In a striking departure from federal policy, Alberta has signalled it will not permit medical assistance in dying (MAID) for Albertans whose sole condition is a mental illness.
On Feb. 24, Alberta’s United Progressive Conservative government announced plans to introduce legislation making people whose sole medical condition is a mental illness ineligible for MAID in the province.
MAID for mental illness is not currently legal anywhere in Canada. However, in March 2027, the federal government is slated to expand eligibility for MAID to individuals whose sole condition is a mental illness.
Alberta has said it additionally plans to require greater oversight of medical professionals involved in MAID. It also plans to ban advance requests for MAID, MAID for mature minors, and MAID for individuals lacking capacity to make medical decisions.
Government House Leader Joseph Schow told reporters Alberta’s goal is to “protect vulnerable Albertans.”
Government priority
Alberta’s announcement does not come as a surprise.
In late 2024, the province launched a province-wide consultation asking Albertans if they thought more oversight of MAID was needed, particularly for vulnerable people.
The Alberta government has not published the results of that consultation. But in a September 2025 mandate letter, Premier Danielle Smith instructed Justice Minister Mickey Amery to craft legislation to provide greater oversight of MAID and to ban MAID for mental illness.
“Alberta’s goal is to make sure vulnerable Albertans have the right supports at every stage of life so they can live healthy, fulfilling lives,” Heather Jenkins, Amery’s press secretary, wrote in a Feb. 26 email to Canadian Affairs.
The justice ministry did not answer questions about the findings of its consultation or when it plans to introduce the proposed legislation.
The Alberta NDP, the official opposition, did not respond by press time to Canadian Affairs’ request for comment on the proposed legislation.
Jurisdictional challenges
Eligibility for MAID is set by the federal Criminal Code.
If Alberta passed a law banning MAID for mental illness, it would likely conflict with later federal changes to the Criminal Code allowing MAID for mental illness.
Gerard Kennedy, a law professor at the University of Alberta, says provinces can pass legislation about matters of federal jurisdiction.
“We don’t have watertight compartments between federal and provincial powers,” he said.
If Alberta passed a law banning MAID for mental illness and Ottawa later allowed MAID for mental illness, the Alberta law would remain in effect, Kennedy says.
The details of the legislation would matter, he says, especially if the proposed legislation deals with health care or justice.
“The Alberta law must be about the regulation of health,” he said. “It cannot be about prohibiting immoral evil, which is the purview of the criminal law.”
The precise details of the legislation are unknown, so it is impossible to know exactly what constitutional issues it could raise, says Kennedy. But he says it is possible that a provincial ban on MAID for mental illness would be challenged as being unconstitutional.
Federal debate
Alberta’s announcement comes as the debate about MAID for mental illness is set to return to the House of Commons.
A private member’s bill to permanently exclude MAID for mental illness is at second reading and is set to be voted on in April. If it passes second reading, it will move onto a committee for study.
A separate committee of MPs and senators will also be studying MAID for mental illness. In 2024, this committee recommended not allowing MAID for mental illness until the federal government was confident health systems across the country were ready for it.
Several psychiatrists have warned it is not possible to determine whether mental illnesses are irremediable, one of the criterion for determining eligibility for MAID.
“Our screening tools are grossly inadequate, so we can’t even develop a fully reliable and valid tool to screen for suicide,” said Mara Grunau, CEO of the Alberta Division of the Canadian Mental Health Association, an association that supports people living with mental illness.
Grunau is also the Canadian representative to the International Association for Suicide Prevention. The organization, which advises the World Health Organization, recently released a public statement opposing assisted suicide for mental illness.
“How are we now going to create a tool to screen out the difference between a potentially rational MAID request and suicide?
“We’re not there yet. Those tools don’t exist,” Granau said.
Mature minors
Alberta also plans to ban advance requests for MAID, MAID for mature minors, and MAID for individuals lacking capacity to make medical decisions.
These practices are not currently permitted under federal law.
When asked by Canadian Affairs why Alberta is planning to introduce legislation to ban activities that are already illegal, Alberta’s ministry of justice referenced the September 2025 mandate letter and the need to protect vulnerable Albertans.
“Alberta’s legislation will work within provincial jurisdiction,” press secretary Jenkins said in a March 2 email.
There have been some signs Ottawa is considering expanding MAID to mature minors and allowing advance requests for MAID.
In 2023, a parliamentary committee recommended the government allow MAID for mature minors whose deaths are reasonably foreseeable. Mature minors are children deemed capable of making health-care decisions.
In response, the federal government said the issue is complex, particularly for Indigenous groups who have raised concern about the crisis of youth suicide in Indigenous communities.
Advance requests for MAID are also not legal under the Criminal Code. However, Quebec has nonetheless allowed advance requests for MAID for patients with dementia since 2024. The federal government is also considering allowing them across the country.
Kennedy, at the University of Alberta, says a province can pass a law that bans practices that are already illegal under the Criminal Code.
“There’s nothing wrong as a matter of principle with a duplicative law.”
Conflicting reaction
Alberta’s announcement has elicited both praise and concern.
“We’re in alignment with not expanding MAID for people with mental illness,” said Grunau, of the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Alberta division.
Disability advocates also welcomed Alberta’s announcement.
“We welcome [the proposed legislation],” said Trish Bowman, CEO of Inclusion Alberta, an organization that advocates for people with intellectual disabilities.
But MAID advocates say Alberta’s legislation would be discriminatory.
“It is stigmatizing and discriminatory to assume that someone with a mental illness does not have the ability to make decisions for themselves,” Helen Long, CEO of the Dying With Dignity Canada advocacy group, told Canadian Affairs in an emailed statement.
In March 2025, a United Nations committee recommended Canada not allow MAID for the sole condition of mental illness, MAID for mature minors or MAID by advance request.
