CLC Blog

On the same day that the Canadian government announced that it would introduce legislation to prevent the implementation of euthanasia (MAiD) for mental illness as the sole criterion, it also announced that the same legislation would expand euthanasia by permitting advance requests.

On October 7, the House of Commons was set to vote on MP Tamara Jansen’s private member’s bill, C-218, that would have prevented the expansion of euthanasia to people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness. Earlier this year, the special parliamentary committee on Medical Assistance in Dying recommended further delaying or rescinding the eligibility of mental illness for euthanasia, and there has been widespread backlash against the expansion that has already been postponed twice.

That same day, Justice Minister Sean Fraser and Health Minister Marjorie Michel announced that the federal Liberal government would introduce legislation to prevent the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness as the sole criterion. Some groups lauded it as a victory—and it is welcome news that the Carney government listened to the concerned voices of psychiatric experts, religious leaders, and concerned citizens.

But the Liberals decided to trade one vulnerable group for another by saying that the same bill, which has yet to be tabled, will allow for advance directives for people with dementia so that they can be medically killed when they lose the capacity to consent if they have indicated beforehand their willingness to die at some later date when their health deteriorates. Therefore, the Liberal government’s announcement is no victory.

The Interim editor Paul Tuns was not fooled by the poison pill the Liberals were offering. He posted on X: “This is actually diabolical. The Liberal bill will force Conservatives opposed to expanding euthanasia for mental illness to ALSO vote for expanding euthanasia through advance directives, which eliminates the legal requirement for contemporaneous consent to being killed. Liberals are playing games. They voted down C-218 that, if passed, would block implementation of euthanasia for patients suffering solely from mental illness on the same day the Liberals announce they will introduce a bill doing the same but which will also allow advance directives.”

C-218 was defeated when all but two Liberals were joined by the Bloc Québécois in voting down the bill, which was supported by the Conservatives, the NDP, Green MP Elizabeth May, and two Liberals—former Conservative Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanon, On) and Kent Macdonald (Cardigan, PEI). The truth is that if the government were interested in saving the lives of people with mental illness, they could have voted for C-218, and then, if still committed to the idea of advance directives, introduce a bill just on that matter. But that is not what they did.

CLC National President Jeff Gunnarson commented in a press release: “The Liberal government is playing with lives” when “it voted down a bill that would protect the mentally ill while claiming it will introduce its own protections.” And as Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, is warning, the Liberal bill could have definitions that are less precise than C-218, which would not accord the same protections the just-defeated bill would have provided.

Advance directives occur when a person who is legally competent declares their wish to be killed when they can no longer legally consent due to deteriorating conditions. This means that the patient is being euthanized without consent.  Schadenberg says that while all euthanasia is wrong, advance directives are “even more egregious” because they “permit doctors and nurse practitioners to kill someone who has become incompetent, based on an advance request.” Their incompetence means they are not legally capable of changing their minds and rejecting their previously signed advance directive. When Parliament legalized euthanasia in 2016, Schadenberg notes, “it did so under the guise of being for mentally competent adults, who are capable of consenting and who freely ‘choose,’” but “euthanasia by advance request undermines these basic principles.”

Advance directives raise other issues, such as who will decide and when the decision will be made to kill a patient who is no longer competent: at the first sign of deterioration that calls into question competence, after a year, or after a decade? Advance directives give incredible power to physicians or family members to decide the moment of death for (non-consenting) patients.

We do not have to wait to see the actual bill the Liberals will bring forward; it is not supportable if it expands so-called “Medical Assistance in Dying” by including advance directives.

Read the entire November 2026 edition of CLC National News online here. 

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