Psychiatric experts urge Ottawa to halt MAID expansion for mental illness
Updated
Updated · The Globe and Mail · May 6
Psychiatric experts urge Ottawa to halt MAID expansion for mental illness
10 articles · Updated · The Globe and Mail · May 6
The brief to Parliament's Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying was signed by 16 leaders from 13 Canadian medical schools before a planned March expansion.
They warned the change could cause preventable deaths, weaken suicide prevention and expose vulnerable groups, citing uneven mental-health care, no mandatory psychiatrist involvement and no accepted definition of irremediability.
The mental-illness provisions have been paused since March 2021, and the intervention adds pressure on federal legislators weighing whether current safeguards and Charter limits justify delaying or shelving the expansion.
As provinces like Alberta defy the federal MAID plan, is Canada heading for a constitutional healthcare showdown?
If psychiatrists can't define when mental illness is incurable, who can legally decide a patient should die?