France National Assembly passes euthanasia bill. Final vote will be July 15.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

I have bad news.  

Sebastien Ostertag reported from France that the French National Assembly voted to support the euthanasia bill by a vote of 295 to 232 against.

The bill will go back to France's Senate but even if France's Senate defeats the euthanasia bill again, the National Assembly can over-ride the Senate if they vote to legalize on July 15, 2026.

On May 27, 2025, the French National Assembly passed the euthanasia bill by a vote of 305 to 199. On January 21, 2026, France's Senate defeated the bill by 181 to 122.

On February 25, 2026, the French National Assembly passed the euthanasia bill again. France's Senate once again defeated the bill on Monday May 11, 2026 by a vote of 151 to 118. The Senate then passed, by a vote of 325 to 18, the part of the law that improves access to palliative care.

Ostertag reported that the opposition has two weeks to change 32 votes before the final vote on July 15. Ostertag explains:

• If the bill passes: Catholic and otherwise Christian retirement homes and medical institutions will likely shut down since there is no conscience clause for religious institutions.
• Nurses and pharmacists can be forced to participate in euthanasia, since there is no conscience clause for them.
• Those who are poor and suffering may be pressured into death since access to palliative care isn't universal.
• The waiting/reflection period before death is only 48 hours.
• Estimates from France suggest that, based on France's population, 50,000 people could die every year from euthanasia.
• The family won't be able to ask the court to stop the decision to die.
• Proponents of the bill will likely push for further expansions, as in other jurisdictions, to allow children to be euthanized, people with mental illness and criminalizing those who try to dissuade someone from being killed.

Unfortunately, the effort to put the question of euthanasia on the ballot through a parliamentary and constitutional procedure was struck down by the Conseil Constitutionnel, (French Supreme Court) which means that the July 15th vote is the last say, at least until after the next presidential election.

France's government strongly supports the euthanasia bill and has pressured members of the National Assembly to support it. President Emmanuel Macron and the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet both support legalizing euthanasia.

France needs to examine the experience with euthanasia in Québec and completely reject the bill. Québec legalized euthanasia based on "exceptional circumstances" in 2015. The French Canadian province now has the highest euthanasia rate in the world.

Québec Constitutional Bill 2025 would create a "right to be killed"

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Québec National Assembly, on October 9, 2025; has proposed a bill to change the Québec constitution with - The Québec Constitional Bill 2025. The purpose of the bill is to "protect" Québec's identity as a secular society.

The Québec Constitutional Bill 2025 would also create "right to be killed"

An article by François Carabin and Marco Bélair-Cirino that was published by Le Devoir on October 9 stated:

The Bill amends the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to "protect the right of Quebecers to die with dignity and to receive medical assistance in dying when their condition requires it."

The Le Devoir article further stated:

Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette presented his draft "Quebec Constitutional Act, 2025" to the National Assembly. This "law of all laws"—which, in his view, would have "primacy over any incompatible rule of law"—would reinforce the "fundamental values" of the "beautiful nation" of Quebec, starting with gender equality.

The Québec government is proposing to change its constitution to ensure that the cultural changes in Québec cannot be changed. The article states:

To achieve this, he also proposes amending the "Provincial Constitution" section of the Constitutional Act of Canada, 1867, to add "three new provisions on the fundamental characteristics of Quebec, namely the secularism of the State, the model of integration into the Quebec nation and the civil law tradition" to the one added in 2022, "French is the only official language of Quebec [and] the common language of the Quebec nation."

The Québec Constitution Bill 2025 is likely unconstitutional and is incredibly dangerous as it would create a constitutional right to kill.

There have been around 90,000 Canadian (MAiD) euthanasia deaths since legalization.

There were around 16,500 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2024 representing 5% of all deaths. There have been around 90,000 Canadian euthanasia deaths since legalization.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On December 11, 2024, Canada's Ministry of Health released the Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying which outlines the 2023 reported euthanasia data. 

The 2023 report indicated that there were 15,343 reported Canadian euthanasia deaths representing 4.7% of all deaths. The number of reported euthanasia deaths was up from 13,241 in 2022. I predict that there were around 16,500 Canadian euthanasia deaths representing 5% of all deaths in 2024.

British Columbia 2024 euthanasia report.

Recently, EPC obtained the 2024 British Columbia (BC) euthanasia data which indicated that there were 3000 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024 representing 6.7% of all deaths, which was up by more than 8% from 2767 in 2023.

There are some clear concerns in BC. 

