Canada has suspended its plan to widen medical assistance in dying (MAID) to cover people suffering solely from mental illness, according to the BBC. The Carney government will instead extend that exclusion indefinitely, CBC reports, meaning those whose only underlying condition is a mental illness will remain barred from the program.
The decision, reported on Wednesday, reverses an earlier plan to expand eligibility. CTV News reports that the government will exclude people who suffer solely from mental illness from medical assistance in dying. The Toronto Star reports that the Carney government will bar MAID for mental illness alone while permitting advance requests, under which a person can set out their wishes in advance in case they later lose the capacity to consent.
Canada's assisted dying law has been amended in stages over several years, and CityNews Toronto has published a timeline of the key dates in that evolution. The question of whether mental illness alone should qualify has been among the most contested parts of the debate.
The shift leaves Canada's framework narrower than previously planned, keeping the sole-mental-illness exclusion in place rather than allowing it to lapse.
What to watch next: how the government formalizes the indefinite extension and how it handles advance requests in the amended legislation.
