Canada says it will indefinitely suspend plans to expand its medically assisted dying law to people whose sole condition is mental illness, citing a lack of consensus on who would be eligible.
After a parliamentary panel earlier this year recommended that assisted dying should not be expanded, Justice Minister Sean Fraser announced that the government will pause the proposal until it can reach a clearer agreement.
Those who support extending the program argue that excluding people with mental illness from assisted dying violates constitutional rights and access to healthcare.
A federal court case continues to challenge the government's decision to delay access for people with mental illness.
The announcement means that Canadians with mental illness as their sole condition will not be able to access assisted dying by March 2027, as originally planned.
Fraser said the government will introduce a new law in the coming weeks that suspends that expansion indefinitely.
That proposed legislation would also allow patients who have a progressing incurable illness to consent to assisted dying before their health deteriorates to the point where they are unable to do so. Advanced requests are not currently legal.
“These are not easy decisions but we believe they will be the correct ones,” Fraser said.
Medically assisted dying became legal in Canada in 2016 for people with terminal illnesses, who still account for the vast majority of cases.
Following a court case in Quebec, it was expanded in 2021 to people with incurable conditions but whose death was not imminent. In Canada, that mechanism is known as “track two” Maid.
The expansion has been the subject of controversy, with disability advocacy groups reporting cases where assisted dying was offered to people with disabilities without a patient requesting it themselves.
Canada was first set to expand its assisted dying laws to people whose sole condition is mental illness in 2023, but it delayed doing so twice to allow time to study its potential delivery.
