The feds revealed it will give close to $1 million to the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) to develop terms related to MAiD for mental illness.This is according to a question and response tabled last week by Conservative MP for Cloverdale—Langley City, Tamara Jansen, who asked for details from Health Canada on the upcoming addition of mental illness as an eligible MAiD criterion.The feds stated they will be giving an additional $498,000 annually for two years to create guidelines for treating MAiD patients who qualify due to their mental illness .They have already spent $5 million on MAiD curriculum development..They gave an additional more than $500,000 in 2026-2027 to expand MAiD training for non-clinical professionals, developing a "National MAiD Professionals Knowledge Base."MAiD for mental illness is set to be legal in Canada on March 17, 2027. The CPA has stated on their website they do not take any position on whether MAiD should be allowed when mental illness is the sole medical condition. The CPA did, however, publish a statement in March 2020 which says, “patients with a psychiatric illness should not be discriminated against solely on the basis of their disability, and should have available the same options regarding MAiD as available to all patients.".They follow up by claiming this does not mean they would classify "patients with only a psychiatric illness," as having a grievous and irremediable condition, one of the requirements of the current MAiD provisions.The CPA’s Public Policy Committee and Professional Standards and Practice Committee, which include psychiatrists who specialize in MAiD, released a paper in 2021 discussing individuals with a mental illness' ability to choose MAiD.The paper says there was a "high level of concern [from members] about the ability to definitively determine that a mental illness is 'irremediable,' given the lack of scientific evidence in this area."
