Euthanasia continues to be a major driver of deaths in Canada, with the latest government figures showing another double-digit increase in Canadian citizens opting to end their lives under the country’s national suicide law.
Health Canada’s fifth annual medical assistance in dying (MAID) report, released on Wednesday, reveals that MAID accounted for nearly 1 in 20 deaths in the country last year.
Government statistics indicated that 15,343 people were euthanized by medical officials in Canada in 2023, out of a total of just under 20,000 requests. Those numbers represent “an increase of 15.8%” over 2022, the report says, a drop from an average annual growth rate of about 31%.
Though the growth rate declined, it is “not yet possible to make reliable conclusions about whether or not these findings represent a stabilization of growth rates over the longer term,” the report said.
“An increased awareness of MAID within the care continuum, population aging, and the associated patterns of illness or disease, personal beliefs, and societal acceptance, as well as the availability of practitioners who provide MAID, may all influence the rate of provisions,” it noted.
The “vast majority” of euthanasia incidents detailed in the most recent report, about 95%, were administered to individuals classified as “Track 1,” whose natural death is “reasonably foreseeable” due to a medical condition.
More than half of those individuals were over 75 years old, with cancer as the “most frequently reported underlying medical condition.”
The most common underlying medical conditions afflicting the remaining victims under “Track 2” included neurological conditions as well as other medical issues such as diabetes, “frailty,” and chronic pain.
Canadian Minister of Health Mark Holland said in the report that he was “pleased” to release the data, which he said offers “a comprehensive picture of the provision of medical assistance in dying” in the country.
Holland noted that the Canadian federal government has recently initiated a “national conversation” to consider “advance requests for MAID.” The government of Quebec recently began allowing euthanasia for individuals who cannot consent at the time of the procedure, permitting “advance requests” for individuals suffering from afflictions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Tens of thousands of Canadians have been euthanized by medical officials there since the program became legal.
This year’s report says government data indicate “44,958 MAID provisions since its legalization in 2016 to 2022,” which, with the latest data, “brings the total number of MAID provisions in Canada to 60,301.”
Concerns have been raised recently that regulators are not effectively policing the country’s euthanasia program. A bombshell report in November alleged that out of hundreds of violations of the country’s controversial euthanasia law over the course of several years, none of them had been reported to law enforcement.
Activists, meanwhile, are pushing for the government to expand the law to cover individuals with mental illnesses. The government recently considered making that expansion itself, though early this year it paused the measure to allow the country’s health care system “more time” to prepare for it.