The Archbishop of Toronto is appealing to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Catholic faith and urging him to “choose life and not death” when it comes to the planned extension of assisted dying eligibility.
In a letter dated April 20, Archbishop Frank Leo expressed support for a Conservative private member’s bill that would prevent access to medical assistance in dying from being extended to people whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness.
That change is set to take effect in March 2027. A special joint parliamentary committee of MPs and senators is currently studying whether Canada is ready for that to happen.
Leo urged the prime minister to allow Liberal members of Parliament to vote freely on the private member’s bill to restrict MAID.
“I also urge you and the minister of justice to consider measures that restrict further expansion of assisted suicide in our country and instead prioritize investments in palliative care, mental health support and resources for those who are increasingly marginalized and isolated,” Leo wrote.
The archbishop’s office said it has not received a reply from the prime minister. A similar letter was sent to all MPs in the archdiocese.
Carney’s office refused to answer any questions about the letter or his government’s plans for assisted dying.
Health Minister Marjorie Michel would not say whether she believes the country will be ready for the planned extension.
In an interview on Thursday, she said she and Justice Minister Sean Fraser are waiting for the committee’s report, which is expected sometime in June.
“It’s a big decision. Is there a good or bad decision? I don’t think so,” Michel said.
Concerns have been raised that the committee is not hearing balanced testimony from witnesses and that its two chairs have openly stated they are opposed to expanding assisted dying to people with mental illnesses.
Canada legalized medical assistance in dying in 2016 after a ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada struck down sections of the Criminal Code that made it illegal to help someone end their life.
Get daily National news
In 2021, the former Liberal government passed a new law in response to a ruling in Quebec Superior Court that found it was unconstitutional to restrict assisted dying to people whose deaths were reasonably foreseeable.
The expanded legislation included a clause that would allow people suffering solely from a mental disorder to be considered for an assisted death, provided they meet a stringent set of eligibility criteria.
Mental health professionals and provinces raised alarms about the complicated nature of those assessments. The government delayed the extension until 2027 to give provincial health systems and health care workers time to prepare.
One of the witnesses at Tuesday evening’s meeting of the special joint parliamentary committee was Brian Mishara, director of the centre for research and intervention on suicide, ethical issues and end-of-life practices at Université du Québec à Montréal and a former president of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention.
“I believe that MAID should be available when suffering is not remediable by other means,” he told the committee.
“However, in the case of mental illness, this is not possible.”
That concern has been echoed by several other witnesses and medical professionals during the committee study.
But more than one witness has also suggested that the committee appears to be deliberately calling witnesses who will argue against the extension.
Jocelyn Downie, a professor emeritus of law at Dalhousie University who has studied assisted dying for decades, said she was alarmed to see the committee call nearly twice as many witnesses who were opposed to the expansion than those who supported it.
She also noted it has not heard from people with lived experience with mental illness who are currently ineligible to seek an assisted death.
The Canadian Psychiatric Association, which has drafted clinical guidelines for assessing patients for MAID, has written a letter to the committee offering to appear and refuting what it says are false statements made in past meetings.
Later in Tuesday’s meeting, Sen. Kristopher Wells said that most of the witnesses called before the committee so far had “made the false equivalency between requesting MAID and having suicidal ideations.”
“For the record, I want to point out that to receive a medically assisted death in Canada, a person has to be eligible under strict rules laid out under the law, and they have to go through a rigorous process for multiple medical professionals to deem them eligible,” he said.
The committee is set to wrap up its hearings on May 5.
— With files from Hannah Alberga in Toronto
“It’s a big decision. Is there a good or bad decision? I don’t think so,” Michel said.
It’s seems quite possible that Health Minister Marjorie Michel doesn’t actually know good from bad.
Religious individuals should mind their own business, and this goes for the individuals who think they know what’s better for anyone else, other than themselves as well.
I’ve talked before to people who think MAID for mental health is wrong. They’re often people with some light form of mental illness like anxiety, conditional depression or they met a big obstacle in life for the first time, and just want to give up on life, but later realized “hey my life isn’t so bad at all! I can make it through if I just try a little harder!”
They are people who clearly do not need MAID for mental health, and people with light mental health conditions like this should never qualify for MAID. But, they cannot ever and should not ever say mental illness isn’t a serious condition for everyone, so no one should ever have MAID for mental health. They think they understand how everyone with a mental disability feels, when they’ve never had one to begin with.
