Brandan Tran is Director of Public Affairs and Outreach for Campaign Life Coalition, and a 2026–2027 Cardus NextGEN Fellow. He and his wife live in Ottawa with their five children.
There are two people in Canada who have caused the deaths of hundreds through poison.
The first poisoner held no medical licence and operated outside of Canadian law. He sold and shipped toxic chemicals with tracking numbers after having advertised on suicide forums. He killed more than 50 people a year. In May 2026, he pleaded guilty to counselling or aiding suicide.
The second poisoner operates within Canadian law. He has a medical licence and uses billing codes to track patient care and receive payment. He does not operate alone. There are many like him. In just one year (2024), one of these killed as many as 261 Canadians. Even though this second poisoner is engaged in the same activity as the first, he will never be charged with counselling or aiding suicide.
Both poisoners have much in common. They have ended the lives of people who loved and who were loved. These were fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. All of them deserved care and compassion rather than death. Both poisoners prematurely cut short their earthly existences, sundering relationships, leaving loss, and emptiness behind.
Poison salesman Kenneth Law sold lethal doses of sodium nitrite to suicidal people worldwide from 2020 until his arrest this spring. He ran his operation through websites disguised as food shops. He impersonated a medical doctor, coaching buyers on lethal dosages on suicide forums under the alias “Greenberg.” Mr. Law made $297,000 over three years. In May 2026, he pleaded guilty to assisting 14 suicides in Ontario and admitted responsibility for 79 deaths in the UK. His products have caused at least 147 deaths worldwide. Law will be sentenced next month.
Only a licence separates this illegal poisoner from a legal one.
Dr. James MacLean has held a licence from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario since 1980. He administers a three-drug protocol, a poison cocktail, the last of which is a paralytic that stops a patient’s breathing. Under Ontario's Track 2 MAiD/euthanasia eligibility, he has even assessed and killed patients whose natural deaths were not reasonably foreseeable.
In June 2023, MacLean assessed Thomas Dillon outside a Tim Hortons in St. Thomas. Dillon was 45, struggled with addiction and persistent suicidal ideation, had difficulty keeping a job, and depended on family for housing. His Crohn's disease was the box MacLean checked to approve him for euthanasia under Track 2. MacLean texted Dillon for months, reportedly disparaged the family members who opposed the decision, and finally drove Dillon personally to a room in London where cadavers are prepared for funeral transport. There he poisoned Dillon to death.
In a second case, MacLean administered his protocol to Bradley Stewart, 67, pronounced him dead, and left. However, he had failed to administer one of the three drugs in the deadly cocktail: the paralytic. Stewart resumed breathing on his own. MacLean returned and completed the killing, pronouncing Stewart dead a second time.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), in reviewing MacLean’s patient charts, found that he exposed patients to harm (before killing them) in five of twenty cases reviewed. The College responded by ordering that MacLean’s euthanasia practices be supervised for six months. Six months of supervised killing is the CPSO’s idea of accountability.
Canadians have no way of knowing Dr. MacLean's exact body count. We do know, however, that an Ontario doctor has a record of at least 261 deaths in 2024, but we do not know the name of this poisoning provider. We also know from the terms of the CPSO’s restriction on MacLean’s licence that he may be the primary assessor or intended provider of poisoning for 30 patients a month. It is feasible that MacLean euthanizes over 200 patients annually.
The difference between poisoner Kenneth Law and James MacLean is merely this: one piece of paper. Not having that piece of paper means Kenneth Law will be sentenced this fall and likely go to prison. James MacLean will complete his supervised practice and go back to his unsupervised poisoning of patients.
The law calls one man a criminal and the other a healthcare provider.
The lethal doses of noxious substances Kenneth Law sold are, quite accurately, called poison by police and a judge. The lethal doses of noxious substances James MacLean personally administers are called “medicine.” Kenneth Law’s clients were poisoned to death, and the public, the police, and the prosecution correctly saw them as victims who could not consent to egregious harm: death.
James MacLean’s euthanasia patients are also poisoned, causing egregious harm: death. Are his clients also not victims? In the end, is there any real moral difference between what Kenneth Law did and what Dr. MacLean does? Are not both killers?
By all appearances, a medical licence in Canada is a licence to kill: to be systemically free from police scrutiny and criminal prosecution when poisoning hundreds or thousands of Canadians to death, all billable under Ministry of Health budget codes. If the public catches wind of unsavoury irregularities, such as a sick man having to be poisoned to death twice, the poisoner’s “work” might require temporary “supervision.”
Solzhenitsyn, writing on the day he was arrested and exiled from the Soviet Union, called on ordinary citizens to refuse to repeat the lies required by the state. Today in Canada, one such required lie is calling a noxious substance that causes death “medicine” rather than what it is: poison. A killer who administers lethal doses of noxious substances is a poisoner. A piece of paper on his clinic wall does not change what he is: a killer.
Poison is not medicine. Those who administer poison are not providing healthcare — they are poisoners. Let us call poisoners what they are. Let us live not by lies.
Brandan Tran is Director of Public Affairs and Outreach for Campaign Life Coalition, and a 2026–2027 Cardus NextGEN Fellow. He and his wife live in Ottawa with their five children.
