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By Daniel Zekveld

Canadians need real mental health support, not state-sanctioned suicide

If the law Parliament plans to roll out in 2027 had been on the books 15 years ago, Member of Parliament Andrew Lawton says he’d probably be dead. He’s not exaggerating. He’s referring to Canada’s scheduled expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to include people suffering only from mental illness.

Lawton, who survived a suicide attempt during a period of deep depression, knows what’s at stake. So do others who’ve shared similar stories. What they needed back then wasn’t a government-approved exit plan. They needed care, time, and something MAiD quietly discards: the possibility of recovery.

MAiD, medical assistance in dying, was legalized in Canada in 2016 for people with grievous and irremediable physical conditions. The 2027 expansion would, for the first time, allow people to request MAiD solely on the basis of a mental illness, even if they have no physical illness or terminal condition.

With the expansion now delayed to March 2027, Parliament will once again have to decide whether it wants to cross this particular moral threshold. Although the legislation was passed in 2021, it has never come into force. First pushed back to 2024, then to 2027, it remains stalled, not because of foot-dragging, but due to intense medical, ethical and public concern.

Parliament should scrap the expansion altogether.

A 2023 repeal attempt came surprisingly close—just 17 votes short, at 167 to 150. That’s despite unanimous support from Conservative, NDP and Green MPs. You read that right: all three parties, often at each other’s throats, agreed that death should not be an option handed out for depression.

Their concern wasn’t just ethical, it was practical. The core issues remain unresolved. There’s no consensus on whether mental illness is ever truly irremediable—whether it can be cured, improved or even reliably assessed as hopeless. Ask 10 psychiatrists and you’ll get 12 opinions. Recovery isn’t rare. But authorizing MAiD sends the opposite message: that some people’s pain is permanent, and the only answer is to make it stop—permanently.

Meanwhile, access to real mental health care is sorely lacking. A 2023 Angus Reid Institute poll found 40 per cent of Canadians who needed treatment faced barriers getting it. Half of Canadians said they outright oppose the expansion. Another 21 per cent weren’t sure—perhaps assuming Canada wouldn’t actually go through with something so dystopian. But 82 per cent agreed on one thing: don’t even think about expanding MAiD before fixing the mental health system.

That disconnect between what people need and what they’re being offered leads to a more profound contradiction. Canada spends millions promoting suicide prevention. There are hotlines, campaigns and mental health initiatives. Offering MAiD to people in crisis sends a radically different message: suicide prevention ends where bureaucracy begins.

Even Quebec, normally Canada’s most enthusiastic adopter of progressive policy experiments, has drawn the line. The province has said mental disorders don’t qualify for MAiD, period. Most provincial premiers and health ministers have called for an indefinite delay.

Internationally, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has condemned Canada’s approach and urged the government not to proceed. Taken together, the message is clear: both at home and abroad, there’s serious alarm over where this policy leads.

With mounting opposition and the deadline for implementation approaching in 2027, Parliament will again revisit the issue this fall.

A private member’s bill from MP Tamara Jansen, Bill C-218, which seeks to repeal the 2027 expansion clause, will bring the issue back to the floor for debate.

Her speech introducing the bill asked MPs to imagine someone’s child, broken by job loss or heartbreak, reaching a dark place. “Imagine they feel a loss so deep they are convinced the world would be better off without them,” she said. “Our society could end a person’s life solely for a mental health challenge.”

That isn’t compassion. That’s surrender.

Expanding MAiD to mental illness risks turning a temporary crisis into a permanent decision. It treats pain as untreatable, despair as destiny, and bureaucracy as wisdom. It signals to the vulnerable that Canada is no longer offering help—just a final form to sign.

Parliament still has time to reverse course. It should reject the expansion, reinvest in suicide prevention and reassert that mental suffering deserves treatment—not a state-sanctioned exit.

Daniel Zekveld is a Policy Analyst with the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada.

Explore more on Euthanasia, Assisted suicide, Mental health, Human Rights, Ethics

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.

This article supplied by Troy Media.

By Conrad Eder

Bureaucracy and bad policy, not demand, are driving up housing prices

Imagine putting down a hefty deposit on an $800,000 pre-construction condo only to find out at closing that your unit is now worth $1 million.

That’s a $200,000 shortfall. Since banks lend based on appraised value, you’re left with two choices: cough up the extra cash or walk away and kiss your deposit goodbye.

Canada’s housing affordability crisis isn’t just about rising prices—it’s about a broken system that can’t keep up with what people actually need.

This isn’t an isolated nightmare. In major cities across Canada, appraisals are landing 10 to 30 per cent below contract prices. And it’s exposing a deeper dysfunction in our housing market.

Toronto alone has more than 24,000 unsold new condos. Units that once attracted investors and young professionals now sit empty while developers keep building more of the same—small, overpriced boxes nobody’s clamouring for. Meanwhile, buyers are hunting for larger, livable spaces they either can’t afford or can’t find.

Yet despite the demand for larger, livable spaces, the system keeps producing what no one really wants.

How did we get here? It’s not just about supply and demand. It’s about municipal red tape and sluggish approval systems that choke off the market’s ability to respond to changing needs.

If we’re serious about affordability, we have to fix this bottleneck. That starts with slashing approval timelines so homes can actually be built where and how people want them.

These delays don’t just frustrate builders: they limit housing supply, inflate prices and leave Canadians competing for homes that don’t fit their lives or budgets.

Across the country, getting from concept to construction can take years. The planning grind—permits, consultations, rezoning, environmental assessments—drags on and racks up indirect costs of as much as $5,576 per unit per month.

In Toronto, approvals average 25 months. That delay alone can tack on more than $100,000 to the final price of a condo. In Hamilton, it’s 31 months.

And those delays don’t just raise costs—they throw off timing. By the time a project finally breaks ground, the market has often moved on, leaving developers stuck delivering yesterday’s housing to today’s buyers.

Even those who can afford larger units hesitate to commit. Who wants to wait years just to move in, especially when the price is climbing the entire time?

Unsurprisingly, larger units are often the last to sell—too costly for most, too delayed for the rest.

The result? A steady stream of undersized condos that few actually want, offered at prices most can barely justify.

Yes, regulation has a place. But among the 35 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Canada ranks 34th in approval speed, with an average of 249 days. That’s not oversight—that’s paralysis. Countries with similarly strong environmental and safety standards manage to approve projects in half the time. So what’s our excuse?

It doesn’t have to be this way. Some cities are proving that faster approvals don’t mean cutting corners—they just mean cutting red tape. Between 2022 and 2024, Halifax slashed its approval timelines from 20.8 months to 9.8. Edmonton went from 10.5 months to just 3.4, without compromising
safety or public input.

Other cities could follow suit by adopting tools like automated same-day permits, consolidating overlapping policies, creating fast-track review lanes for compliant developers and publishing timelines to inject predictability and accountability into the process.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t about giving developers a free ride. It’s about giving Canadians more choice, better options and a fighting chance at ownership.

Unlike interest rates or material costs, these delays are entirely within government control. If policymakers actually want a responsive housing market, they need to stop jamming the gears.

They aren’t stuck with these timelines. They’re choosing them. And those choices are making housing more expensive while preventing the market from delivering what Canadians need, when they need it.

Conrad Eder is a policy analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Explore more on Housing, Canadian economy, Cost of Living, Municipal politics

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.