Coming Soon: Canada’s 100,000th MAID Death
I was walking across the Lion’s Gate Bridge the other day when I noticed someone was about to jump to his death. I ran up to him and shouted, “don’t do it! First tell me why you want to kill yourself so I can decide if I should help or not.”
This is the logic behind extending MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) to people with depression.
But before we get to that, how are you doing America?
Feeling pretty good about yourself?
“We have problems, but at least we’re not killing our own citizens!”
Ah, not so fast!
A recent article in the New York Times noted that “by September, nearly a third of Americans will live in States with legal aid in dying.” What’s more, a recent Pew survey found that “about 6 in 10 Americans don’t have moral objections to medical aid in dying.”
“Medical aid in dying.” That’s what “right-to-die advocates” call it. The rest of us call it “euthanasia” or “assisted suicide” depending on the level of involvement of the doctor/nurse practitioner.
“The level of involvement of the doctor.”
“First do no harm,” right?
That’s in America.
But oh, you’re still so far very far behind.
In Canada Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) has been available since 2016. Here are some key milestones:
- The Original 2016 Criteria (Bill C-14) – When MAID rolled out, it was strictly intended for individuals who were already near the end of their natural lives. Important terms included, mental competence, free from external pressure/coercion, informed consent, grievous/irremediable medical condition, and reasonably foreseeable natural death.
- The 2021 Expansion (Bill C-7) – In 2019, the Superior Court of Quebec ruled in Truchon v. Canada that limiting MAID only to those whose deaths were “reasonably foreseeable” was unconstitutional. In bureaucrat-speak, we now have “a multi-track system based on patient suffering rather than a life expectancy timeline.”
- Track 1 (Natural Death is Foreseeable): Eased the rules for terminal patients. It removed the mandatory 10-day reflection period, allowing them to proceed faster, and required only one independent witness instead of two.
- Track 2 (Natural Death is NOT Foreseeable): This was the major expansion. It opened MAID to individuals suffering from chronic, painful, and incurable physical illnesses or disabilities who are not nearing the end of their lives. Because these cases are more complex, Track 2 mandates stricter safeguards, including a mandatory 90-day assessment period and a requirement that one of the evaluating clinicians specializes in the patient’s specific condition.
TLDR; Canada made it quicker and easier to die and eliminated the requirement that your death was already reasonably foreseeable.
Canadian healthcare, the best in the world!
So where are we now?
Difficult Conversations Will Soon Be Covered By MAID
Canadian MAID activists announced new efforts to extend eligibility to people trying to avoid uncomfortable conversations.
“Look,” said Janey McKillemstein, “pretty much everyone with any sort of physical or mental ‘impairment’ is offered MAID, whether they want it or not, so we asked ourselves, who else is looking for an easy out?”
“Answer, people trying to avoid difficult conversations. We’ve all thought to ourselves, ‘I’d rather kill myself, than talk to…’ Well, if our hard work and lack of moral foundations have anything to say about it, you’ll soon have a ‘better’ choice.”
McKillemstein proceeded to describe how countless millions currently have no way to avoid uncomfortable conversations with loved ones, coworkers, and employers. “Why should you have to have ‘the talk’ with your kids when MAID is so easily accessible? Is your wife asking you if she needs to lose weight? MAID. Coworker stealing your lunch? MAID. Boss wants to know why you’re hungover? MAID. Honestly, it’s the answer to every Canadian’s problems.”
If this effort is successful MAID activists plan on moving onto hangnails, stubbed toes, and suffering through the latest Hollywood blockbuster.
An exaggeration, obviously, but by how much?
I’m busy that day, can you kill me the following Tuesday?
Quebec broke new ground by becoming the first Canadian province to legally allow advance requests for MAID—allowing residents to request the procedure ahead of time if they are diagnosed with an irreversible, cognitive-declining condition like Alzheimer’s disease.
“If we don’t kill them, who will?”
When Bill C-7 was introduced, it temporarily excluded people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness (such as severe depression or PTSD).
On August 19, 2024, a court challenge to end the discriminatory exclusion of those whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness from medical assistance in dying is filed. Plaintiffs include John Scully, Claire Elyse Brosseau, and Dying With Dignity Canada.
No doubt the activist logic goes something like this, “if we don’t help people with depression kill themselves, they might kill themselves.”
