At a press conference on Wednesday, Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General Sean Fraser announced that the Liberal government has concluded euthanasia for those with mental illness as a sole underlying condition cannot and will not be legalized.
Then, he and his colleagues headed into the House of Commons and – with two solitary exceptions – voted against Bill C-218, which would have banned euthanasia for those with mental illness.
After multiple “pauses,” those suffering from mental illness were scheduled to become eligible for euthanasia in March 2027. It has been clear for some time that Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberal government recognized that this would be a disaster for Canada. Euthanasia horror stories are now a staple of the international press, and to expand eligibility to those with mental illness – up to 20 percent of the population – would dramatically increase these horrors.
This presented the Carney government with several sticky problems. Their most reliable base – older Canadians – are very supportive of euthanasia. The powerful and well-funded euthanasia lobby has been pulling every trick in the book to ensure that eligibility continues to expand. And, finally, simply voting for Conservative MP Tamara Jansen’s Bill C-218 – as the NDP did – would be granting their opposition a powerful moral victory.
Instead, the Liberal government decided to play politics with the lives of the vulnerable.
Fraser announced that while the government would be permanently banning euthanasia for those suffering solely for mental illness, it will be expanding euthanasia to include those who have signed advanced directives, which Health Canada defines as “advance requests” for euthanasia made by someone before they are eligible. A clinician judge decides when that moment arrives for the patient (who, due to dementia or another condition, is no longer capable of giving contemporaneous consent).
Worse, Fraser made clear that both questions will be addressed in a single piece of legislation – guaranteeing that many Conservative MPs cannot vote for it.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities not only condemned Canada’s planned expansion of euthanasia to the mentally ill but also specifically called on the government not to implement “advanced directives.” The debate on advanced directives brings up questions that are difficult even for euthanasia enthusiasts.
What if the family and clinician disagree on whether the patient should be euthanized? Who decides? If the patients change their mind but have signed the directive, what then? But there won’t be time for this debate because the March 2027 deadline expanding eligibility to those with mental illness is only five months away.
When MPs bring up the many issues with advanced directives, the Liberals will now claim that we don’t have time to debate the issue because a bill to protect the mentally ill is imminently necessary. In other words: Give us people with dementia, or people with mental illness are going to get hurt. This is one of the most disgusting plays in recent Canadian political history, full stop.
The Carney Liberals need to keep the euthanasia lobby happy. They do not want to admit that they have lost the moral argument. So instead, they are going to play a lethal game and bargain with the lives of the vulnerable.
