On March 24, one of Canada’s most prominent euthanasia activists testified before the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying. Jocelyn Downie is an old hand at this—she first testified on the subject back in 1995, at the Special Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. We no longer use such terms, of course; in 2016 when Downie testified again, the term had been changed to “Physician-Assisted Dying”; now, it is merely “MAiD,” which sounds very nice.
Downie is a Professor Emerita at Dalhousie University’s Faculties of Law and Medicine. She authored Dying Justice: A Case for Decriminalizing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in Canada in 2004 and was a member of the pro bono legal team seeking to overthrow Canada’s euthanasia laws in Carter v. Canada (2015). Ironically, in a move that says more about the country than the recipient, Downie was awarded the Order of Canada in 2017, in part to recognize her work “advocating for high-quality, end-of-life care.”
Her most recent testimony, however, made headlines. As the National Post succinctly put it: “Canada told mentally ill must be euthanized lest they kill themselves.” The Special Joint Committee was examining Canada’s scheduled expansion of euthanasia eligibility to those suffering solely from a mental illness in March 2027, and Downie, predictably, is a big fan of this. In fact, she warned, in essence, that if Canada does not offer suicide to the suicidal, they will commit suicide.
“What will happen, if there is an extension or an exclusion, is that people will die by suicide,” Downie said without a trace of irony.
This is precisely why the framing of the euthanasia and assisted suicide debate is so essential, and why advocates have moved to Orwellian phrases like “MAiD.” Assisted suicide is, essentially, suicide-by-doctor. To belabor what should be obvious, it is assisting someone in suicide. But by claiming, instead, that we are talking about “medical aid in dying” and “end of life care,” activists like Downie can pretend that we are not talking about what we are quite literally talking about.
As Tristin Hopper pointed out in the National Post, this upside-down-world reasoning is central to the entire debate. In Carter v. Canada, the Supreme Court struck down laws banning euthanasia because “the prohibition deprives some individuals of life.” To once again point out what should be obvious here: The Supreme Court said that to deny someone a lethal injection that will kill them is denying them…the right to life. Go ahead and chew on that for a bit, if you must.
Downie’s argument, as insane as it might seem to those who are used to logic and linear reasoning, was thus central to Carter v. Canada. The justices, Hopper noted, accepted the logic that “the prohibition on physician-assisted dying had the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely.” To translate: Not providing suicide as a service literally forces Canadians to kill themselves as opposed to seeking life-affirming care, and the ban on suicide services results in the shortage of life. If that doesn’t make sense to you, congratulations. You’re the sane one.
For a decade, Canada’s euthanasia regime has expanded at a rate that has stunned ordinary Canadians who were told that it would be a narrow path to suicide surrounded by high and firm safety barriers; instead, we got a five-lane highway with no speed limit (same-day euthanasia) and no cops (there have been no prosecutions despite credible evidence of lawbreaking). As I have noted often in this space, Canada’s euthanasia regime has been so transparently horrific that it has deterred other countries from legalization.
As Hopper noted: “In 2021, [Downie] co-authored a paper which argued that suicidal ideation should not disqualify patients from wanting to seek a doctor-assisted death. It argued that suicidality may not even be evidence of mental illness at all. ‘Instead of excluding mental illness through a reflexive association between mental illness, we propose reframing the debate about MAID and mental illness by asking: In which circumstances do we, as a society, wish to prevent death?’ it read.”
That’s a good question. For the millions of Canadians who know and love someone who has suffered suicidal ideation, or has attempted or successfully committed suicide, know this: If the euthanasia activists get their way, your loved one’s desire to die will be considered a rational request and their suicide funded and facilitated by the government. You will be helpless to save their lives. And when you protest, you will be gaslit and told that your attempts to save them is a violation of their human right to suicide.
