One MP had a few words regarding the astounding increase in medical assistance in dying cases in Canada in 2024.Conservative MP for Haldimand-Norfolk, Ontario, Dr. Leslyn Lewis, wrote on X in reaction to the 16,499 people who received MAiD last year:"This isn’t about judgment.""It’s about asking hard questions with compassion."."When deaths increase year after year, we must ask whether people are truly being offered hope, care, and real support, or whether too many feel isolated, burdensome, or without alternatives," pointed out Lewis.This is in fact, true — MAiD has only been increasing since it legalization in 2016.In recent years, the number has increased significantly — in 2022, the number of MAiD deaths was 13,241, and in 2023 MAiD deaths totaled 15,247.To put that into perspective, over one year (from 2023 to 2024), MAiD cases increased by 7% and over two years (2022 to 2024) MAiD cases increased by 24%..According to the National Post, there have been 76,475 reported MAiD deaths in Canada since 2016."A caring society invests in palliative care, mental-health and disability supports, and affirms that every life has value," Lewis concludes in her post. There have been concerns about those who wish to receive MAiD due to their feelings of extreme social isolation and loneliness in the most recent 2024 MAiD report.According to the 2024 Ageing in Canada Survey, the National Institute on Ageing found 2 in 10 (19%) people in Canada aged 50 years or older were very lonely, 40% were somewhat lonely, and 43% were at risk of social isolation..However, the report does not list loneliness as a "sole source of suffering" for any of the MAiD cases in 2024 — though patients did list multiple sources of suffering.MAiD patients, especially those under Track 2, meaning individuals who received MAiD are "assessed as having a natural death that was not 'reasonably foreseeable," were the most likely to report loneliness.The report stated Track 2 MAiD patients, who have often "lived with their medical condition for many years," experience feelings of "chronic loneliness and social isolation" as a consequence of suffering from their health condition.This has been the case for individuals like Jolene Van Alstine, who was approved for MAiD in January 7, 2026..Van Alstine decided to receive MAiD due to her suffering from a rare parathyroid disease known as normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism (nPHPT) — which causes her to experience extreme bone pain, nausea, and vomiting.Van Alstine needs surgery to remove her parathyroid — but no surgeon in her province of Saskatchewan can perform the surgery, and in order to get the surgery out of province, she must first be referred by an endocrinologist.Reported by Right to Life News, Van Alstine commented on her experience with the ailment, highlighting the isolation she felt: "My friends have stopped visiting me. I’m isolated. I’ve been alone lying on the couch for eight years, sick and curled up in a ball, pushing for the day to end”.“I go to bed at six at night because I can’t stand to be awake anymore.".Since Van Alstine has now been given the opportunity to receive the surgery she needs in the US, paid for by American political commentator Glenn Beck.
