Recently released data from Statistics Canada shows a record high in the number of people who chose medical assistance in dying (MAID) in 2023, but critics of the law say there were more than 600 cases last year where they believe the program shouldn’t have been an option at all.
Those cases did not involve patients with a terminal illness; instead, critics claim mental health issues played a significant role in the decision to choose death. And while MAID for non-terminal patients has been legal since 2021, critics say that the wider eligibility takes things too far.
Last year, 15,343 people received MAID, a 15.8-per-cent increase from the year prior. Among those who participated in the program in 2023, 95.9 per cent of patients were facing a natural death that was “reasonably foreseeable” — cases …