Canadian Psychologists: Don’t Euthanize Mentally Ill Patients

Nancy Macdonald and Kathryn Blaze Baum (the authors) report in the Globe and Mail on April 30, 2026 that:

The heads of psychiatry at 13 Canadian medical schools are calling on the federal government to halt the expansion of assisted dying to people whose sole condition is mental illness.

In March 2021 with Bill C-7, Canada’s parliament extended (MAiD) euthanasia to people who are not terminally ill; parliament extended euthanasia to people with mental illness alone. At that time parliament delayed the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness alone until March 2023. Euthanasia for mental illness alone was later delayed again and is now scheduled to begin on March 17, 2027.
Canada’s parliament appointed the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD) to discuss the implementation.

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Macdonald and Blaze Baum report that a letter sent to the AMAD committee from the heads of psychiatry states that:

there is no accurate way to determine when a mental disorder is incurable, no way to distinguish between suicidality and a MAID request, and no way to adequately protect vulnerable patients.

Macdonald and Blaze Baum further report that the letter states:

“People can and do recover from prolonged suffering related to mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and substance use when provided with appropriate, evidence-based treatments and supports,”…

Based on the current guidance, they add, patients in underserved areas may “receive MAID rather than evidence-based care.”

“We strongly recommend an indefinite pause on expanding Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) to include mental disorders as the sole underlying medical condition.”

The 13 signatories are not asking that euthanasia for mental illness be delayed, but rather they are asking for the provisions to be stopped.

One of the letter’s signatories, Jitender Sareen, the head of the University of Manitoba’s psychiatry department, said his colleagues are asking the government to stop the expansion.

“The main point is that we don’t think that in two years or five years we’ll be able to resolve this,” he said.

Dr. Sareen, who has 25 years of experience as a psychiatrist, including treating marginalized patient populations, noted that he signed a similar statement by department chairs in 2022, calling for a delay in expanding MAID to cover mental illness. “Many of our concerns have not been addressed.”

Chief among them, he said, is that there is no broadly accepted definition of irremediability — meaning the patient’s suffering can not be improved — in mental disorders and that there is no accepted mechanism for distinguishing suicidal ideation from MAID requests.

Dr. Sareen, who is also the co-chair of the Manitoba Provincial Psychiatry Council, said that psychiatrists in that province have asked its legislature to exclude mental illness as a sole basis for accessing MAID.

Karin Neufeld, the chair of McMaster University’s psychiatry department and signatory to the written brief to the parliamentary committee, said many of her peers are convinced there is no way to fix “the two fundamental problems” related to irremediability and distinguishing between suicidal ideation and a MAID request.

I will be presenting to Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying on Tuesday, May 5.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition hopes that Joint Committee on euthanasia will stop the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness alone and also order a complete review of Canada’s euthanasia law.

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

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