One concern is the number of euthanasia deaths in the Island Health region. Island Health is primarily composed of Vancouver Island with Victoria being the largest city. Island health cares for a little more than 1 out of 6 BC residents, and yet the BC data indicates that there were 904 reported euthanasia deaths in the Island Health region accounting for more than 30% of the euthanasia deaths.

Why does Island health have higher euthanasia rates?

Euthanasia is supposedly popular in Victoria BC and there is a euthanasia clinic which provides access, but the data is more likely related to less stringent approvals for euthanasia in that region.

The BC Ministry of Health must assure the public that euthanasia guidelines are being followed by Island Health. Independent research into the reasons for the higher rate of euthanasia deaths must be done.

Another concern is that 35% of the 2024 BC euthanasia deaths were approved based on "other conditions" which was up from 32.9% in 2023.

The number of BC euthanasia deaths related to "other conditions" is further exasperated by the fact that (65.9%) or 691 of the people who died by euthanasia based on "other conditions" that the approval was related to frailty.  

Frailty is not defined in the report but it likely refers to an elderly person who is not dying but has comorbities. In other words, the term frailty can also encompass euthanasia for "completed life."

Euthanasia for "completed life" means that an elderly person is not sick or dying, but wants to die. "Completed Life" is being debated in the Netherlands, but in Canada, it has never been debated, but based on the lack of definition in the law, it is being done.

The BC Ministry of Health must assure the public that euthanasia is not inappropriately being done by conducting independent research into the reasons for the higher number euthanasia deaths related to "frailty."

Based on the 2024 data from Ontario, Québec, Alberta, and BC; I predict that there were approximately 16,500 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2024 representing 5% of all deaths. 

The 16,500 euthanasia death prediction for 2024 is based on data. By comparing the 2023 reported euthanasia deaths to the 2024 data you notice that:

• Ontario reported 4641 in 2023 and 4958 in 2024.
• Quebec reported 5691 in 2023 and 6058 in 2024.
• Alberta reported 977 in 2023 and 1116 in 2024.
• British Columbia reported 2767 in 2023 and 3000 in 2024.

Since Ontario, Québec, Alberta and BC represent 87% of Canada's population, and since there were 1056 more euthanasia deaths in those provinces in 2024, and since there were 15,343 reported euthanasia deaths in 2023, therefore it is safe to predict that there were around 16,500 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024. There was a 7.5% increase in euthanasia deaths in Ontario, Québec, Alberta and British Columbia in 2024.

As of December 31, 2023 there were 60,301 reported euthanasia deaths in Canada since legalization. I am predicting that there were approximately 16,500 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024. Therefore, as of December 31, 2024 there were around 76,800 reported euthanasia deaths since legalization. Since this article is published in late September, 2025, it is likely there have been around 90,000 Canadian euthanasia deaths since legalization.

Sadly, the number of reported euthanasia deaths continues to increase. From January 1 to June 30, 2025; there were 2551 reported euthanasia deaths in Ontario representing a 4% increase since 2024.

Canadian Physician sends Open Letter to the House of Lords (UK) Opposing Assisted Suicide.

Dr Paul Saba

As the United Kingdom’s House of Lords debates the legalization of medically assisted dying—commonly called MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) in Canada—I want to warn the people of the United Kingdom not to go down this wrong and dangerous road that Canada has embarked on since 2016. 

The first reason not to legalize assisted suicide is that the eligibility for ending patients’ lives expands dramatically over time. This leads to unnecessary deaths for people who may have many years, if not decades, left to live. 

When Canada first legalized MAID in 2016, it was supposed to be for only a handful of terminally ill patients with just days to live. In 2016, there were 1,018 assisted deaths. By 2023, the number had increased to 15,343. From the inception of the law to the end of 2023, 60,301 Canadians had their lives ended by physician-assisted death. The numbers continue to rise each year. (Link) 

Québec, the province where I practise medicine, has the highest rate of euthanasia in both Canada and the world, at 7.6% of all deaths in the province. In 2024, the Commission sur les Soins de Fin de Vie—a government body that oversees end-of-life care—reported 6,058 euthanasia deaths between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024. (Link) 

The law was extended from those with terminal illnesses to those with chronic conditions and disabilities in 2021, following the passage of Bill C-7. Those with fragile health are also considered candidates for assisted dying. 

Starting in March 2027, those with mental illness will be eligible for physician-assisted death. I am strongly opposed to this expansion, as are many in the medical and psychiatric communities, who have raised concerns about the dangers of offering assisted suicide to vulnerable individuals with mental health challenges. This move has been highly controversial in Canada, with many experts warning about the risks of premature death among those who could otherwise recover or improve with treatment. 

