Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, blogs on growing international concern about Canada’s euthanasia laws drawing only shrugs or silence from the federal Liberal government. The Register has edited the text for brevity

On March 21, 2025, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Committee’s Concluding Observations on Canada’s Disability Rights Record report was released. Among the many recommendations, Sections 19 and 20 of the UN Committee report outlined their response to Canada's (MAiD) euthanasia law. 

Section 20 of the report urged the Canadian government to:

(a) Repeal Track 2 Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), including the 2027 commencement of Track 2 MAiD for persons whose “sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness”;(b) Not support proposals for the expansion of MAiD to include “mature minors” and advance requests;

Canada's federal government has scheduled allowing euthanasia for mental illness (alone) beginning in March, 2027. A report by the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (AMAD) tabled in the House of Commons in February, 2023 called for an expansion of euthanasia to include children "mature minors" and patients with mental illnesses and that patients with dementia be permitted to make an advance request for euthanasia.The federal minister responsible for disabilities spoke at a hearing of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in June, about two months after the committee called on Canada to repeal the 2021 law that expanded eligibility for assisted dying to those whose deaths were not reasonably foreseeable.Government Minister Patty Hajdu reportedly stated: “It’s about, for me, making relationships in this space and making sure that I have a really strong connection with the community, which I think is really important to be a good minister.” 

Her address did not cite the committee’s report, which was released as the federal election got underway.

A spokesperson for Minister Hajdu said the government thanks the committee for its report: “MAID is a deeply personal choice. We will make sure that the rights of persons with disabilities are upheld and protected,” said Jennifer Kozelj.

Disability rights groups in Canada have argued the law singles out people with disabilities who are suffering because they’re unable to access proper support. 

Last September, Inclusion Canada was among a group of organizations that filed a Charter of Rights challenge against what’s known as track 2 MAID.In court documents, they argued the law “allows people with disabilities to access state-funded death in circumstances where they cannot access state-funded supports they need to make their suffering tolerable.”The organization’s CEO, Krista Carr, said she wants to see Ottawa deliver an action plan on implementing the recommendations in the UN report.“It was crystal clear — the United Nations said they need to repeal track 2 medical assistance in dying,” she said.

Garnett Genuis, the Conservative employment critic, also attended the UN event.  Genuis is reportedly worried about Canada’s international reputation being harmed by what he called Ottawa’s. “failures to uphold our obligations to protect the rights of people with living with disabilities.”“There is a lot of concern internationally within the disability rights community about what’s happening in Canada around euthanasia and people living with disabilities,” he said.

The offices of Health Minister Marjorie Michel and Justice Minister Sean Fraser did not say whether Ottawa is considering changes to the assisted dying law as a result of the report.A spokesman for Michel cited strict eligibility requirements and “multiple robust safeguards” in the current law.

The latest annual report on medical assistance in dying shows that 622 of the 15,343 people who had an assisted death in 2023 were part of that track 2. They included 210 people who self-identified as having a disability.

A reader of Schadenberg’s blog comments:

“As (I am) a disabled individual…it is legal in specified circumstances for third parties to kill me. People who do not have the particular illnesses or disabilities which would qualify them for Track 2 are protected, by law, against any such thing, whether they are willing to die or not.This is a flagrant instance of unequal treatment before the law.I demand the same protection against the very real risk of being murdered, which the Canadian Criminal Code affords to everybody else.