MAiD Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

OTTAWA — With Canada a year away from including mental illness as a sole condition for accessing medically assisted suicide, many are expressing concern about expanding what’s quickly becoming normalized — particularly with young people.

That’s of concern to University of Toronto professor Trudo Lemmens, who said the program has morphed into one where medical assistance in dying (MAID) is quickly becoming a normalized form of therapy rather than an exceptional and compassionate option for unbearable suffering.

Canada is set to pass a grim milestone in its medically-assisted suicide program with a total of 100,000 citizens projected to be euthanized by the government before its 10th anniversary on June 17.

The Great White North’s MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) program will soon cross the sickly six-figure threshold, according to The National Post.

Ottawa’s most recent data shows 15,767 Canadians were euthanized by the state in 2024 — 5.1% of all deaths in the nation that year.

Last September, several media outlets reported that Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program – legalized in 2016 to permit doctor-assisted suicide – had reignited debate over whether newborns could be included at some point.

The debate began in 2022, during hearings before Parliament’s Special Joint Committee on MAiD, when Louis Roy of the Quebec College of Physicians suggested that eligibility could one day extend to “babies from birth to one year of age” that were born with severe deformities or disabilities.

h/t kiki9

People in Canada are having their lives ended by assisted dying on the same day that requests are made, adding to fears that wrongful deaths may be occurring.

An official report by the Chief Coroner of Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying Death Review Committee (MDRC) highlighted that, in 2023, 65 people in Ontario had their lives ended by Canada’s assisted suicide and euthanasia programme on the same day that they made their requests to do so. A further 154 people had their lives ended the day after their request was made.

h/t patthedog

If you want to glimpse Britain’s potential dark future, look west to Canada.

In 2016, Canada legalised Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) for the terminally ill. MAID was sold as a state-controlled solution to suffering, and came with all the usual reassurances that it was intended only for the dying, the desperate, and those with few other alternatives. Ten years on, it’s a machine for death.

The family of a 26-year-old Canadian man who was recently euthanized is speaking out against the law that allowed for his death after a doctor reportedly “coached” him on how to qualify for physician-assisted suicide.

By age 40, around half of Canadians will suffer or have suffered from mental illness, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association. The other half will have someone close to them who has.

Canada’s MAID (medical assistance in dying) law is scheduled to expand to make people who suffer solely from mental illness eligible for MAID on March 17, 2027. While Canada’s approach to mental illness importantly focuses on mental health care, the expansion of MAID threatens to significantly alter that approach.

The death of 26-year-old Kiano Vafaeian by MAID on Dec. 30, 2025, is emblematic of what Canadians can expect to become commonplace in the coming years.

Vafaeian, who had diabetes and whose natural death was not foreseeable, found that Vancouver physician Dr. Ellen Wiebe was willing to end his life. The young man had been doctor shopping before he found her.

Blindness, autism, diabetes, obesity, and ADHD have been given as reasons for killing young people.

Last month, a 26-year-old Ontario man, Kiano Vafaeian, was euthanized because of his blindness, type 1 diabetes, and depression. His mom tried to stop him from pursuing euthanasia, but she later gave up, saying she didn’t want her son to “keep hating” her.

And in 2024, a 27-year-old woman was euthanized in Canada despite pleas from her father that she was “generally healthy” and had only been diagnosed with autism and ADHD. The woman claimed physical ailments, but her father said these simply resulted from “undiagnosed psychological conditions.”

A Canadian family has been left heartbroken and angry after a 26-year-old diabetic and blind man died of ‘physician-assisted suicide’ – three years after they blocked his request for euthanasia.

Margaret Marsilla had been successfully able to prevent her son Kiano Vafaeian from dying under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program back in 2022.

She noted that Vafaeian did not suffer from any terminal illnesses. He was just blind and struggling with complications from type 1 diabetes as well as mental health issues.