As a physician, I sit on a review committee at one of Canada’s medical centres that assesses assisted deaths. The majority of the cases I have reviewed include people with medical conditions or disabilities, most with associated psychological and social factors that greatly influence their decision to request physician-assisted death. These factors include social isolation, feeling that they are a burden, loss of autonomy, and psychological distress. Based on my observations, physical pain was the least common reason. My experience is confirmed by Canada’s recent report on physician-assisted death. (Link) 

The State of Oregon was the first US state to legalise assisted suicide. In that state, the reasons for assisted suicide shows a similar pattern to Canada with loss of independence, wanting to control the time and manner of death, the fear of worsening pain or quality of life and the inability to care for themselves heading the list. (Link) 

Another reason not to go down this dangerous road is because of diagnostic errors. Physicians are human. When doctors give a patient a diagnosis, they can be wrong. In fact, errors in diagnosis for severe, life-threatening conditions may be as high as twenty percent in hospitalized patients. (Link) 

Several years ago, one of my patients, Jim (a pseudonym to protect his identity), came to me with a cough, thinking he had a cold. I ordered a chest x-ray. According to the radiologist’s report of the chest film, Jim appeared to have lung cancer. 

I sat down with Jim and said: 

“We need to do a scan right away. We need to get you to see a specialist. We need to do a bronchoscopy….” 

Jim responded: 

“Dr. Saba, I know you’re against assisted suicide, but you know what? I don’t necessarily agree with you. If I’m going to die, if my time is up….” 

I replied, 

“No, no. You have to go through the process because this is only a preliminary diagnosis. Even if it is lung cancer, it is treatable today. There are new treatments. It may not even be lung cancer.” 

I spoke to the radiologist who performed the lung scan, who said, 

“We’re not sure what it is. It appears to be lung cancer but it may be a lymphoma, which would be highly treatable.” 

Jim is an intelligent, well-informed man, an engineer, who thought he had a cold, then was told he might have cancer. He could have resigned himself to a medically assisted death before he even knew what we were dealing with, since Canadian law does not require that all diagnostic avenues be exhausted before a person is deemed eligible for MAID. Under current policy, a person can be eligible without undergoing every investigation necessary to confirm the diagnosis or rule out effective treatment. He could have given up hope while the situation was still filled with hope. The power to move people to give up is one of the dangerous and misleading aspects of medically assisted dying. 

However, I was able to get his attention and persuade him that the situation was hopeful and that he should get more tests and undergo treatment. The result? He called me in the summer of 2019 to thank me because there was no further evidence of disease, which is still the case today. He had finally been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is a condition that is highly curable with proper medical treatment. 

A Canadian study found that 13% of patients with a diagnosis of “lung cancer” who died by MAiD did not have a biopsy-proven diagnosis of lung cancer. Moreover, only a third of those diagnosed with advanced lung cancer underwent systemic treatments despite the availability of known effective treatments. (Link) 

This is what happens when the door is opened to assisted dying. Jim could have been another assisted dying fatality. I am a doctor who believes medicine must be grounded in solid science, in what research and experience teach us about how the body works and heals. 

Another reason not to go down the deadly road of assisted suicide is because it becomes an excuse for a faulty healthcare system lacking resources. Canada‘s publicly funded healthcare system lacks access to care for family physicians, specialists, investigative studies and has long waiting times for surgeries. In fact, Canada is considered one of the worst healthcare systems among OECD countries. (Link) 

Inversely, Canada has one of the fastest growing assisted dying programmes in the world. (Link) In contrast, palliative care for people seeking end-of-life care is not available for 70% of the population. The resources used for assisted dying should be rerouted to treat these patients. (Link) 

Canada like the United Kingdom has a publicly funded healthcare system. In Canada, assisted dying has become the default procedure for a healthcare system that has seriously failed to adequately care for its population. Similarly, Australia, which is given as an example for the British assisted suicide Bill, also has failed at providing quality palliative care. (Link) 

The conclusion—hope is one of the most powerful forces for good medical care. When I say hope is a powerful force for health, I mean that hope counsels us to patience, to seeing processes through, and to regarding every step as part of the great gift of being made for life. Assisted dying destroys that hope and leads people to giving up on life before their time. 