Religious individuals should mind their own business, and this goes for the individual
So let me get this straight, religion causes most of our suffering (war, pedophilia, etc) that can lead to serious mental illness. Yet, doesn’t take any of its billions in profits to better any of the mental illness systems that it causes us to enter. And furthermore, when that non-existent care leads us to want to leave peacefully, they also have a say?
The Archbishop should stay out of this. Mental illness is a real disability for which there is almost no real help. I personally am so afraid of Alzheimer’s or being incapacitated in an accident I want to be able to pre approve maid for myself while I’m of sound mind. I have no interest in living as a vegetable being a burden on my family and the system, what a waste.
There is a contradiction here: the article acknowledges that mental health support is inadequate, particularly for those who can’t afford proper care, yet still expects people to keep struggling. That places the burden of that reality on the person living through it. That expectation has to come with support that actually meets them where they are.
MAID is a national embarrassment, but then again everything about this failed state for the last decade has been as well
It would be unconstitutional to allow the Archbishop to dictate and influence policy
Piss on the archbishop. This is the 21st century. We have no need of your jewish zombie that wants us to eat part of his body to save our souls.
The archbishop should find something better to do with his time than interfere with personal rights.
Any religion has no right to decide what a law should or shouldn’t be. They have no right to tell what people can and can’t do as it’s our choice and not theirs. If someone wants to have this done there’s the right way and a wrong way. The wrong way is to try and do it themselves as it maybe successful to get it done but it may not, the right way is to do it peacefully without harming others. There are people with mental health illnesses that have come to a point that no medication or therapy has made their lives better or productive. Many can’t even get it if they could. How would you like it if your children were taken from you because you can’t take proper care of them because of your mental illness or you spouse divorces you because of it? What about not being able to work and live off welfare not being able to pay rent or for food? The Archbishop, or the religion followers, have no idea just how common that it is. Who can afford to pay for the treatment anyway as it’s not covered by our medical system. Would you have over $2,000 per month to pay for it? Do you know what the cost of the meds are? Will the church pay for it? Why do we/they have to please other people for what they want with all the pain and suffering the person with a mental illness has to live with? It’s okay for us do euthanize for our pets why can’t we do this ourselves to died with dignity?
You could take M.A.I.D away but people who suffer from mental illnesses like myself can still off our selves so to take that away is pointless
As a practicing Roman Catholic, Carney should know better!
Canada was an ethical country where every human life was valued the same before MAID was legalized in 2016 because of the privatization of Canadian health care act where they chose to kill over care.
MAID criminalize the criminal code of Canada and should not exist at all.
Religious Leaders need to keep their nose out of this. They don’t get to tell us, we can’t die with dignity and less pain based on a Religion that’s not theirs. Dear Archbishop spend a week with a hospice nurse/psw/patient before speaking. As for mental health disorders using MAID again our choice. I’d rather use MAID then have a loved one find me afterwards.
Keep religion away from this. This is a very private individual’s choice and should be a legal way for many who suffer. Again keep religion out of this. Leave it up to the individual.
In BC (in Canada) we need alot more psychiatrists. One of the reasons why my late husband died by MAID was he couldn’t see a psychiatrist even once. Plus he was denied physiotherapy. He lost all his strength because of this. Plus he had Autism.
Anyone who supports MAID for anything other than people with incurable diseases should re evaluate themselves, cause this program should not even exist if it were not for the ones suffering with no future in sight. Mental illness has avenues and this government needs to open them up immediately instead of spending on the nonsense that does nothing for the citizens of this country. These liberals are a huge cause of the mental health crisis in this country.
Wouldn’t it be quicker and cheaper for the taxpayer if doctors just recommended a nearby bridge to jump from? That way, everyone who everyone feels like committing suicide can get it done and over with.
Religious leaders should think twice about voicing their opinions and advice. The decision to use MAID should be an individual’s decision and not the Catholic Church or any relevant religious organization. I grew up in a strict Catholic family while the priests were abusing the alter boys. Clean up your own mess!
When I start asking for moral advice from the #1 institutional abuser of children, just end it right there.
The church doesn’t have a leg to stand on. You’re in no place to make any recommendations. They need to clean their own house before anything else
Carney don’t care. He needs to make room for more refugees and immigrants.
The courts not hearing from someone suffering from mental health issue is irresponsible. The only people who should have the right to deny a person who has exhausted all medical option but still daily struggles not hurt themselves or someone else is the person and their medical team. Since tomorrow will be a brighter day why not stop treating treat mental health issues .
