Canada won’t expand MAID for mental illness alone, minister says

Canada will not extend medical assistance in dying (MAID) for people who are seeking it on the basis of mental illness alone, Justice Minister Sean Fraser said.

Currently, the law excludes MAID for people seeking it on the grounds of mental illness as a sole criteria, but that rule is set to expire in March 2027. The federal government plans to table legislation this fall that will maintain that exclusion “on an indeterminate basis,” Fraser said.

“Canada has made a decision not to move forward with the expansion that is scheduled in the criminal code of medical assistance and dying in circumstances where mental illness is the sole basis,” he said.

Fraser also said the government will “grant access to medical assistance in dying to people who have provided consent at a time when they still have capacity but know that they have been diagnosed with an illness that will take that capacity from them subsequently.”

More to come.