Dr. Paul Saba is a physician practicing family medicine in Lachine, Québec. He is a co-founder of the Physicians Alliance Against Assisted Suicide (https://collectifmedecins.org/en/about/) and is the author of the book Made to Live (madetolive.com) 1 514-886-3447 pauljsaba@gmail.com

Quebec can tell us about the lack of social legitimacy for euthanasia and assisted suicide

Gordon Friesen

By Gordon Friesen

President: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Peoples' eyes tend to glaze over at the sight of figures and statistics, so I will go directly to the bottom line:

Although Quebec has proportionally more assisted-suicide / euthanasia than any other jurisdiction in the world --including almost 10 times that of Oregon even after adjustment for wider eligibility criteria (see table 1)-- it still remains a decidedly marginal way to die. This is extremely significant. For just as we believe that euthanasia is wrong (and more is worse), so also, our adversaries believe that euthanasia is good (and more is better).

To be clear, these people are attempting to show that euthanasia is not only a "good death" but is actually the most desirable form of death for both the individual, and society. Their goal is to pragmatically prove this proposition by creating a perception, based on large numbers of people consenting to euthanasia, that this change in behavior represents some kind of inevitable social progress. And to that end, euthanasia doctors, administrators and politicians (especially in the Québec) are doing everything humanly possible to drive up consent rates as far as that may possibly be.

But that is precisely the insight we may now gain from statistics in that place: our adversaries are falling short, and failing in their plan. For there appears to be no medical circumstance, whatsoever (even under the most favorable marketing conditions imaginable) in which it might be termed statistically "normal" to consent to euthanasia. Indeed, when considered in the light of this data, no objective justification might ever be claimed for any particular case.

Most importantly, current Canadian public health policy cannot possibly be claimed as a reasonable response to spontaneous patient desire. On the contrary, the satisfaction of a marginal --and even arguably pathological-- demand for death has been used to undertake a complete transformation of public healthcare, without fundamental social legitimacy, towards a frankly death-based paradigm in which typical (non-suicidal) patients are increasingly unable to access real medical care. And yet, although we now suffer the full social cost of this institutional vandalism, the desired results have not been obtained!

Current policy is imposed from above, predatory in nature, and built upon a universal, State-mandated, systematic (and highly aggressive) marketing of death-as-cure. It's success depends upon the efficiency with which euthanasia may be sold to contextually helpless persons, by professionals who have learned to maximize the terrorizing diagnostic impact of serious illness, and to proactively reinforce any suicidal speculations born of depressive despair.

This dynamic is clearly illustrated in the official report of Quebec euthanasia most recently provided (2023-24) . Along the further banks of the St. Laurence River, far from both Montreal and Quebec City, we find two administrative regions on opposing shores. Both have the same traditions. Both watch the same TV; read the same papers; eat the same food; etc. On the South shore, (region 01, Bas-Saint-Laurent), the euthanasia ratio is an astonishing 10.6% of all deaths. Whereas across the water (region 09, Côte-Nord), the same ratio is below half of that, at 4.5%.

It would be difficult, I submit, to explain this difference in any other way than differing medical attitudes in their respective regional health administrations, resulting in turn from the personal bias of those doctors (and bureaucrats) working in each. Nor is this contrast unusual. Throughout rural Quebec, districts, literally side by side, show the same pattern of wildly differing euthanasia rates, split about equally, at or above versus well below the Provincial average.

There is no indication that patients are deprived of any valuable benefit in those regions with lower euthanasia prevalence. There is no population rising up with pitchforks, or crying out for release from "unbearable suffering". Lucidly considered, it would simply seem that at least half of all euthanasia deaths in the Côte-Nord (and other similar regions of Quebec) are not spontaneously requested at all, but "just happen", like those premature roof replacements, and encyclopedias, and vacuum cleaners --that no one really needs or wants-- but which are purchased, none the less, through the earnest eloquence of relentless door-to-door salesmen.

Certainly, knowledgeable patients might now have very rational misgivings about entering hospital at all, depending on where that hospital is located.

As noted above however, the more general problem --and regardless of where we happen to live --is that once institutional care teams are groomed to view euthanasia as the objectively indicated treatment for serious illness: very little appropriate life-affirming care is likely to remain for the vast majority of patients, who obstinately refuse to die.

Beyond political lobbying, therefore, our most important task, as advocates for life-affirming medical care, will be to create the conditions and institutions required to ensure that we, and our families, might have access to any such care at all. I am confident that, with growing citizen understanding of the true damage caused, the now developing medical model of euthanasia will eventually collapse under its own weight. However, that event may be decades away. Hence, we must not idly submit in the meantime.

