TIL that Canada will soon allow medically assisted dying for mental illness

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The date whispers in Julie Leblanc’s mind when she is feeling most hopeless. It tugs at her thoughts when, for days, she forgets to eat, or doesn’t shower. She thinks about it more than she knows she should.

On March 17, assisted dying will become legal for Canadians with a mental disorder as their sole condition, and Ms. Leblanc can apply.

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She has tried taking her own life before. But she worries now about suicide being painful, or ending up in a wheelchair, which happened to someone she knows. She has researched medical assistance in dying online. MAID sounds peaceful, she says. And also too tempting. How can it be, she wonders, that the same system meant to keep her alive might soon help her die?

When that option arrives in March, Canada will have one of the most liberal euthanasia laws in the world, joining only a few other countries that allow assisted dying for mental illness.

It will be the most controversial expansion of MAID since a Supreme Court ruling led the federal government to legalize euthanasia in 2016. At that time, MAID was only for patients with a foreseeable death, but Parliament – with Bill C-7 – removed that requirement in 2021.

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