New report finds Canada has fastest-growing euthanasia regime in the world

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 7, 2024

OTTAWA, ON – In less than a decade, euthanasia has gone from being a rare exception — as was originally intended – to a routine cause of death in Canada, sometimes with same-day service for assessment and provision. That’s one key finding in the Cardus report From Exceptional to Routine: The Rise of Euthanasia in Canada.

The report by Alexander Raikin, Visiting Fellow in Bioethics at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, also found that by 2022, Canada’s “medical assistance in dying” (MAiD) deaths had grown 13 times higher than they were in 2016, the year when MAiD became legal.

“Canada has the fastest-growing euthanasia regime anywhere in the world, making MAiD responsible for more than four percent of all deaths in 2022,” says Raikin. “Only deaths from cancer, heart disease, COVID-19, and accidents exceed the number of deaths from euthanasia in Canada.”

The findings in From Exceptional to Routine also undermine the persistent line from government departments and agencies that Canada’s MAiD experience is similar to that of other jurisdictions. In fact, Health Canada dramatically underestimated what a “steady state” of euthanasia deaths would look like and how quickly Canada would reach the 4% threshold of total deaths. The country reached this threshold in 2022, eleven years ahead of Health Canada’s prediction.

Meanwhile, some provinces don’t record MAiD as a cause of death. Instead, they simply record the underlying condition that led to the request for a premature death. And even though Health Canada reports on the number of MAiD deaths, Statistics Canada does not consider MAiD a cause of death. These inconsistencies make it more difficult to research euthanasia and causes of death more generally.

“The systematic underestimation of MAiD in government statements and reporting prevents the public from truly understanding the scale of euthanasia in Canada and just how abnormal its rate of growth has been compared to other countries where some form of assisted dying is permitted,” says Rebecca Vachon, Health Program Director at Cardus. “Governments and the public should carefully consider the safeguards, monitoring, and review mechanisms surrounding MAiD.”

From Exceptional to Routine: The Rise of Euthanasia in Canada is freely available on the Cardus website.

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