This point is particularly timely in the US, because that country is not so far along the slope of State-mandated death-medicine as is Canada. There still remains a significant competitive element of patient choice. However, there should be no complacency on that score. Whatever advantage remains must be fully exploited by those with the vision and the courage to invent and create the structures required. There is no guarantee of future freedoms (just as there are now virtually no hospitals in Canada which are free of euthanasia practice). We are therefore urgently summoned to "use it or lose it!", right now, in the present moment.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is fully committed to supporting all such initiatives.

A technical Post Scriptum for those who would like to see the proof

Facts, as they say, are stubborn things. And this fact (of politically structuring public healthcare to favor interests which are directly opposed to those of individual patients themselves) promises to be stubborn indeed. For how can social legitimacy be claimed for something so impactful, which so few people can be enticed to embrace?

I first made this argument in 2019 (in French), here and here and later in the Psychiatric Times (2022) and (2025). In each of these cases I used the worst examples then existing, which concerned cancer patients in the Netherlands. Approximately stated: 4% of all Dutch deaths were then due to euthanasia, while no less than 70% of euthanasia was performed on cancer patients. At the same time, only 30% of all deaths were due to cancer (including related euthanasia).

Doing the appropriate math (.7x.04/.3) we see that 9.3% of Dutch cancer patients died by euthanasia. I was thus able to demonstrate that in the most prolific euthanasia regime on the planet at that time, and in the most receptive patient category, less than 10% of patients would consent to die by euthanasia. Or conversely stated: 90% of such patients did NOT consent.

I also suggested that year-over-year growth of euthanasia was stabilizing, and that Dutch euthanasia would likely top out not far above 4%.

Unfortunately, these predictions have proved false, since the Dutch are now above 5%, but also largely irrelevant, since Quebec has now taken the lead with no less than 8.2% of all deaths (table 1). However, let us examine whether these new numbers actually contradict the underlying significance of our earlier conclusions before we assume that they have been discredited.

With rapidly rising incidence, euthanasia in Quebec has been metastasizing into other previously untouched patient groups. The proportion of such deaths associated with cancer has thus descended to 60%. At the same time cancer as a fraction of all deaths is now 26%. This means that the fraction of cancer patients who consent to euthanasia (.082x.60/.26) has now risen to nearly 19%.

Obviously, this is very different from before. Certainly, I can no longer claim that 90% of patients will never consent to euthanasia. However, if that claim is now "only" 80%, what essential difference is there in the meaning of those numbers? In fact, let us seek the greatest level of detail now available. It is stated in another recent Quebec report that certain specific cancers actually have a consent rate up to 25%. So be it.

Our revised claim may be stated as follows:

There is no medical circumstance, whatsoever, in which more than one quarter of patients will consent to die by euthanasia (even where that death is systematically promoted by the State and universally normalized by all care teams, in all medical facilities). Even in the face of such extraordinary psychological pressure, fully three quarters will refuse.

This I believe is the most important lesson which we may learn from data provided by the Province of Quebec. It is our interest and duty to ensure that medicine, public or private, be structured to serve the non-suicidal super-majority of patients. We must not allow clinical culture to be dictated by the cynical political exploitation of atypical views tragically espoused by a troubled few.

A note on misleading data concerning euthanasia for neurodegenerative diseases

It further appears in the above-cited report that up to 35% of deaths due to conditions such as Parkinson’s, ALS and MS, are now euthanasia deaths in Quebec. Please note, however, that this claim is extremely problematic. For people do not die of such diseases, they die with them. And thus any deaths so attributed will very likely be euthanasia deaths to begin with. Unlike cancer data, therefore, this statistic has no relation to the total number of people living with neurodegenerative diseases who might actually consent to euthanasia for that reason. Indeed, the fallacious suggestion made here, that voluntary death is so incredibly popular (and by implication appropriate) among such patients, constitutes a disturbing attack upon the physical and social security of people to whom we owe a completely different sort of respect and support.

Comparison of AD incidence in Oregon and Quebec

Assisted Death: 

Oregon 376 deaths (2024) (3) Québec 6058 deaths (2024) (1)

Total Deaths: 

Oregon 44,681 (2022) (5) Québec 79,300 (2023) (6)

Assisted deaths as a percentage of all deaths: 

Oregon 0.8%, Québec (7.6%).

1. Quebec End-of-Life Commission annual report (April 2023 - March 2024)
2. Quebec End-of-Life Commission five year review (April 2018 - March 2023)
3. Oregon Death with Dignity Act 2024 Data Summary  oregon.gov accessed April 2, 2025
4. Supplementary data from the Quebec End-of-Life Care Commission February 3, 2025  
5. Oregon total deaths (2022) oregon.gov accessed Nov.30. 2024
6. Total Quebec yearly deaths (2023-2024) statistica.com 
7. Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada , 2023, table 2.1a, www.canada.ca 

Canada's euthanasia deaths continue to rise with approximately 16,500 euthanasia deaths in 2024.