Won’t somebody please think of the children?
Dying With Dignity Canada, the group that doesn’t “use the terms assisted suicide or euthanasia because they stigmatize people,” – God forbid that people killing themselves should have to worry about that too – is also looking to extend MAID to “mature minors” (i.e. people under 18).
Not to be outdone in the “who can be a bigger monster” contest, Dr. Louis Roy, representing the Quebec College of Physicians, suggested in 2022 that MAID should be an option for infants from birth to one year old under certain conditions.
To be fair, most advocates distanced themselves from his recommendation. But for how long? Name an activist organization that ever disbanded when it reached its goal? Or should I say most recent goal.
Keep moving those goal posts people!
Equity shmequity
One would expect left wing organizations, even those “ensuring access to quality end-of-life” services, to take diversity seriously, and Dying With Dignity Canada is no exception, as is clear from this statement:
“DWDC strives to be an inclusive, equitable, and diverse organization that is more reflective of Canadian society and DWDC values.”
I can’t comment on how they’re doing in hiring but what do MAID stats tell us?
- White recipients represented a substantially larger share than their proportion of the Canadian population.
- Black, South Asian, Chinese, Indigenous, and other “racialized groups” were generally underrepresented relative to their share of Canada’s population.
Recipients? Make it sound like an award, doesn’t it?
That aside, with more white people “winning” MAID awards than any other race/ethnicity, it looks like they have work to do in the equity field.
We don’t want MAID to get a bad reputation like the Oscars.
#MAIDsowhite
I suggest a new motto for them: DEI or DIE!
The Nazis would be proud.
Well, on a podcast the other day – see my podcast section below – I found out that Canada is approaching an important milestone.
100,000 MAID deaths.
Health Canada’s latest published annual report covers calendar year 2024, reporting 16,499 MAID deaths and a cumulative total of 76,475 since legalization in 2016.
There are a few possible scenarios for “growth,” but the key takeaway is that virtually any reasonable projection places the 100,000th MAID death sometime in the first half of 2026, with the most likely window being spring to early summer 2026.
The 200,000th MAID death would likely be in 2032.
200,000 in 16 years.
It could be worse I suppose. It only took the Nazis 6 years to euthanize that many disabled, mentally ill, and chronically ill people.
Aktion T4 remains a central case study in medical ethics, genocide studies, and the origins of Nazi mass-murder techniques.
If only the Nazis had access to modern leftist PR departments, they could have spun the program as a human right.
Once upon a time…
There was a time, years ago, when I thought people should be allowed to kill themselves. I didn’t see the harm in letting people in a great deal of pain take their own lives.
Of course, it never occurred to me that suicide would become government funded euthanasia, that “death doctors” would be paid with our taxes, and that there would be advocates who would want to extend it to children and the mentally handicapped.
My first inkling that something was wrong was when I heard the numbers were continuing to rise and wondered where on the list of leading causes of death MAID was.
This is what I found:
MAID deaths must be further down the list, right?
Nope. Remember earlier, “Health Canada’s latest published annual report covers calendar year 2024, reporting 16,499 MAID deaths”
That would place MAID at #4.
Why isn’t it there?
Because MAID deaths are categorized by what you would have died from.
Here’s a simple way of looking at it.
If you are someone with an incurable illness who dies of that illness, then the statistics show you as having died from that illness.
What happens if you die before the illness can kill you?
Well, here are few possible examples:
If one was of a conspiratorial nature – psst, birds aren’t real – one might start to think that the government was trying to hide this.
If one was really trying on tinfoil hats, one might start to wonder how much money the government could save on healthcare costs by “gently” nudging those MAID numbers higher.
The icing on the cake?
The Government of Canada (federal government), annual debt-interest payments (”public debt charges”) are currently about $55–59 billion per year.
Looks like the country doesn’t have to go broke after all.
Can we have a sane policy?
I still think that if you want to kill yourself that’s your business.
Is it a sin? Maybe, but that’s between you and your God.
Would I do it? I don’t know. I hope I never have to learn the answer.
The only thing I’m certain of is that it’s gone too far and that the government should not be in the business of killing its own people.
The ball is in your court America.
https://hoisttheblackflag.substack.com/p/coming-soon-canadas-100000th-maid