A prominent opponent of euthanasia in Canada is welcoming a continued moratorium on assisted deaths for the mentally ill, but adds practices already occurring deserve more scrutiny..The Trudeau Liberals passed Bill C-7 in March of 2021 to extend euthanasia options to the disabled, but delayed euthanasia for the mentally ill until March 17, 2023. However, on December 15, Federal Justice Minister David Lametti said the federal government would hold off on the extension because provinces and health care providers wanted more time to work out appropriate guidelines..In an interview, Alex Schadenberg, president of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told the Western Standard negative press pushed back the government’s timeline for the time being..“The overwhelming pressure on the government was to hold back now,” Schadenberg said..“There's a lot of psychiatrists who said, 'No, this doesn't work,' and there's been a lot of pushback from the medical community that way. And secondly, there's been way too many stories about people with disabilities who are talking about this based on poverty, homelessness, can't get medical treatment. It's the same issues that will be for people with mental illness.”.The chair of the federal expert panel on medically assisted death expressed doubts the delay was necessary..“Even the premise that this is required, I think needs to be questioned. Why do we need to have all sorts of new things in place that we don’t have for everybody else in Canadian society who makes a MAID request?” Mona Gupta, a psychiatrist and associate professor at the University of Montreal, told the Canadian Press..“We need to ask ourselves the question about whether this readiness argument, which is being brought forward at the eleventh hour, is not merely a way to camouflage the real argument, which is certain people are opposed to this practice.”.Gupta’s comments did not sway Schadenberg..“Mona Gupta has been in favor of euthanasia for mental illness for a very long time. She's the one who wrote the Quebec Psychiatric Association report, which was pro, even though the Quebec government ended up coming out against euthanasia for mental illness. So, the fact that she's saying there's nothing wrong with this — well, so what Mona? Like, she's pro euthanasia, it's ridiculous.”.Schadenberg said the Liberals may have delayed the implementation because of a possible election in the spring. He expects the final guidelines will probably require a year’s effort of mental health supports and a psychiatrist’s additional approval, similar to what is done in the Netherlands. He also sounded alarm bells over Quebec’s recent annual report on end-of-life options..“There was 15 deaths that did not fit the criteria [under] the law. Some of them were just there wasn't a doctor who did second signature. Some of them were the person was clearly not qualified under the law. And yet there was no charges at all done whatsoever,” Schadenberg said..According to the report, euthanasia deaths reported by facilities (3,629) and the Collège des Médecins du Québec (323) totalled 3,952. However, this total was 289 more than the 3,663 found in doctor’s reports. Schadenberg said such discrepancies are reported every year without a proper accounting..“The Quebec government has to say, let's look at this further. When the committee is looking at this, they're saying that there's some double reporting going on. Is there? You should be able to know that. I don't have access to the reports, nor do you, but they have access to the reports,” he said..“They have to look through the reports and uncover what's going on and they haven't bothered. But it does show a discrepancy. And that's a serious concern.”.The 3,663 deaths recorded by doctors between April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022, was 51% more than the year before. This represented 5.1% of all deaths in Quebec and brought the total since legalization to 10,786 deaths.