EPC predicts that there were approximately 16,500 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2024 representing 5% of all deaths.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On December 11, 2023 Canada's Ministry of Health released the 2023 euthanasia report with the Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying. The 2023 report indicated that there were 15,343 reported Canadian euthanasia deaths representing 4.7% of all deaths. The number of reported euthanasia deaths was up from 13,241 in 2022.

EPC has obtained the 2024 euthanasia data from Ontario, Québec and Alberta.

Based on the 2024 data from Ontario, Québec and Alberta, EPC predicts that there were approximately 16,500 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2024 representing 5% of all deaths. As of December 31, 2024 there were almost 77,000 reported Canadian euthanasia deaths.

How did we make this prediction?

The Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario released the December 2024 MAiD data which indicated that there were 4,958 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024 which is up from 4,641 in 2023. Ontario represents almost 40% of Canada's population.

The data indicates that, as of December 31, 2024, there have been 23,334 Ontario euthanasia deaths since legalization. Alliston Ontario had a population of 23,253 in 2021.

The Québec Commission sur les soins de vie reported that in 2024 there were 6058 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024 which is up by 6.5% from 5691 in 2023. Québec represents about 23% of Canada's population.

In 2023 Québec had the highest euthanasia rate in the world at 7.2% of all deaths. The 2024 data indicates a Québec euthansia rate of 7.6% of all deaths.

As of December 31, 2024, there were 26,421 Québec euthanasia deaths since legalization. The City of Saint-Georges Québec had a population of 27,402 in 2021.

Alberta Health Services released their MAiD data indicating that there were 1,116 reported euthanasia deaths in 2024 which is up from 977 in 2023. Alberta represents about 12% of Canada's population.

 

As of December 31, 2024 there were 5030 Alberta euthanasia deaths since legalization. Langdon Alberta had a population of 5,193 in 2021.

By combining Ontario, Quebec and Alberta data, there was a 7.3% increase in euthanasia deaths in 2024. Since the three provinces represent around 75% of Canada's population I estimate that there were at least 16,500 Canadian euthanasia deaths in 2024.

The Chief Coroner of Ontario has attempted to institute greater oversight in Ontario. Greater oversight may have led to a slowing euthanasia growth rate.

In October 2024 the Chief Coroner of Ontario released the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee report indicating that between 2018 and 2023 there were euthanasia deaths driven by homelessness, fear and isolation and that poor people are at risk of coercion and Canadians with disabilities are needlessly dying by euthanasia. The data from the report indicated that there were at least 428 non-compliant euthanasia deaths between 2018 and 2023 and 25% of the euthanasia providers violated the law.

 

The Ontario MAiD Death Review report has three parts (Part 3) (Part 2) (Part 1).

 

The Ontario (MAiD) euthanasia report shows that the number of reported MAiD deaths increased by approximately 7% in 2024.

The Québec Commission sur les soins de vie reported a 6.5% increase in 2024.

Alberta had a 14% increase in euthanasia deaths in 2024, double Ontario's rate of increase.

We have hope that Alberta's euthanasia growth rate will slow down as Alberta considers changes to their rules for approving euthanasia.

On January 30, during an interview with the John Bachman Now show, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith indicated that her government plans to tighten the rules for approving Albertan's for euthanasia.

Alberta has had the case of the 27-year-old autistic woman, who was approved and scheduled to die by euthanasia on February 1, 2024 until her father challenged the euthanasia approval in court. There was also a case of a Calgary man who couldn't get experimental treatment for cluster headaches but could get approved for euthanasia.

Alberta's Justice Ministry held a consultation on changes to the application of euthanasia in their province. The final decision has not been released yet.

Similar to last year, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is working to obtain the provincial euthanasia data to provide insight into Canada's experience with killing.

Canadian government will discuss euthanasia by advanced request.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Canadian government website - Medical Assistance in Dying: National conversation on advanced requests (Link).

The Canadian government will launch a consultation on expanding Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law to permit euthanasia by advanced request. 

David Baxter reported for the Associated Press on October 28 that Canada's Health Minister, Mark Holland, made the announcement on October 28.

Baxter explained that the Québec government announced that, starting on October 30, they will permit advanced requests for euthanasia to enable people with dementia or Alzheimer's disease to request euthanasia while the person is still competent. Euthanasia by advanced request is not permitted in Canada's euthanasia law.

