Health
Canadian provinces push back after Trudeau’s health minister says MAiD will eventually be expanded
Liberal Health Minister Mark Holland
From LifeSiteNews
Holland has told Canadians that the government, is still seeking to expand MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) to those suffering from mental health issues; it just needs more time to prepare the ‘system.’
The Trudeau government still intends to provide euthanasia to mentally ill Canadians, but provincial health ministers are asking for the measure to be “indefinitely” postponed.
On January 30, health ministers from Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut appealed to Liberal Health Minister Mark Holland to “indefinitely pause” expanding MAiD eligibility to the mentally ill.
Health ministers from ON, AB, NB, NS, SK, PEI, BC, Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut are calling on Ottawa to "indefinitely pause" expanding MAID eligibility to mental illness.
Concerns about a consistent and safe approach, time for training, and an expected jump in patients#CdnPoli pic.twitter.com/1Hh4oJfsER
— Colton Praill (@ColtonPraill) January 30, 2024
On January 29, Holland told Canadians that the Liberal government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is still seeking to expand MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) to those suffering from mental health issues; it just needs more time to prepare the “system.”
“We agree with the conclusion that the committee has come to that the system is not ready, and more time is required,” Holland told reporters, referring to a report that “fundamental issues” regarding the expansion have yet to be resolved.
Trudeau's health minister says "the system is at this time not ready and more time is required" to expand MAiD to those for whom mental illness is "the sole underlying condition" pic.twitter.com/Z4hYcduaWh
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 29, 2024
The new provision, which was to take effect in March, would have relaxed legislation around so-called MAiD to include those suffering solely from mental illness. This is a result of the 2021 passage of Bill C-7, which also allowed the chronically ill – not just the terminally ill – to qualify for so-called doctor-assisted death.
On Monday, following pushback from Canadians, Holland announced that Canada is not ready for the expansion and has determined to delay it. However, Holland stressed that this is not an abandonment of the new policy but merely a postponement.
“There are people who have, for decades, been trapped in mental torture, being in a horrific situation where they have tried everything and exhausted all avenues and under their own recognisance are saying that they want access to MAiD,” he claimed.
“What we’re saying is that … someone in that intractable situation … should have that right, but the system needs to be ready, and the system needs to get it right,” he added, not explaining how being killed would help their situation.
Holland did not reveal when the expansion is expected to take effect but disclosed that “those individuals are gonna have to wait a little longer” to end their lives by lethal injection.
Reporter: "Is your intention to still move ahead with MAiD for mental illness, just within a longer timeframe?"
Trudeau's health minister: "That's correct." pic.twitter.com/XzGs7QoexU
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 29, 2024
The Liberal government’s desire to expand MAiD to those suffering with mental health issues comes despite several experts, and provincial health ministers, warning against the move.
RELATED: Canada’s top pro-life group urges Trudeau gov’t to drop euthanasia expansion entirely
The provincial health ministers’ appeal echoes that of leading Canadian psychiatrist Dr. K. Sonu Gaind, who testified that the expansion of MAiD “is not so much a slippery slope as a runaway train.”
Similarly, in November, several Canadian psychiatrists warned that the country is “not ready” for the coming expansion of euthanasia to those who are mentally ill. They said that further liberalizing the procedure is not something that “society should be doing” as it could lead to deaths under a “false pretence.”
The expansion of euthanasia to those with mental illness even has the far-left New Democratic Party (NDP) concerned. Dismissing these concerns, a Trudeau Foundation fellow actually said Trudeau’s current euthanasia regime is marked by “privilege,” assuring the Canadian people that most of those being put to death are “white,” “well off,” and “highly educated.”
The most recent reports show that MAiD is the sixth highest cause of death. However, it was not listed as such in Statistics Canada’stop 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022. When asked why MAiD was left off the list, the agency explained that it records the illnesses that led Canadians to choose to end their lives via euthanasia, not the actual cause of death, as the primary cause of death.
According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by MAiD lethal injections. This accounts for 4.1 percent of all deaths in the country for that year,a 31.2 percent increase from 2021.
While the numbers for 2023 have yet to be released, all indications point to a situation even more grim than 2022.
Meanwhile, the pro-life Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC)has launched a campaign to have the expansion thrown out. The campaign includes a rally and media conference on Parliament Hill on February 6 at 11 a.m. local time.
The movement also features a parliamentary postcard campaign, encouraging Canadians to send letters stating: “I demand that the government reverse its decision to permit ‘MAiD’ for mental illness alone.”
EPC also launched a petition to urge the Justice Minister to offer real care to those suffering from mental illness and not death by lethal injection.
From the Fraser Institute
Canadians continue to endure long wait times for health care. And while waiting for care can obviously be detrimental to your health and wellbeing, it can also hurt your pocketbook.
In 2024, the latest year of available data, the median wait—from referral by a family doctor to treatment by a specialist—was 30 weeks (including 15 weeks waiting for treatment after seeing a specialist). And last year, an estimated 1.5 million Canadians were waiting for care.
It’s no wonder Canadians are frustrated with the current state of health care.
Again, long waits for care adversely impact patients in many different ways including physical pain, psychological distress and worsened treatment outcomes as lengthy waits can make the treatment of some problems more difficult. There’s also a less-talked about consequence—the impact of health-care waits on the ability of patients to participate in day-to-day life, work and earn a living.
According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, wait times for non-emergency surgery cost Canadian patients $5.2 billion in lost wages in 2024. That’s about $3,300 for each of the 1.5 million patients waiting for care. Crucially, this estimate only considers time at work. After also accounting for free time outside of work, the cost increases to $15.9 billion or more than $10,200 per person.
Of course, some advocates of the health-care status quo argue that long waits for care remain a necessary trade-off to ensure all Canadians receive universal health-care coverage. But the experience of many high-income countries with universal health care shows the opposite.
Despite Canada ranking among the highest spenders (4th of 31 countries) on health care (as a percentage of its economy) among other developed countries with universal health care, we consistently rank among the bottom for the number of doctors, hospital beds, MRIs and CT scanners. Canada also has one of the worst records on access to timely health care.
So what do these other countries do differently than Canada? In short, they embrace the private sector as a partner in providing universal care.
Australia, for instance, spends less on health care (again, as a percentage of its economy) than Canada, yet the percentage of patients in Australia (33.1 per cent) who report waiting more than two months for non-emergency surgery was much higher in Canada (58.3 per cent). Unlike in Canada, Australian patients can choose to receive non-emergency surgery in either a private or public hospital. In 2021/22, 58.6 per cent of non-emergency surgeries in Australia were performed in private hospitals.
But we don’t need to look abroad for evidence that the private sector can help reduce wait times by delivering publicly-funded care. From 2010 to 2014, the Saskatchewan government, among other policies, contracted out publicly-funded surgeries to private clinics and lowered the province’s median wait time from one of the longest in the country (26.5 weeks in 2010) to one of the shortest (14.2 weeks in 2014). The initiative also reduced the average cost of procedures by 26 per cent.
Canadians are waiting longer than ever for health care, and the economic costs of these waits have never been higher. Until policymakers have the courage to enact genuine reform, based in part on more successful universal health-care systems, this status quo will continue to cost Canadian patients.
Mackenzie Moir
Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
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