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The Living with Dignity citizen network welcomes the recommendations issued by the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD) in its report, published yesterday afternoon. The Committee’s work has made it clear that the medical system in Canada “is not prepared for medical assistance in dying where mental disorder is the sole underlying medical condition (MAiD MD-SUMC)”. We applaud the Federal Government’s decision to accept the recommendation for a delay and for prompt legislation so that MAiD for mental disorders will not become a likely prospect on March 17th. Although essential under the circumstances, a simple delay appears to be a very temporary solution. The issues raised by the Committee’s report should lead to the complete withdrawal of this new access to medical assistance in dying envisaged in the country. 

A courageous and necessary decision

The political courage to dare to postponefor a second time the projected end of the exclusion criterion of mental disorder for eligibility for MAiD should not be underestimated. In this regard, we would like to thank Mr. Mark Holland, Minister of Health, and Mr. Arif Virani, Minister of Justice, for their swift decision, that was expressed yesterday during a press conference. The recommendations of the AMAD committee have been the subject of trans-partisan discussions on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum, allowing Liberal, Conservative, New Democratic, and Bloc Québécois MPs to support its conclusions (with complementary opinions from the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois, at the end of the report). Dissenting views expressed exclusively by members of the Canadian Senate suggest that debates on the relevance of this deferral will not be lacking in the coming weeks. We are confident that the AMAD Committee, co-chaired by Liberal MP René Arseneault and Conservative Senator Yonah Martin, made the right choice in expressing their numerous concerns, thereby paving the way for the postponement of MAID MD-SUMC, including challenges surrounding: 

– Assessing Irremediability;
– Distinguishing MAID Requests from Suicidality;
– Lack of Professional Consensus;
– Protecting the Vulnerable.

The Living with Dignity citizen network is proud to have participated in the work of the MAiD Committee by submitting one of the 408 online briefs on the consultation website (our brief has been online since 25 January 2024). Among all these briefs, the one from Dr. K. Sonu Gaind (Chief of Psychiatry, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre) deserves particular attention because his testimony has been cited several times in the Committee’s report (and rightly so!). This passage is particularly poignant:

“… it would be discriminatory to provide MAiD on the pretense of an irremediable medical condition, when in fact marginalized Canadians with mental illness, who could get better, will be provided MAiD instead during periods fueled by despair and social suffering.”

Vigilance will be required in the coming weeks to ensure that the recommendations of the AMAD Committee are properly implemented. The possibility of postponing the expansion for access to MAiD MD-SUMC after the next Federal elections would allow for a much-needed substantive debate on medical assistance in dying and expansions of its access in Canada.