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In case anyone was wondering many Canadians chose this option recently, it was 13,241 in 2022 (no data available for 2023 yet). The numbers have been increasing steadily since the program began in 2016. In 2017 (first full year) the number was 2,838. By provinces, it would appear Quebec and British Columbia have more applicants per capita than the national average, and Alberta looks considerably lower than you would expect at random. This may reflect different philosophies of doctors in these provinces, since it is libertarian doctors who were advocating for this before legislation was passed, the kind of awful people you meet once or twice in a lifetime and who say odd things like, “you (they) really should consider suicide,” when they hear of any dysfunction. It’s an offshoot of the old eugenics world view that was quite popular in certain circles and not necessarily leftist circles but including leftists.

I guess the Liberal Party of Canada heard about it around 2016 when Trudeau replaced Stephen harper, and said, well, anything to get old people to start dying younger, for a variety of reasons that benefit the government. Pensions not needing to be paid, votes not being wasted, etc.

Now, having said all that, I can report that (a) I am not a hermit who knows nobody and (b) I have never heard of anyone taking advantage of this program (despite being 74). So it’s not like every other person on the street is showing up at a clinic demanding to die.

13.2 thousand people would represent about one in three thousand people in Canada. I live in a town of a little more than four thousand people so I suppose one or two people here are preparing an assisted death. (I know, statistical averages don’t work like that and I already said BC was above average so possibly up to half a dozen people — that’s quite a large number really, and it concerns me, but as I don’t know anyone who is involved, and it is their decision (the legislation outlines various ways of ascertaining consent), what would happen if the legislation was withdrawn? I would guess about half these people would find a less medically assisted form of suicide. That doesn’t make it right.

It’s a bit creepy to know that doctors are participating in this; public opinion surveys claim a fairly high approval rating for the program but of course that could be fictitious, a lot of public opinion polling is not as random as claimed. It seems a logical inference (to me) that if doctors are willing to provide this “service” then that could tell you something about how vigorously they actually try to improve the health of seriously ill patients, if in the back of their minds is the thought “this person would be better off dead.”