This special joint committee meeting studied the eligibility for medical assistance in dying (MAID) of those whose sole condition is a mental illness. The witnesses were Dr. Christopher Lyon, Dr. John Maher, Gabrielle Peters, Dr. Catherine Frazee, Michelle Hewitt, Krista Carr, Dr. Kerri Froc, Professor Daphne Gilbert, Professor Elizabeth Sheehy, and Professor Isabel Grant.
Dr. Christopher Lyon, whose father died by MAID, described what he called a track shift from track 2 to track 1 based on an undiagnosed illness, and said his father's psychiatric assessment contained errors and denied his history of depression and suicidality. He argued that if such problems occur when psychotropic drugs and mental illness are involved, expanding MAID to sole mental illness would be dangerous, and he raised concerns about the influence of groups like Dying with Dignity and the difficulty of filing complaints.
Dr. John Maher, a psychiatrist, argued that there is no such thing as irremediable mental illness, that suffering can always be reduced, and that MAID is being offered to patients with treatable conditions, including one with schizophrenia approved for MAID based on a skin condition and a sore ankle. He said safeguards will fail because the cultural ethos already normalizes suicide, and he cited data that 90% of people who attempt suicide do not go on to complete it with proper treatment, and that suicide rates rose faster in jurisdictions with MAID.
Gabrielle Peters, co-founder of Disability Filibuster, argued that the claim that opposing MAID expansion is discriminatory is false, and that support for euthanasia on the basis of mental illness is correlated with stigma. She said the division between physical and mental illness is maintained by the state, and that MAID is authored by epistemic injustice and should be repealed, not expanded.
Dr. Catherine Frazee, professor emerita, said she worked on the MAID practitioner training curriculum and found a culture immune to self-reflection, where questions about whether despair arose from lack of support were rejected as threats to autonomy. She argued that the trust placed in medical judgment has not been honoured, and that the committee cannot responsibly contemplate expansion of a regime that has not learned to be accountable.
Michelle Hewitt, board chair of Disability Without Poverty, described her husband Victor's MAID death, saying he did not want to die but felt he had no other option after losing access to effective pain medication and facing cognitive changes. She said the assessment was the easiest medical assessment he had ever been through, with no attempt to explore alternatives, and that the current MAID program is severely broken and should not be expanded.
Krista Carr, CEO of Inclusion Canada, said her organization receives calls weekly from people with disabilities who were offered MAID when seeking help for ordinary health issues, and that track 2 MAID disproportionately affects women, Indigenous people, and those living in poverty. She argued that track 2 is discriminatory under section 15 of the charter, that no amount of safeguards can fix a fundamental equality issue, and that the committee should maintain the exclusion for mental illness and repeal track 2.
Dr. Kerri Froc, associate professor of law, argued that the charter does not require extending MAID to mental illness as a sole condition, because Carter was a section 7 decision grounded in causation and did not mandate such an extension. She said that even under a section 15 equality claim, the exemption from criminal liability is not a benefit under federal law, and that differential treatment based on the recognized limits of medical knowledge is not discriminatory.
Professor Daphne Gilbert, full professor of law, argued that excluding individuals with mental illness from MAID is discriminatory and violates section 15 of the charter, reinforcing stigma and paternalistic assumptions. She said the existing safeguards are adequate, that only a small number of people would qualify, and that the government should lift the exclusion rather than continue to delay, noting that a charter challenge is underway in Ontario.
Professor Elizabeth Sheehy, professor emerita of law, argued that extending MAID to mental illness will disproportionately end the lives of mentally ill women, as track 2 already disproportionately ends the lives of disabled women. She cited data showing that in jurisdictions allowing psychiatric euthanasia, 69% to 77% of recipients are women, and that male violence contributes to women's mental illness and suicidality, urging the committee to end the prospect of MAID on the sole basis of mental illness.
Professor Isabel Grant, university killam professor, argued that Canada does not systematically track trauma, abuse, or violence in MAID requests, and that a history of violence contributes to a desire to die. She said the idea that offering death promotes autonomy for women with mental illness is appalling, and that women with mental illness deserve access to a dignified life, not death.
The committee spent time at the outset resolving a technical issue with interpretation and later agreed to reduce speaking time equally across remaining panels to accommodate the overrun from the first panel.
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