Son Says Father's Assisted Death in Canada Came Within Days, Not Months; Justice Canada Cites Eligibility Safeguards

Eric Edmeades says the timeline is what shocked him.

His father, Baz, was in his late 70s and had multiple medical problems. He began discussing Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying program after his health worsened in late 2023. By January 2024 the family was taking it seriously, and Eric says the projection at that point was at least six months.

Then, he says, it changed. "And then all of a sudden it was like, 'No, it's next week,'" Edmeades said in an interview this week with Fox News Digital. Baz died through MAiD on Feb. 27, 2024.

What the son says happened

Edmeades, founder of the speaker-training platform Speaker Nation, says his father had been "incredibly healthy most of his life." The symptoms he describes include epilepsy and neurological pain.

He attributes part of the decline to the COVID-era lockdowns, when his father could no longer go out and walk regularly. "And then there just came this point where life started sounding pointless to him," Edmeades said.

He also questions whether interactions between his father's medications contributed to the deterioration. That is a question he raises, not a finding. No medical record or provider statement in the account supports or refutes it.

Edmeades says his father had talked about suicide earlier in life, so the interest in MAiD did not startle the family. He was not worried at first, because his father was not speaking in alarmist terms.

He was also not in contact with his father's medical providers at the time. "It happened so quickly that I only really started to piece together what happened when it was done," he said.

Other people close to Baz objected, according to Edmeades. His brother openly opposed the decision. A close friend of his father's spent about 45 minutes arguing with him in his final days. By then, Edmeades said, "for him, the decision was made."

His case against the system

Edmeades does not reject assisted dying outright. He says it can be appropriate in some circumstances. His objection is to what Canada has built: "What I see happening in Canada is way past appropriate."

He wants approval decisions walled off from government entirely. The process, he says, should be "completely independent of government," with no benefit to anyone from the decision. Otherwise, he says, "there's a slippery slope, and we see that slippery slope."

The financial-incentive claim is his own argument. He did not cite a document showing a specific payment or savings tied to his father's case.

What the law requires

The Government of Canada says applicants must be at least 18, capable of making their own medical decisions and eligible for publicly funded health care. They must request the procedure voluntarily, without outside pressure, and give informed consent.

They must also have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability and be in an advanced and irreversible decline in capabilities. Their physical or psychological suffering must be persistent, intolerable to them and not relievable in a way they find acceptable.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Department of Justice Canada senior media relations adviser Ian McLeod said the law requires a voluntary request, freedom from external pressure and informed consent, among other criteria and safeguards. The statement addressed the rules in general terms. It did not address the Edmeades case.

The defense of the program rests on that framework. On paper, a patient who meets the criteria and asks freely, as Baz did according to his son, is following the law as written. Eric's complaint is that a family member can be cut out of the process and see it compress into days.

Scale and the policy fight

Canada legalized MAiD in 2016. The BBC reports it now accounts for one in every 20 deaths in the country.

On Oct. 27, 2026, the government announced legislation that would allow advance requests. The same bill would prevent a planned expansion of MAiD eligibility to people whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness.

That bill is the vehicle for the current debate. Edmeades's story lands in the middle of it: a family member's account of speed and limited family involvement, set against a government that points to written eligibility rules.

The open questions are specific. Parliament has not yet voted on the Oct. 27 legislation. And no provider or regulator has publicly addressed how Baz Edmeades's timeline moved from a projected six months to a matter of days.