As Canada approaches its 10-year mark of practicing legalized assisted suicide, a new government report finds that the country has hit a new record of euthanasia deaths.
Health Canada’s Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) report reveals that a total of 16,499 people were put to death by euthanasia in 2024 – that is 1 in 20 deaths, according to some estimates.
Although the largest increase in MAID participation was from 2019 to 2020 by 36.8%, there was yet another 6.9% increase from 2023 to 2024. The report claims that the number of “annual MAID provisions is beginning to stabilize. However, it will take several more years before long-term trends can be conclusively identified.”
Striking an upbeat tone about the killings, Canada’s Minister of Health, Marjorie Michel, said, “I am pleased to share Health Canada’s Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying.” She claimed that the program ensures that “the federal legal framework protects those who are vulnerable, while supporting freedom of choice and personal autonomy.”
While the report attempts to spin euthanasia as positive, some of its data reveal the grim nature of the federal program.
Nearly one-fifth of the 23,000 people who requested MAID, had a “grievous and irremediable medical condition,” such as diabetes, autoimmune conditions, and chronic pain, and were denied assisted suicide.
But about 4% of people who were approved for assisted suicide did not have a terminal diagnosis or reasonably foreseeable death.
Nearly 23% of people overall reported “isolation or loneliness” as a reason for seeking euthanasia. Medical practitioners reported that about 50% of people requested it because of being a “perceived burden on family, friends, or caregivers.”
“While the Government is trying to assuage concerns by saying rates are ‘stabilizing,'” Amanda Achtman, a Catholic Canadian anti-MAID activist, wrote on X recently. “MAID continues to represent a significant death toll and betrays a deeper cultural crisis of meaning and care.”
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There are growing concerns as eligibility for MAID is expected to expand in 2027 to people whose underlying condition is mental illness, and a joint House of Commons–Senate committee has recommended extending MAID to “mature minors,” outlet todayville.com reports.
“Hold on, though. Roughly one in twenty deaths in Canada is now attributed to MAiD. On those numbers alone, rather than moving ahead with this expansion agenda, an external human-rights review should come first — and it should test whether Canada’s existing system is already breaching the rights of disabled, poor and socially isolated people before any further gates are opened,” reads the article.
Life Institute cites reports of people being pressured to participate in MAID. Roger Foley, a disabled Canadian who suffers from an incurable brain disease that makes it difficult to move, told the Daily Mail his caregivers have suggested that MAID is his way out of the hospital.
“I’m fighting to my last breath, but I’m up against a regime that is cruel, desensitized, and out for blood,” he told the outlet in June.
TV star Lisa Carr told Life Institute that disabled people, like herself, feel “frightened and threatened” by assisted suicide.
These statistics should be a very serious cause for concern, especially as so many of those whose deaths were not “reasonably foreseeable” were identified as someone with a disability. What message does this send to the disabled community?” questioned Sandra Parda of the Life Institute.
“It is deeply disturbing to see such an increase in deaths by euthanasia, especially as all these people are being sold the idea that death is the solution to suffering. We are all human beings who deserve to be treated with greater respect than this, not like worthless beings who can be cast aside,” she continued.
