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Canada will soon mark a grim milestone: 100,000 deaths via the country’s assisted suicide or Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program. The program is due to “celebrate” its tenth anniversary on 17 June, having claimed the lives of more than twice the number of Canadians who died in World War II (42,042). The latest figures show 15,767 Canadians were killed by the government in 2024, or more than 5% of deaths that year. That works out at 45 Canadians a day. The figure has increase significantly year on year. In 2021, 9,842 Canadians were killed by the government. As The...

Canada is set to pass a grim milestone in its medically-assisted suicide program with a total of 100,000 citizens projected to be euthanized by the government before its 10th anniversary on June 17. The Great White North’s MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) program will soon cross the sickly six-figure threshold, according to The National Post. Ottawa’s most recent data shows 15,767 Canadians were euthanized by the state in 2024 — 5.1% of all deaths in the nation that year. Rachel Fournier, who has requested medical assistance in dying, looks out a window at a palliative care center. About 45 Canucks...

Canada performed thousands of same-day assisted suicides, as it was revealed one elderly woman was killed despite withdrawing her request the day before. The medical assistance in dying (MAiD) program was approved in 2016 and has since been expanded to include requests from patients whose deaths are 'not reasonably foreseeable,' and will soon include those with mental illness. More than 200 people in Ontario alone chose to die within 24 hours of their approval in 2023, a 2024 Ontario report found, The Free Press first reported. Of the 219 deaths, 30 percent of them chose a same-day procedure. In 2024...

A family has accused Canada's laws of 'killing the disabled and vulnerable' months after their son, who suffered from seasonal depression, died by assisted suicide. Kiano Vafaeian, a 26-year-old blind man with Type 1 diabetes, died in December using Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program, which allows patients with 'grievous and irremediable' medical conditions to request a lethal drug. Eligibility was expanded in 2021 to include people with chronic illnesses, disabilities and, pending parliamentary review, potentially individuals with certain mental health conditions. Vafaeian faced mental health struggles stemming from a car accident at 17, and according to his mother,...

An elderly woman was euthanized within hours of her husband claiming she changed her mind after insisting she wanted to live. Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying laws allow patients to request a painless death if an assessor agrees their terminal condition meets certain requirements. Patients often wait weeks, but it can happen the same day the application is lodged if judged to be medically urgent by a MAiD provider. But a report by the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee raised concerns that safeguards were being eroded that led to questionable deaths. One case study was that of a woman in...

It took less than a decade for Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program to go from a compassionate means for terminally ill patients to end their lives to a full-blown euthanasia program that kills the poor, veterans, and people with depression. In December of last year, we learned that, per capita, the number of Canadians who die by MAiD exceeds the number of U.S. gun deaths. MAiD is even targeting teens and the mentally ill. Of course, it's purely a numbers game from a government that ultimately doesn't care if you live or die. Jolene is a woman who...

A record 16,499 people died by euthanasia in Canada in 2024, accounting for 5.1% of all deaths in the country. According to the latest report on “medical assistance in dying” (MAiD) from Health Canada released at the end of last month, there was a 6.9% increase in state-assisted deaths in Canada in 2024. In 2024, although assisted suicide is permitted, in which the person who wishes to end their own life self-administers the lethal substance, there was not a single case of assisted suicide. Instead, every single person who died under Canada’s MAiD programme died by euthanasia. In 2023, there...

Benjamin Turland lost both of his grandmothers to Canada's legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide program, known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). While much has been shared about the devastating numbers of Canadians who are dying through the program, less has been shared about the lasting impact those deaths have on the family members left behind. Key Takeaways: * Benjamin Turland said that losing both his grandmothers to MAiD "wrecked" him, and caused lasting trauma. * He explained the difference between watching a loved one die naturally and watching one choose death — and how it affects those left behind....

