Justin Trudeau and his Liberal/NDP coalition government will have to decide on expanding eligibility for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) early in 2024. The government-funded euthanasia program, eagerly introduced by Trudeau less than a year into his role as prime minister in the summer of 2016, is set to expand its eligibility to those who suffer from mental illness, including addiction and even homelessness. .The decision was already delayed for a year earlier in 2023 after the government received massive national and international pushback. Canada’s justice minister Arif Virani will have to make the call before the new rules go into effect as planned for March 17, 2024..The Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention (CASP) has called out the Liberals for framing the program as assistance in dying when it is actually assistance in suicide because recipients of MAiD are not terminally ill. CASP argues there is no way of knowing if a person’s death is “foreseeable” or not, as earlier MAiD legislation states. The United Nations has also already warned Canada about its zealousness for the assisted suicide program. It said Canada’s current MAiD program — before the eligibility expansion — already threatens article 10 of the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, per The London Free Press. .Virani told The Canadian Press the federal government is looking at its options. Recommendations from members of parliament and senators will be considered. .Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre’s psychiatry department chief and University of Toronto professor Sonu Gaind said he still has some questions that are “nowhere close” to being answered. He said he wants the government to take a breather and “re-evaluate how we got here.”“Does it mean if you’ve had decades of suffering from an illness, and you’ve tried things, and nothing has helped? Is that what it means?” he said. “Or does it mean that you’re suffering now, and you live in a rural community, Indigenous population, and you can’t get access to care, and society is not willing to provide you access to care?”.Conservative MP Ed Fast, who submitted a private member’s bill to have the MAiD legislation paused, has said there is not enough medical consensus to go through with such a decision to take life away from people who are suffering, pointing out mental health issues are not a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.” .“There’s too much controversy,” said physician at the University of Manitoba’s psychiatry department Jitender Sareen, noting the “significant amount of concern among psychiatrists,” as well as the Canadian Mental Health Association and CASP. Sareen added Canadians would be better off if the Trudeau administration focused on helping those with mental health rather than arranging for their death.
