Here's why critics believe hundreds of medically assisted deaths shouldn't have happened

CTV National News: New data on assisted deaths Medically-assisted deaths hit a record-breaking number last year in Canada. Kamil Karamali on the sobering new data.

Recently released data from Statistics Canada shows a record high in the number of people who chose medical assistance in dying (MAID) in 2023, but critics of the law say there were more than 600 cases last year where they believe the program shouldn't have been an option at all.

Those cases did not involve patients with a terminal illness; instead, critics claim mental health issues played a significant role in the decision to choose death. And while MAID for non-terminal patients has been legal since 2021, critics say that the wider eligibility takes things too far.

Last year, 15,343 people received MAID, a 15.8-per-cent increase from the year prior. Among those who participated in the program in 2023, 95.9 per cent of patients were facing a natural death that was "reasonably foreseeable" -- cases known as Track 1

The remaining 622 patients fell into Track 2: cases where living a long life is possible, but the patient chose death because of other factors, which may include mental health issues.

Though a terminal illness is no longer a requirement for the program, eligibility remains restricted to adults with what Health Canada calls a "serious or incurable illness, disease or disability," who are facing "an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability" and who "have enduring and intolerable physical or psychological suffering that cannot be alleviated under conditions the person considers acceptable."

Dr. Sonu Gaind, a psychiatry professor at the University of Toronto, says the system as it currently operates is troubling.

"It's particularly concerning for the path to MAID for disabled people who are not otherwise dying, because in that path, the nature of suffering parallels the traditional markers of suicide," he told CTV News in an interview Saturday. "That includes things like feeling a burden and a strong sense of loneliness."

The StatCan report found that, in the 622 MAID cases where natural death was not "reasonably foreseeable," 47 per cent suffered from isolation or loneliness and 49 per cent perceived themselves to be a burden to family, friends and caregivers.

"The only reason they died last year was because they were provided MAID," said Gaind. "We're talking about people, in some cases, that had more than 10 years to live. That should raise some red flags."

Critics of the current MAID laws argue that people with disabilities need better support and resources instead of giving them medically assisted death as an option. In September, a coalition of disability rights groups launched a Charter challenge in Ontario over a section of Canada's MAID law.

"It's discriminatory because when other people express loneliness or a loss of dignity or a desire with die, we usually respond with support or prevention -- but with people with disabilities, we respond with an offer for MAID," said UBC law professor Isabel Grant in a Saturday interview with CTV News.

Critics say MAID should be reserved exclusively for Track 1 patients, and with disabilities or illnesses are able to live many years.

"For those situations, I don't think we're providing death under honest pretenses; it's false pretenses," said Gaind. "We're pretending we're providing it for illness suffering, when in reality those MAID provisions are being fuelled by very different sort of suffering -- so that's actually white-washing what we're providing death for, and medicalizing something that's actually a social situation.

But advocates of the current MAID laws say that tightening restrictions will create increased hurdles for those considering a medically assisted death.

"These are people who are suffering intolerably, who have a grievous and irremediable condition, who are thinking about their end of life," said Helen Long with Dying with Dignity Canada to CTV News on Thursday. "We don't want to put in any more barriers or make the process any harder than it has to be for them, while still maintaining all of the many, very adequate safeguards that are in place."

Earlier this year, the Liberal government chose to delay for the third time a planned expansion of medical assistance in dying to include people with a mental illness as their sole medical condition until March of 2027. Under the current system, MAID eligibility is only granted in cases involving an underlying physical illness.

Since medical assistance in dying was legalized in 2016, there have been 60,301 MAID recipients in Canada, as of the end of 2023, this year's MAID report reads.