Canada will indefinitely keep medically assisted death closed to people whose only underlying condition is a mental illness, Justice Minister Sean Fraser said Wednesday.
Zoom in: "Canada has made a decision not to move forward with the expansion that is scheduled in the Criminal Code of medical assistance in dying in circumstances where mental illness is the sole basis," Fraser said in the foyer of the House of Commons.
The backstory: Canada passed its assisted dying law in 2016. Quebec's Superior Court struck it down in 2019 because eligibility required a reasonably foreseeable death, and Bill C-7 removed that requirement in March 2021 while temporarily excluding mental illness. That exclusion slipped from 2023 to 2024 and then to March 2027.
Between the lines: Fraser gave two reasons: real concerns about people living in communities with inadequate access to mental health services, and the absence of agreement on when a mental illness is incurable.
- A special parliamentary committee reached the same conclusion in a report released in June.
What's next: The same bill will open the door to advance consent, letting a person authorise their own assisted death before an illness removes their capacity to decide. Fraser said it will require the illness to be incurable and the suffering intolerable, with details settled in committee.
The other side: Conservative MP Tamara Jansen accused Fraser of timing the announcement hours before a vote on her private member's bill, C-218. "We have no idea what his bill's going to say," she said, calling the promised legislation a phantom bill.
- Fraser said C-218 fell short because its term "mental disorders" could sweep in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, whose patients qualify today, and because it left out advance consent.
Why it matters: The mental illness expansion has now slipped three times in five years, from 2023 to 2024 to 2027, and is being shelved with no new date. The advance consent change moving alongside it would widen access for people facing a diagnosis that will take away their capacity to choose.
