 2022 at an event shortly after my article about him was published. The seminar was attended by physicians, MAID assessors, and policy experts. “The only reason that Kiano was alive when I met him is because his mother had the guts to go public, not because of the medical community that would have ended his life,” Lemmens recalled. “I was standing there, looking around the room, and thinking, This is dystopian.”

Ramona Coelho, a family physician and member of Ontario’s MAID Death Review Committee, said provincial oversight reports increasingly show in general that the person’s suffering appeared to be driven less by medical decline than by loneliness, social distress, and fear of the future. “Young people relapse, and they also recover,” Coelho told me. Allowing government-sanctioned assisted suicide “during periods of acute vulnerability risks mistaking transient suffering for permanent decline.”

Subramanya further interviewed Dr Coehlo.

Canada’s assisted suicide numbers are almost certain to keep rising. In Quebec, where such deaths now represent 7 percent of all deaths, a provincial law passed in 2024 allows people who have been diagnosed with dementia to preauthorize their future deaths once they lose capacity, even though such requests are illegal under federal criminal law. Quebec sidesteps this by declining to prosecute physicians who act under provincial law.

A parliamentary committee has recommended studying whether to extend MAiD eligibility to “mature minors,” Canadians who are younger than 18 but deemed capable of making their own medical decisions. Wiebe told me that she is shocked assisted suicide isn’t already allowed for “mature minors,” adding that any 17-year-old who went to court would almost certainly be approved under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“The only reason it has not happened,” she said, is that “nobody has asked.” Federal legislation has delayed MAID eligibility for adults whose sole underlying condition is mental illness until at least 2027 so that Canada can develop safeguards.

Subramanya then states:

Marsilla will probably never know exactly what happened after her son decided again that he wanted to die.

On December 30, Vafaeian went to a law firm in Vancouver to sign his will. He told the executor that he wanted the “world to know his story” and to advocate that “young people with severe unrelenting pain and blindness should be able to access MAID,” just as terminally ill patients can, the lawyer told me.

More stories about Kiano Vafaeian: (Articles Link).

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