Canada Will Indefinitely Bar Assisted Dying for Mental Illness Alone, Justice Minister Says

Canada will not let people whose sole condition is mental illness receive medical assistance in dying (MAID), Justice Minister Sean Fraser said Wednesday. The expansion was scheduled to take effect in March 2027.

Fraser spoke to reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons. "Canada has made a decision not to move forward with the expansion that is scheduled in the Criminal Code of medical assistance in dying in circumstances where mental illness is the sole basis," he said.

He did not claim the question is settled. "While there is not a perfect consensus on this issue, we believe this is the correct approach at this particular time," Fraser said.

A ban that was only supposed to be temporary

The exclusion was never meant to last. When Parliament widened MAID in 2021, after a 2019 Quebec court ruling struck down the requirement that death be "reasonably foreseeable," it carved out mental illness as a temporary pause. That pause was renewed in 2023 and again in 2024.

Now the pause becomes open-ended. The government says the new bill will be introduced this fall, and it has not been tabled yet.

Fraser tied the decision to a special parliamentary committee report released in June and to his own department's review. The committee recommended Canada "indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness" and flagged the need for "increased and more equitable access" to mental health services.

Advance consent comes with it

The legislation is not purely a restriction. Fraser said it will also open the door to advance consent for people whose illness will eventually take away their capacity to make the decision. He said the person's illness would have to be incurable and cause intolerable suffering, and that House committees will work out the details.

The final call on advance requests would rest with the provinces. Quebec already allows them for people with serious and incurable illnesses. Alberta has said it will not permit them.

The people who wanted the expansion

Dying With Dignity Canada called the decision "profoundly disappointing." CEO Helen Long said the group expects "a very small number of individuals with severe and persistent mental illness would be eligible for Maid under this criterion, but their suffering is no less real than those who live with physical illnesses."

The group also argues the government's move violates Charter rights. Advocates for expansion say the exclusion denies a class of patients equal access to health care.

A federal court case challenging the earlier delay is still pending. Fraser acknowledged that the Supreme Court could eventually weigh in.

The political fight

The announcement also lands amid a split in Parliament. A private member's bill would amend the Criminal Code so that "a mental disorder is not a grievous and irremediable medical condition."

Conservative MP Tamara Jansen accused Fraser of playing games with the timing of the announcement. Pamela Wallin described the government's handling as "strategic and political."

Among medical groups and mental health advocates, the response was more favorable. One mental health advocate called it "a great decision." Critics of expansion have long argued that medicine cannot reliably judge whether a mental illness is truly irremediable.

What the numbers show

Most MAID cases have nothing to do with the mental illness debate. According to the latest government figures, 95.6% of MAID deaths involved people whose natural death was considered reasonably foreseeable. Only 4.4% were cases where it was not.

The program is still large. EWTN News reports that about 100,000 Canadians have died through MAID since 2016, and that in 2023 it accounted for roughly one in 20 deaths in the country.

A 2025 report from the think tank Cardus Health found vulnerable groups were obtaining assisted death at disproportionately high rates, including people with mental illness.

A case behind the safeguards debate

The line between physical and psychiatric illness is already contested in practice. Alicia Duncan, whose mother Donna Duncan received MAID in Abbotsford, B.C., on Oct. 29, 2021, disputes the finding that her mother's death was reasonably foreseeable.

According to the family, Donna Duncan, 61, a retired psychiatric nurse, was released from an involuntary psychiatric hold and received MAID at home less than four hours later. Two independent assessors had approved her on the basis of weight loss and frailty. Her own doctor had earlier declined to refer her, saying he believed her physical condition was closely linked to her mental health.

"My mom was not dying. She was in crisis," Alicia Duncan told The Epoch Times. She is calling for independent review of disputed cases. The assessors' conclusion that the death was foreseeable is the account on the other side, and the family's version has not been tested in a public proceeding.

What comes next

The bill is the next test. Parliament will have to pass it before March 2027, or the Criminal Code expansion takes effect on schedule. The committee study of advance consent and the pending federal court case, which could still put the question before the Supreme Court, will decide whether this indefinite ban holds.