Health Minister Mark Holland

Baxter reported Holland as stating:

“What we’re saying very clearly is that this is an incredibly difficult issue, that we need to take the time to have a national conversation that includes our provincial and territorial colleagues, that where these lines are drawn and whether or not the system is ready is a very important step,” Holland said at a press conference on Parliament Hill on Monday.

“This continues to be illegal in this country, that if you act on an advance request, the Criminal Code is very clear that that is not legal.”

The Quebéc government announced on September 7 that they had asked the provincial Crown prosecutor’s office to not pursue charges against doctors as long as they comply with the provincial law. Euthanasia by advanced request changes the requirement of consent.

Canada's euthanasia law requires that a person be capable of consenting to euthanasia when the doctors or nurse practitioners approve the death. The Québec government will enable someone to state, in advance, their wish to die and then it would be legally carried out at a later date, even if the person has become incompetent.

Bad care brings euthanasia and euthanasia brings bad care.

Gordon Friesen

Gordon Friesen
President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

In January, 2024, Normand Meunier visited the emergency department of a major regional hospital in the Province of Quebec, the jurisdiction with the highest euthanasia rate in the world.

Meunier was complaining of a potentially life-threatening respiratory infection which was successfully treated during his stay. And yet, before he was even formally admitted to hospital, this patient spent 95 hours on a stretcher in the emergency corridor, resulting in a severe pressure sore which ultimately decided him to end his own life through consent to Medical Assistance in Dying.

Article: Québec quadriplegic man "chooses" euthanasia after suffering horrific negligent care. (Link)

Normand Meunier

Quite naturally, these circumstances raised great excitement among the public, who universally condemned this demonstration of dysfunctional care. Our own friends and allies quickly pointed out, also, that these shortfalls in public healthcare actively push vulnerable people like Mr. Meunier towards euthanasia --an allegation which was explicitly levelled by Meunier, himself, in the course of pre-MAID interviews.

One point

With the reader's permission, I would like to add a MAID related reflection to this analysis: concerning the active feedback loop now created between poor care and euthanasia. For this relation does not proceed in one direction only.

Yes. It is true that poor care will inevitably drive increased demand for MAID. However, it is equally true that the availability of MAID (to clean up embarrassing inadequacies in public policy) will also tend to reduce good-faith efforts to resolve these problems --and ultimately to encourage a sort of passive fatalism in the face of sustained degradation in our medical system.

For in the end (according to this new death-medicine paradigm) whatever other treatments might be lacking, at least we have one sure-fire remedy to settle any serious medical challenge, which is Medical homicide, aka Euthanasia, aka MAID.

Unhelpful and clumsy attempts to avoid meaningful criticism

Faced with the evidence that something had gone terribly wrong for Normand Meunier, public figures and bureaucrats --from the Provincial Premier on down-- were quick to denounce this episode with sincere and righteous outrage, vowing that it must never be repeated.

(Which, if we read between the lines, is simply to say that Normand Meunier's case was officially minimized, as a tragic one-off, from which specific lessons might be gleaned, but no more.)

To promote this reassuring perception, much was made of the special circumstances encountered. 

1) Meunier was a quadriplegic (a generally mysterious and little understood condition) 

2) The specific issue was pressure sores (which ordinary people know little or nothing about) 

3) The reason these sores became a problem was attributed to a simple tech problem, in the lack of a pressure-alternating mechanical air mattress.

Together these factors have been used to tacitly imply that under "normal" circumstances emergency rooms work just fine (or at the very least, that for "normal" folk, the pressure sores of quadriplegics are no more a threat than unicorns on another planet).

Unfortunately, however, these assumptions are quite false. For in truth: all of the Very Special Factors cited above are no more than proverbial "red herrings".

Nothing but business as usual

To begin with, there is nothing "special" about bedsores (aka decubitus ulcers) and these sores are not an exclusivity of quadriplegics. For although the typical citizen is largely ignorant of their fatal significance, pressure sores are everywhere seen among sedentary patients. In fact, no less than 30% of patients in Canadian long term hospital facilities have pressure sores which are qualified as "difficult" and require constant attention.

It should thus be perfectly obvious that patients are constantly turning up in ER, both at risk of ulcers and with active sores; and that nothing, therefore, could be more typical (however gruesome that reality might be) than the specific problem presented by Mr. Meunier.

But just as importantly, regarding the famous missing therapeutic mattress itself: there is no need, whatsoever, for such a mattress in the normal treatment of patients at risk of ulcers; nor do any large percentage of such patients have the benefit of this technology; nor would Normand Meunier have had any need of one, had he been treated according to basic accepted rules of the Medical Art.

