Dear colleagues and friends,
We are excited to inform you that McGill-Queen’s University Press has just published an important book,
Unravelling MAiD in Canada: Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide as Medical Care,
Edited by Dr. Ramona Coelho, Dr. K. Sonu Gaind and law professor Trudo Lemmens.
“From a cross-disciplinary perspective, including contributions from authors with lived experience, Indigenous perspectives, and expertise in medicine, mental health, disability, law, and ethics, Unravelling MAiD in Canada challenges readers with the ethical, medical, legal, societal, and disability justice rights concerns that have arisen in regard to this hotly debated irreversible practice.”
It can be ordered from MQUP and other online booksellers.
**
As the federal election approaches, the Collège des Médecins du Québec continues to lobby for MAiD expansion, regardless of their mandate to protect the public. La Presse published a letter from president Dr. Mauril Gaudreault last week, pressing the candidates to commit to MAiD by advance request.
The Alliance’s response to La Presse is copied below. It has not been published.
**
In March, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recommended that Canada repeal Track 2 MAiD (for persons whose death is not reasonably foreseeable). The Committee stated that the current law “is based on negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities, including that ‘suffering’ is intrinsic to disability rather than the fact that inequality and discrimination cause and compound ‘suffering’ for persons with disabilities.”
The only political party to respond to the report was the Green Party, which supported the UN recommendation.
**
Indeed, the many known abuses of the MAiD law are very far from the discourse of most of the political parties. In the attachment, provided by Living with Dignity, you can read what each party has or has not said about this burning issue.
**
There is much to consider as we reflect on Monday’s vote.
Catherine Ferrier
**
Opinion piece sent to La Presse on April 22, 2025
Response to: The next government must permit advance requests
Once again, the Collège des Médecins du Québec (CMQ) is engaging in political activism, which is alien to its mandate to ensure quality medical care and protect the public. We physicians are obliged to pay dues to the CMQ to maintain our license to practise medicine, and the funds are used to promote extreme political positions.
The CMQ is pressing the federal politicians to authorize medical aid in dying (MAiD) by advance request (permitted by Quebec law but contrary to the Criminal Code), and for mental illness (an option that was firmly rejected by the Quebec government).
It is well known across Canada that many people request and receive MAiD because of loneliness, isolation, poverty and a lack of access to medical care, social supports and decent housing. There are anecdotes indicating the same tendency in Quebec, but little specific information because no one is looking for it, as Ontario recently did, leading to shocking revelations.
The only data available to Quebec’s Commission sur les soins de fin de vie (CSFV) is self-reported by MAiD providers, a questionable way of monitoring a practice that is a criminal offence if the law is not respected. In spite of this limitation it raised the alarm in 2023 about the rising number of cases that did not conform to the law or were borderline. The Commission reminded doctors that the second medical opinion is not a formality, that doctor-shopping to find a favourable opinion is not acceptable, and that advanced age is not a serious and incurable disease justifying MAiD. The CMQ complained, in response, that they should not frighten doctors away from performing MAiD. What happened to protecting the public?
People with dementia are among the most vulnerable of our citizens and need to be protected. When they suffer, it is almost universally related to their living conditions and the attitudes of those around them, not to their illness as such.
MAiD by advance request means that a lethal injection is given to someone who cannot consent to or refuse it. What is dignified about that? Even some well-known MAiD providers are not willing to administer it in that situation, citing an expected need to restrain or sedate the patient, to prevent him or her from pulling out the IV.
MAiD by advance request is popular in opinion polls because of fear. Fear of suffering, of ageing, of being abandoned by one’s family, of being mistreated in a hospital or a CHSLD because of ageism, ableism or insufficient resources. Instead of seeking solutions to these legitimate fears, the CMQ agitates for a short-cut to death. What happened to protecting the public?
Be it known that the CMQ in no way represents the views of all doctors.
Catherine Ferrier
Physician, President of the Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia
https://collectifmedecins.org/en/