10 years, 100,000 deaths: How Canada became the euthanasia capital of the world

Canadaʼs government-sanctioned assisted suicide program — known as medical assistance in dying, or MAID — turns 10 years old this month, and in the decade since it was launched assisted dying has become a leading cause of death in the country.

Yet Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, says there is a grim upside to that trend: Other countries increasingly donʼt want anything to do with assisted suicide.

“The only good thing about Canada is the effect Canada is having on other countries,” he said.

Assisted suicide measures have recently suffered notable defeats in numerous other national legislatures. But the procedure remains immensely popular in Canada.

Government data show that suicide uptake grew at an annual rate of more than 30% from 2019 to 2022; it has decreased in the years since, though it has continued to grow, with a total number of 16,499 Canadians dying by suicide in 2024.

The “vast majority” of people who died by assisted suicide had a “reasonably foreseeable death,” the government said, while around 4.5% of victims’ deaths did not meet that criteria.

The government said that the decreasing rate of growth “seem[s] to suggest that the number of annual [suicides] is beginning to stabilize,” though it said that “long-term trends” would only be identifiable after “several more years.”

Data indicate that the country has the highest numbers of assisted suicide deaths in the world.

Some restrictions, proposed expansions

The Canadian Supreme Court ruled in February 2015 that the countryʼs ban on assisted suicide was illegal. That decision technically legalized the practice in Canada, though the court delayed implementation of the decision for a year.

Assisted suicide became fully available in the country the following summer, on June 16, 2016. In April of this year the country officially passed 100,000 “provisions” of MAID.

David Cooke, the campaigns manager for the Ontario-based Campaign Life Coalition, told EWTN News that the 10-year mark for the MAID program is “an anniversary to mourn.”

“With 10 years of legalized medical homicide, Canada has the blood of over 100,000 victims on its hands — blood that cries out to God for justice,” he said. “Canada’s euthanasia program is on a killing spree.”

Cooke argued that while the program was touted as an “answer” to “human suffering,” the program has “unleashed enormous suffering on Canadian society and on the family and friends of victims.”

“Even the victims themselves suffer — by being subjected to medical and societal abandonment, prejudice, being denied timely access to life-affirming treatment and support, plus they must face the horrendous and indescribable experience of being poisoned to death,” he said.

The euthanasia regime “has also utterly destroyed the integrity and lifesaving purpose of our healthcare system, dispensing with sick and disabled Canadians as a cost-saving measure,” he argued.

Advocates have argued that the government program has built-in safeguards, including stipulations that patients must be at least 18 years old and suffering from a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” before they are allowed to partake in it.

Yet critics have argued that the system is rife with both abuse and safety failures, allowing Canadians to access assisted suicide when they shouldnʼt qualify for it.

The reported safety failures are so acute that in 2024 the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association — which helped get MAID legalized a decade ago — warned of the need for more safeguards in the program.

Among the concerns raised by pro-life advocates has been the push to expand suicide to those suffering solely from mental illnesses. That expansion has been delayed until 2027, though the group Cardus Health said in 2025 that patients with mental illnesses were dying at disproportionately high rates in the country.

A 2024 report, meanwhile, claimed that from 2018 “euthanasia regulators” in Ontario had identified over 400 “issues with compliance” with MAID laws — including failures of the eligibility process and mishandled reporting — but that  none of those violations were prosecuted.

Catholic advocates in the country have regularly protested against the program over the past decade, including in February when the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops urged the government to pass a measure prohibiting citizens from accessing MAID if their sole condition is a mental illness.

Schadenberg said the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is active in combatting efforts to expand MAID, including in the case of Claire Brosseau, a Canadian actress who is suing to access euthanasia due to ongoing mental illness.

Brosseau has argued that she suffers from “a severe form of bipolar I disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other mental disorders,” and that the countryʼs MAID laws “discriminate” against individuals like her.

Yet concerns about allowing mental illness patients to access assisted suicide are so prevalent that in 2025 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities urged Canada to halt the planned expansion of MAID for those suffering solely from mental health issues. 

Cooke said such a plan would allow euthanasia for those struggling with depression, addiction, autism, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and “a multitude of other difficulties which impair one’s thinking and judgment.”

“Offering euthanasia to those ‘not in their right mind’ is a horror that recalls the Nazi T4 program,” he said. “These hurting souls are better served through counseling, therapy, and medication — not murder.”

Schadenberg pointed to modestly encouraging proposed euthanasia safeguards in Alberta that would offer protections to underage citizens and those suffering from mental illnesses. He said the proposals were “minor restrictions” but he described them as “positive outcomes compared to the rest of Canada.”

Cooke also cited the Alberta safeguards, which also include affirming the rights of medical patients to not receive care from doctors who perform euthanasia and upholding the rights of doctors themselves to not kill their patients.

Doctors and other medical officials in Alberta are now also forbidden from proposing euthanasia as a medical option, instead being required to wait until a patient brings it up.

Though assisted suicide uptake remains high in Canada, Schadenberg claimed that the countryʼs runaway suicide rate was driving backlash in other nations.

“Scotland defeated their assisted suicide bill, the U.K. bill died in the House of Lords, [and] Slovenia overturned their assisted suicide law,” he said, arguing that “all of this is related to how crazy Canada has become.”

Cooke said the Campaign Life Coalition is urging other provinces to develop their own safeguards while raising awareness of “the horrors of euthanasia” through lobbying and public demonstrations.

Schadenberg told “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly” in March, meanwhile, that the fight against euthanasia in Canada is “a long-term situation that we have to be involved in.”

“Most people are dying by euthanasia not because theyʼre in extreme pain … Usually itʼs because they feel their life lacks meaning, purpose, or value,” he said.

“The most important thing we can do is recognize the importance of caring for people, being with people,” he argued.

He urged advocates to ensure that “family members [and] friends … when theyʼre going through illness, that theyʼre not feeling alone, theyʼre not feeling lonely, theyʼre not feeling that their life lacks meaning or purpose of value, and that someone actually cares about them.”

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/americas/10-years-100-000-deaths-how-canada-became-the-assisted-suicide-capital-of-the-world-in-a-decade