Over 90 charities, advocacy groups sign letter to halt MAID expansion

Canada is set to expand eligibility for medical suicide next March to include those whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness

Published May 26, 2026  •  3 minute read

A doctor wears a stethoscope as he sees a patient. Photo by Joe Raedle / Files /Getty Images

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OTTAWA — Over 90 Canadian advocacy groups are calling on the Mark Carney Liberals to scrap planned expansions to Canada’s medically facilitated suicide framework.

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In a letter facilitated by Inclusion Canada — addressed to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Justice Minister Sean Fraser, Health Minister Marjorie Michel and the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying — the signatories are urging the government to reconsider changes that would formally expand medical assistance in dying (MAID) to those whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness, changes set to come into effect on March 17, 2027.

“We believe track two MAID is a violation of the rights of persons with disabilities,” Inclusion Canada CEO Krista Carr told the Toronto Sun. “It singles out one group of people for lethal injection, when what they’re asking for is help to live with dignity, and they very often cannot get it. That is what puts them in the situations that they’re in.”

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MAID eligibility separated into two ‘tracks’

Five years ago, Canada removed the requirement that death had to be “reasonably foreseeable” to qualify for MAID.

Currently, only patients under “track one” of Canada’s MAID framework — those suffering from a terminal illness or whose natural death is approaching — are eligible for medically-assisted death.

That will change next March when Canada plans to expand eligibility criteria to a second track, namely for those seeking therapeutic suicide whose death is not a reasonable, foreseeable outcome.

That’s sparked considerable concern around the world and has even drawn the attention of the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, who in a report last March urged Canada to reverse course on track two — concerned that policies equating significant disability with government-facilitated suicide is a Charter violation.

Organizations who’ve signed onto the letter include the March of Dimes, Race and Disability Canada, The Canadian Association of the Deaf, the Autism Alliance of Canada and Easter Seals Canada.

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   Physicians urge government re-think of MAID criteria expansion

MAID was Canada’s fourth most common cause of death in 2024

“Although some argue that MAID is distinct from suicide, Health Canada defines suicide as ‘the intentional act of ending one’s life,’ and MAID for mental illness clearly falls under this umbrella,” read an excerpt from the letter.

“Your predecessors twice delayed legalizing MAID for mental illness, first in 2023, and then in 2024. Their concerns remain relevant today. Action by Parliament, to block MAID for mental illness, continues to be justified.”

While medically-facilitated suicide isn’t tracked in Statistics Canada’s annual list of common causes of death, government’s numbers indicate 16,499 Canadians died via MAID in 2024 — ranking therapeutic suicide as the fourth most common cause of death that year, ranking between accidents (20,260) and strokes (13,725.)

“When (Canadians) think about MAID, they often think of their friend with stage four brain cancer,” Carr said.

“If more Canadians understood the ramifications and the numbers of people and situations that would be included by expanding track two to include people whose sole underlying condition meets the definition of a mental disorder in the DSM-5 (The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,) people would be very, very concerned.”

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