This week, Canada’s health department published its “Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) in Canada 2023”. Official statistics indicated that 15,343 people were euthanized last year, out of a total of just under 20,000 requests, the highest figure on record. The total number of deaths in the country was just over 320,000 in 2023, which means that MAID accounted for nearly one in 20 deaths in Canada. The study noted that “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.”
MAID was legalized in 2016 and, since then, more than 60,000 people have died through euthanasia. Canadian Minister of Health Mark Holland said in the report that the federal government has recently initiated a “national conversation” to consider “advance requests” for MAID, something that is already legal in the province of Quebec and that allows for those with terminal diagnoses of dementia or Alzheimer’s to prearrange their own deaths.
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