Earlier this year, an expert United Nations committee rebuked Canada for its medical assistance in dying (MAID) regime.
In doing so, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities confirmed a key criticism voiced by Canadians with disabilities in recent years: that the massive expansion of MAID in Canada puts a target on the back of the disability community.
The committee expressed concern that Canada’s approach to MAID emphasizes individual autonomy without offering sufficient safeguards to protect vulnerable populations, especially persons with disability.
The experts called on Canada to reject the “Track 2” designation that makes MAID available to persons whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable.
That Track 2 designation became possible in 2021, when the federal government accepted a lower Quebec court ruling that said MAID could not be limited to individuals’ whose deaths were reasonably foreseeable. The government responded by changing its eligibility criteria to permit people with incurable illnesses or disabilities who are suffering — but whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable — to qualify for MAID.
Health Canada’s annual reports on MAID demonstrate how these changes have affected uptake of MAID.
Its most recent report shows 15,343 people received MAID in Canada in 2023 — a nearly 16 per cent increase from 2022. Between 2019 and 2022, the average annual growth rate in MAID cases was 31 per cent. By 2023, just over four per cent of all Canadian deaths were the result of MAID.
Statistics indicate Track 2 is disproportionately accessed by women with disabilities and Canadians with disabilities in marginalized situations, the UN committee noted.
The committee’s unequivocal recommendation is that Track 2 MAID be repealed. In making this recommendation, it flagged various concerns with the actions of the federal government. These ranged from procedural flaws (such as the government’s failure to consult marginalized groups), insufficient scrutiny of MAID, and a lack of assessment into systemic inequities faced by persons with disabilities.
If that were not problematic enough, the committee also took exception to the fact that the federal government did not challenge the Quebec court decision that led to Canada introducing Track 2 MAID.
As the committee noted, that decision fundamentally changed the whole premise of MAID. It assumes “‘suffering’ is intrinsic to disability rather than the fact that inequality and discrimination cause and compound ‘suffering’ for persons with disabilities.”
This strong language from a UN body should cause Canadian governments to pause and reflect on their actions.
Many pro-MAID activists have relied on the mantras of autonomy and choice as a liberating concept. The committee clearly saw through these arguments.
As it noted, there is overwhelming evidence that Canadians with disabilities have chosen death as a result of the failure “to address the social determinants of health and well-being, such as poverty alleviation, access to healthcare, accessible housing, prevention of homelessness, prevention of gender-based violence, the provision of community-based mental health supports and employment supports.”
Canadians with disabilities have long faced social marginalization. While some progress has been made, many continue to live in precarious conditions, marked by inadequate care and persistent vulnerability.
In this context, the Canadian government now offers euthanasia and assisted suicide as an apparent solution to the suffering these individuals may endure.
Though framed as a matter of “choice,” this is more accurately understood as a coerced outcome — one shaped by the same government’s failure to provide sufficient social and health-care support.
As the UN committee has noted, Canada’s expansion of MAID is rooted in systemic devaluation of disability and a flawed ideology of absolute autonomy. What is presented as a voluntary option emerges instead from an environment of discrimination and deprivation imposed on a group for whom dignity, support and hope are too often withheld.
Human life is becoming disposable in Canada.
From taking the
life of unborn children to allowing the death of people who are unable to care for themselves.
So, this is all about money!!!. This isn’t assisted suicide but assisted murder. Murder of people who can’t take care of themselves and a government who refuses to invest in proper housing, enough care workers and enough hours for the care workers to really be able to do their jobs well. What’s wrong with you people. If the disabled was one of yours, you wouldn’t be in a hurry to look at that solution.
Track 2 MAID sounds a lot like the euthanasia program implemented by the Nazis for people, including children, with disabilities. It should be repealed.
The UN has impotently shaken its finger at Canada more than once, for its human rights abuses and genocide of disabled Canadians. This is just the latest example. It happens every few years, when member states are supposed to report to the UN on their “progress” meeting goals of the sham “commission on the rights of persons with disabilities”.
UN’s sham lip service actually enables the abuse and murders, by fooling the public to think that someone is standing up for disabled Canadians when the UN is doing the exact opposite.
What has the UN actually DONE to help disabled Canadians being murdered by their own government?
– Sanctions against Canada? Nope. They’ve imposed sanctions on other countries for human rights abuses and genocide, why not Canada?
– Encouraging member states to accept asylum applications from disabled Canadians? Nope. Disabled Canadians have nowhere to flee to escape abuse and genocide, thanks to the UN.
– Classifying disability based genocide or abuse as grounds to apply for asylum? Nope. See above.
The UN is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Their so-called “concerns” are nothing more than a gross insult to disabled Canadians, as long as they’re not backed up with meaningful action. Which they won’t be, because they’re not genuine.
Disabled people are sick and tired of being left to starve to death and be murdered by our own government, while organizations like the UN spit in our faces with nothing more than patronizing “concerns”.