The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is asking the Canadian government to scale back its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program of doctor-assisted suicide.
The committee wants Canada to abandon its plan to expand MAID to people who suffer only from mental illness in 2027. This expansion has proven very controversial even among Canadians who generally support medically assisted euthanasia, so it has been delayed several times since its originally proposed implementation date of March 2023.
The committee also asked Canada to back away from offering MAID to people who are not terminally ill, a program that began in 2021 and quickly expanded to about four percent of all euthanasia cases last year.
UNCRPD further advised Canada to establish a national watchdog agency to handle complaints about MAID and to investigate why so many people who are not terminally ill would desire euthanasia. Critics of MAID have long accused the Canadian healthcare system of pushing people to consider suicide to clear up backlogs and waiting lists.
The U.N. committee was particularly concerned about disabled persons being pushed into the so-called “Track 2” process for euthanizing people who are not terminally ill.
The Globe and Mail on Tuesday cited U.N. experts who said Track 2 is “based on negative and ableist perceptions” about the quality of life for disabled persons, including the presumption that “suffering is intrinsic to disability.”
Canada’s national healthcare agency, Health Canada, dismissed UNCRPD’s concerns and said it has no plans to repeal Track 2 MAID. Health Canada also asserted that its existing safeguards against abuse are sufficient and Track 2 applicants are duly informed about other means to “relieve their suffering.”
Critics of MAID, on the other hand, said the U.N. report validated their own concerns.
“This cannot be pushed aside, as we often have seen in the Canadian context, as, you know, ‘It’s people who are opposed to MAID, it’s conservatives, it’s people with religious objections.’ This is a credible international human rights body that makes some very strong recommendations,” University of Toronto professor Trudo Lemmens told the Globe and Mail.
Some advocates of MAID sought to split the difference, rejecting the U.N. commission’s call for more restrictions on euthanasia, but agreeing that more should be done to alleviate the plight of disabled persons who come to view MAID as the only way to escape their dreadful existence.
Cardus, an Ottawa-based Christian research group, welcomed UNCRPD’s report and recommendations, especially UNCRPD’s call for a federal watchdog agency. Cardus said there should also be “consultation with Indigenous communities” and “adequate protections and supports for people living with disabilities.”
“Whichever party forms the next federal government should listen to the UNCRPD and Canadian disability advocates and repeal Track 2 MAID, reverse the upcoming expansion of MAID for mental illness, and reject further expansion of advance MAID requests and MAID for mature minors,” the statement said.
On the other hand, a euthanasia advocacy group called Dying with Dignity Canada slammed the U.N. report for “unfounded reasoning” and misinterpreted data.
“The effect of structural vulnerability on the lives of Canadians is a valid concern, but repealing MAID is not a solution. Instead, we should focus on policies that promote stable housing, income and food, pharmacare and dental care,” the group said.
“We cannot solve one injustice by creating another; those with a disability must have the same right to autonomy and end-of-life choice as all people across Canada,” it insisted.
