The federal government said Oct. 7 that it will not expand medical assistance in dying (MAID) to people whose only condition is mental illness, and plans to table legislation this fall to keep that exclusion in place indefinitely.
Justice Minister Sean Fraser made the announcement in Ottawa. “Canada has made a decision not to move forward with the expansion that is scheduled in the criminal code,” he said, according to Global News. Fraser told reporters the approach is correct “at this particular time,” citing a lack of consensus on when a mental illness can be considered irremediable and concerns about access to mental health supports, according to The Canadian Press.
The exclusion, in place since 2021, was set to expire on March 17, 2027. Without new legislation, people with a mental disorder as their sole underlying condition would have become eligible for MAID on that date.
The same bill is also expected to address advance requests. Fraser said the government will “grant access to medical assistance in dying to people who have provided consent at a time when they still have capacity,” a reference to people who know a diagnosis will eventually take away their ability to consent. The Canadian Press reported the legislation would decriminalize advance requests for people diagnosed with a serious illness, and that provinces would decide whether to offer them.
The decision follows a June report from a parliamentary committee that recommended the government “indefinitely pause” expansion to people with mental disorders. The committee’s work was contested. Four senators on the committee filed a dissenting report that called the study “flawed, biased and lacking in rigour,” The Canadian Press reported in June. Critics have also said that people with mental illness who want MAID were not invited to testify.
Fraser acknowledged that split. According to the MAiD in Canada newsletter, he said some people “felt heard in the process” while others felt their perspective “wasn’t fully heard,” and that some affected people shared their views with the government directly, outside the committee process.
The exclusion has been extended repeatedly. It began in 2021 as a two-year measure, was extended for one year in 2023, and then for three years in 2024. This time the government is proposing no end date.
Disability and mental health advocates have long pressed for that outcome. Inclusion Canada, which represents people with intellectual disabilities and their families, welcomed the decision on Oct. 7. President Moira Wilson said it recognizes that people with mental illness “need treatment and support.” The group urged Parliament to pass the exclusion before it expires on March 17, 2027.
The same group opposes the advance-request plan. CEO Krista Carr said “consent at the time is the most basic protection a person has,” and argued Parliament “should not take it away.” Inclusion Canada wants advance requests considered separately from the mental illness exclusion.
The advance-request question is already playing out unevenly across the country. Quebec allows people with serious, incurable illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease to request MAID before they lose capacity. Alberta’s Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act, passed March 18, 2026, will not permit advance consent. A federal law that leaves the choice to provinces would formalize that patchwork.
Others see the exclusion as a rights question. The MAiD in Canada newsletter, which opposes the exclusion, called the decision the outcome it had feared and argued that the people most affected did not appear before the committee. A constitutional challenge to the exclusion under sections 7 and 15 of the Charter, brought by two individuals and Dying With Dignity Canada, is before the Ontario Superior Court. The court denied one applicant’s request for urgent relief on Sept. 3, according to the newsletter, and the case is continuing.
The government has not yet published the bill. Details on how the exclusion would be written into the Criminal Code, and how advance requests would work, are expected when it is tabled. This is a developing story.
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Via The Canadian Press (CP24) and Global News, with additional reporting from Inclusion Canada and the MAiD in Canada newsletter. Read the original at CP24.
