Canada Must Stop MAID, Protect the Elderly, Disabled and Patients

The Globe and Mail published an article by Dr. Ramona Coelho, on June 29, 2026.

Dr. Coelho is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an adjunct professor of family medicine at the University of Western Ontario’s Schulich School of Medicine and a past member of the Ontario MAiD [Medical Aid in Dying] Death Review Committee.

Dr. Coelho, who has written extensively on Canada’s euthanasia law, begins her article by explaining how the law is not protecting Canadians. She writes:

Thomas Dillon’s MAID assessment took place in 2023 outside a Tim Hortons in St. Thomas, Ont., after a psychiatrist had raised the option with him. He died at age 45, with his mental illness and addictions largely untreated. The MAID law was not precise enough to prevent cases like his – and that is a problem.

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Dr. Coelho continues by explaining the decision of Canada’s parliamentary MAiD committee:

Canada’s parliamentary committee has recommended indefinitely pausing the 2027 planned expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAID) where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition. I testified at the committee. The recommendation is necessary, but Parliament must go further. The mental illness debate has exposed a problem that runs through the whole MAID framework. 

The debate over MAID for mental illness has focused on several concerns, including the impossibility of reliably determining whether mental illness is irremediable, and the significant role that community life and supports play in recovery. We also cannot distinguish a “reasoned MAID request” from suicidality, leaving assessments without an objective standard, and therefore allowing bias to shape who accesses MAID versus suicide prevention and care.

Euthanasia proponents believe that physical and psychological suffering should be viewed in the same manner. Coelho suggests that a deeper problem is how uncertainty is addressed across MAID decision-making.

In my work as a family physician serving marginalized patients, and as a former member of Ontario’s MAID Death Review Committee (MDRC), I have seen similar uncertainty extend beyond MAID for solely psychiatric illness. In one MDRC case, a socially isolated woman with severe obesity and depression was deemed eligible for MAID after refusing any diagnostic workup or treatments that might have improved or reversed her condition. Eligibility was not shaped by a clear disease trajectory but by treatment refusal and disengagement from care, with neglect interpreted as irremediability.

In another, a man in his 70s with essential tremor, which is not typically considered to cause a serious decline in capability, was approved for MAID, despite his request being mainly driven by spousal bereavement.

 In both these cases, a chronic, manageable condition became grounds for death once isolation, poverty or lack of care entered the clinical picture. That is structural ableism – the institutional assumption that living well with disability is impossible, leading clinicians to view death rather than support as the more appropriate response.

Dr. Coelho then comments on the Track 2 euthanasia Ontario data:

Ontario data from Track 2 MAID – the option for those whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable – confirms these concerns extend beyond individual cases. Nearly 30 per cent of Track 2 recipients were living in poverty, were less likely to have family members listed as their next of kin, and most were not offered mental-health, disability, housing or income supports. These patterns point directly to problems with the architecture of the law itself.

Dr. Coelho explains that determination of a Track 1 euthanasia death ranges from 6 month prognosis to a 5 year prognosis, which means that euthanasia assessments are very uncertain at best and applying the same level of uncertainty to mental health assessments would be incredibly problematic. She then makes some suggestions for future parliamentary sessions:

As Parliament considers the next phase of MAID legislation, it must confront whether the law’s central concepts are precise. Avoiding unnecessary deaths requires clear statutory definitions of “reasonably foreseeable natural death,” “grievous and irremediable,” and “intolerable suffering,” along with oversight to stop interpretive drift and doctor-shopping. It requires restoring minimum waiting periods under Track 1 and introducing a real-time mechanism to pause MAID assessments when concerns are raised by families or clinicians.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has called for changes, including repealing Track 2 MAID due to risks related to discrimination and social vulnerability. When a system cannot reliably protect those most likely to be harmed, it should not be allowed. Track 2 is exactly that.

Dr. Coelho ends her article by reminding the readers that euthanasia was legalized in Canada as an exemption to homicide. She states:

The least we owe Canadians is a law that makes wrongful deaths harder, not easier.

LifeNews.com Note: Alex Schadenberg is the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and you can read his blog here.