Canada moves to block assisted suicide for mental illness 

Canada’s government wants to keep its ban on assisted suicide for people whose only medical condition is mental illness.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser said Wednesday he will introduce legislation codifying the ban this fall. It would keep the ban in place with no set end date.

The current law would let people qualify based on mental illness alone starting March 17, 2027. The House of Commons and Senate must pass a new law before then to stop that change.

Inclusion Canada, a group that speaks for people with intellectual disabilities and their families, welcomed Fraser’s plan.

“People with mental illness need treatment and support, and today’s decision recognizes that,” President Moira Wilson said.

Fraser said doctors don’t agree on when they can know a mental illness will never improve. He also warned that people who can’t get mental health care might seek assisted suicide instead.

“While there is not a perfect consensus on this issue, we believe this is the correct approach at this particular time,” he said.

A joint parliamentary committee urged Canada to keep the ban in June, as Heartlander News reported. Lawmakers had already delayed the planned change in 2023 and 2024.

Canada’s Catholic bishops also backed a bill to stop the change earlier this year. Heartlander News covered their support for the bill from Conservative MP Tamara Jansen.

The bishops urged Canada to improve care for people with mental illness. They said people can improve their mental health and deserve help.

“Human life is a gift that must be protected and valued at every stage and in every circumstance,” their permanent council wrote in February.

The group pushing to let people qualify for assisted suicide based on mental illness alone still has a court case challenging the ban.

“This decision by the Federal Government is discriminatory,” Dying With Dignity Canada CEO Helen Long said Wednesday.

The group joined actress Claire Elyse Brosseau and Dr. Patricia Smith in filing the case in August 2024. They argue the ban violates rights under Canada’s Charter.

The group says the government must submit its evidence by Dec. 1. Dying With Dignity Canada has until Feb. 26 to submit its evidence.

Canada calls its program Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID. Lawmakers legalized it in 2016. They expanded the law in 2021 to let some people qualify even when they were not near death. Assisted suicide is now one of the nation’s leading causes of death.

Fraser also plans to allow advance requests from people with certain serious illnesses. That would let them ask doctors to end their lives after they lose the ability to consent. Provinces would decide whether to allow those requests.

Inclusion Canada urged lawmakers to pass the mental illness ban but reject advance requests.

The House of Commons voted down Jansen’s bill Wednesday, 141-187. Most Liberals rejected it, as did the Bloc Québécois. Unlike Fraser’s plan, Jansen’s bill would have kept the mental illness ban without adding advance requests. The government hasn’t introduced its proposal yet.