There has to be guidance, rules and oversight but what happens between a doctor and their patient is between them not them and their padre.
Giving the mentally ill the option of suicide assisted by the government is just plain wrong any which way you look at it.
Imagine a loved one dying this way with the assistance of the government.
Crazy.
The catholic church has no right to say anything until… Well ever. A death worshipping cult of child molesters has no business existing let along trying to tell anyone what to do.
Let people decide. They will do it anyway. Let them have some final grace as the western medical model makes mental illness a death sentence anyway.
Why should any religion have a say whether or not a particular person would like to have MAiD. I’d like to see advance directives for people suffering with Dementia or cognitive disorders for which there is no cure. After watching my mother and sister die with dementia, if I am ever diagnosed I would want to have MAiD.
Why would anyone get to decide whether you live or die, in any circumstances? This is not a decision of the government or laws but the natural process of living and dying!
What often gets lost in these debates are the voices of the people who would actually be requesting MAiD. I’m someone who has lived for years with severe, treatment-resistant mental illness. I’ve tried countless medications, therapies, hospitalizations, IV Ketamine, rTMS and ECT – and still I wake up every day to unbearable suffering.
This isn’t about a temporary crisis or avoiding discomfort. It’s about enduring constant torment with no meaningful relief and no realistic prospect of recovery. For people like me, forcing us to keep going “just in case” another treatment works feels cruel. It ignores the reality that we’ve already tried, for years, to get better.
MAiD for mental illness isn’t about giving up too soon. It’s about acknowledging that psychiatric pain can be just as unrelenting, disabling and intolerable as physical illness – and that people living it deserve the same dignity and autonomy in deciding when enough is enough.
As a person with adhd, and a daughter with bi polar NOBODY should be given the right to tell another human being what they can or can not do with their life. If you have personally experienced mental illness or has a child who has it and you have fought for 12 years of your child’s life to get help and treatment, then and only then can you possibly understand what mental illness is and it is different for each individual. To anyone who thinks that restricting maid for mental illness is a good thing, think again. You could call that prejudice against people with mental health. Just because it is not a visible disability, it is a disability. Putting money into psychologists and doctors is sorely needed but in all reality it will take years. Years that most mentally ill individuals will suffer, and suffer greatly. Religion and politics have no place in health care. People need help with mental health but in BC we have a shortage of mental doctors so how do you think this issue can be solved?
With all due respect, I would invite the Archbishop keep his religious covictions out of realm of politics. There should be a definite separation of church and state.
Religion has no place in these government decisions. The individuals & their care givers are the ones to decide.
When the Catholic Church stops shaming people for merely existing, they can talk about not letting people die on their own terms.
All liberals should consider MAID, especially marx carny.
Dictator carney listens to no one except his bosses in China, Russia and Iran
And we call on the Catholic church of Pedophiles to stop raping children.
THIS GUY IS OUT OF TOUCH. HE SHOULD DOVE TAIL BACK TO THE INQUISITION.
As a person who has suffered mental health for decades and work in health care, I do not believe MAID should be cancelled because of religious beliefs. Faith based organizations should be allowed to make these directives in thier own orgaizations. Everyone that suffers from mental health are not all catholic. That choice should be up to the individual. Bringing religion into politics should not the basis of policy. This doesn’t bode well for any country because it takes away an individuals rights. Maybe look at the countries who do provide Maid for mental health and see what thier assessments are. The church should not have an opinion on a matter of an individual who doesn’t follow the Catholic faith.
No one is forcing MAID on anyone who doesn’t want it.
Why should we prolong the suffering of someone else who does not want to be here. Think about the crowds of people who are dependent on narcotics, unable to get a job, living on the streets and have no where to turn to. Leaving on their own terms may be the only control they have left.
People who are severely suffering and cannot help themselves will only end up further depressed and abusing substances out of helplessness, putting strains on the system and those around them.
The mentally ill are keeping the LPC in power. Not sure why they’d want to bring down the base?
That is right. The clergy want people to suffer as long as possible. Most people who chose MAID do so because they lack the ability to suicide themselves, or are afraid of the short term pain for long term ease of pain.
We must support those who do not want to be on palliative care in pain for the rest of their lives.
MAID is support for those who are struggling. – It is most often not the first choice, but the best choice.
People who have mental illness don’t always make good decisions. So why are they allowed to make a decision on life and death instead of getting the help they need to live a good life.