For this is truly nursing 101. Pressure ulcers are caused by unrelieved pressure (invariably present whenever someone is laid in a bed or seated in a chair). And pressure is most effectively relieved by regular repositioning (ie. "turning") of the patient. It would be extremely curious, moreover, if these facts were unknown to those who had responsibility for Mr. Meunier's care --considering that (unlike typical civilians) ALL nursing staff EVERYWHERE know what pressure sores are --and how to prevent them-- and that patients are (in theory) being "turned" every two hours in ALL hospitals throughout the civilized world.

According to standard nursing procedure, therefore, Normand Meunier should simply have been "turned" (47 different times) during his stint in Emergency. And yet, he was NOT turned. On the contrary, he was apparently left to stew in his own juice.

It is this fact which demands an explanation: not an isolated incident caused by one or two incompetent individuals in an extraordinary situation; but a seemingly incomprehensible continuum of neglect suffered by a perfectly ordinary patient --in perfectly ordinary circumstances-- which was played out over a period of four full days, during which Mr. Meunier was surrounded by first-world doctors and nurses, methodically rotating through twelve consecutive shifts, where notes and recommendations, concerning every single patient, were dutifully exchanged at the beginning and end of every one.

Clearly, that explanation will not be easy.

No sense in demonizing the staff of one particular hospital

It would be absurd to represent Emergency Room conditions in St-Jerome, QC, as uniquely inadequate, or the medical professionals of that city as uniquely incompetent.

The sad fact is that Emergency culture has become the reflection of a public health policy which has ultimately created centers of catastrophic triage --all over the Province and possibly Canada, functioning with a work-flow appropriate for battlefields or civil disasters, but NOT for normal circumstances in peacetime society. Doctors and nurses are thus constantly occupied, running back and forth from one pressing task to the next, resetting priorities as they go, and only with the greatest difficulty completing sufficient tasks to allow a descent to the mundane level of basic nursing.

It is, perhaps, a model well adapted to the reception of accident victims, or gunshot wounds. However, warning alarms are unavoidable when we consider that the ER also provides the routine interface between more or less stable patients in very fragile condition --such as those arriving from nursing homes or rehabilitation-- and simple admission to acute care hospitals.

Like Mr. Meunier, such patients typically need a continuity of care, with admittedly complex issues, and will routinely suffer serious harm in the extended limbo of Emergency triage. For quite clearly: it is not just any patient who can survive the consequences of being placed at the back of the priority queue, for multiple days, in an ER corridor.

I myself once spent a mere 23 hours, as a figuratively "ambulatory" patient in Emergency, during which time I managed my own pressure issues by periodically transferring out of my wheelchair to rest, on the floor of my van in the hospital parking lot. Much like Normand Meunier, I was fortunate enough to receive full satisfaction for the complaint I presented. However, my normal hypothermia, compounded by rests in the cold van, plus the exceptional neglect of proper bladder voiding, and (above all) pushing myself well beyond my own limits of endurance, resulted in the conversion of certain chronic renal problems into something much more menacing, with which I then had to deal, just as Meunier did with his new sores.

My point is this: Urban Emergency rooms in Canada are gruelling environments for both professionals and patients. Not in extraordinary circumstances with Very Special patients, but as a perfectly ordinary routine.

Making it all go away: no patient, no problem!

Huge efforts have been provided in attempting to solve the problems described. But we must remember that those efforts are provided only in response to the frequent, obvious, and largely gratuitous (but statistically inevitable) suffering and mortality presently observed. For without that constant pressure, there is no urgency to sustain change.

It is easy therefore to understand the decision of Normand Meunier, to consent to a death which, as he says himself, he never wanted, and should never have been forced to confront. It was also a most regrettable decision from a scientific perspective, in that he was still objectively floundering at the peak of an inevitable --but statistically temporary-- period of rehabilitative distress (only 2 years post-trauma) and thus should not ethically have been authorized (let alone encouraged) to die from MAID.

Certainly, also, it is a most praiseworthy reflex of the general public to decry such tragic events. But it still remains for us to learn the extent to which deaths of people like Normand Meunier (and even the effect of lesser fears, such as my own of returning to the ER...) will themselves provide a mortal safety-valve, removing just enough pressure from our medical policy-makers, to ensure that no proper changes will be made.

In a word: Bad care produces more euthanasia. And more euthanasia enables more bad care. 

Link to more articles by Gordon Friesen (Link).