During a Canadian parliament Finance Committee hearing Krista Carr, the CEO of Inclusion Canada, which is a national federation of people with disabilities, stated that: People with disabilities are now very much afraid in many circumstances to show up in the healthcare system with regular concerns because often MAiD is suggested as the solution to what is considered to be intolerable suffering that happens to be caused by some of the things that this committee addresses like poverty and the situations that people with disabilities disproportionately find themselves in compared to other Canadians. This is explosive testimony from Krista Carr...

An American man dying of heart failure received the heart of a Canadian man with ALS who chose a medically assisted death in what is being described as a landmark case of a heart transplant following euthanasia. Organs have been donated after MAID before, involving liver, kidney or lung transplants. “Here we report the first case of a successful cardiac transplantation after MAID,” a team of doctors from The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and The Ottawa Hospital report in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation. The case involved a 59-year-old man with rapidly worsening heart failure who wasn’t...

"Paraguay: Alleged Hezbollah financier detained Wassim el Abd Fadel, a Lebanese with Paraguayan citizenship, faces human trafficking and narco-terrorism charges."  SNIPPET: "ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay – Wassim el Abd Fadel is behind bars inside Tacumbú prison in Asunción, Paraguay, as he awaits trial on human trafficking, money laundering and narco-trafficking charges. But Paraguayan authorities suspect the Lebanese with Paraguayan citizenship’s involvement in crime is much greater, which is why he’s being investigated for financing the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Fadel, 31, was arrested on Dec. 21 in Ciudad del Este, which is on the border shared by Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, about...

Canadian doctors, having accepted the country’s assisted-suicide regime, are now considering whether to harvest organs from euthanasia patients before they have died, The Federalist reported Wednesday. The doctors reason thus: Organs are normally removed from a donor as soon as possible after death to ensure they are in the best possible condition for transplant. If organs were removed from a live person, they would be in even better condition. And if that patient is about to die voluntarily anyway, what’s the harm in killing him by taking his organs? Stealing Hearts “The best use of my organs, if I’m going...

(Reports show that in Ontario alone there were 428 possible criminal cases related to Canada’s assisted suicide program since 2018.) In Canada, doctors can treat their patients with an unusual medicine: death. While the nation claims its doctors meet “certain safeguards” before killing their patients under the label “euthanasia,” new documents show more than 428 possible criminal cases in the province of Ontario alone, according to The New Atlantis. This includes repeat and “blatant” offenders. Canada’s criminal code regulates the “medical assistance in dying” program, or “MAID.” Still, many of its doctors have been killing patients whose deaths could have...

M.V. has refused food and fluid for 16 days. The father of the Calgary autistic woman, who was scheduled to die by euthanasia on February 1, withdrew his appeal of a court decision that prevented his daughter from dying by euthanasia, because the case is essentially moot. Meghan Grant reported for CBC news that: A Calgary father fighting through the courts to keep his 27-year-old daughter from accessing medical assistance in dying (MAID) has abandoned his appeal, 14 days after she stopped eating and drinking. The woman, who can only be identified as M.V. because of a publication ban, was...

A disabled Canadian man is now celebrating his “deathaversary” after escaping being euthanized by his government over his crushing debts. Amir Farsoud was due to be euthanized by the Canadian government’s “assisted suicide” program because he was struggling to pay off his financial debts. Farsoud said he was booked into to be killed under Canada’s “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAID) law after being faced with the grim choice of death or homelessness. However, just before he was scheduled to be euthanized, people raised enough money to improve his financial situation and he narrowly avoided death. A year and a half...

I have always understood and sympathized with the argument for assisted suicide for people facing terminal disease near the end of life. I think hospice care is the appropriate path, but most people can at least understand the impulse to ease the path for a suffering loved one. But I have also feared that the slippery slope would lead us to this point: assisted suicide for anyone at any time for any reason. And, eventually, outright medical murder, as happens in some Nordic countries where doctors sometimes decide for patients without consent. Canada is at the second stage after legalizing...

'Dignity and right to self-determination' outweigh parent's concerns, judge saysA Calgary judge has issued a ruling that clears the way for a 27-year-old woman to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) despite her father's attempts through the courts to prevent that from happening. A publication ban protects the identities of the parties and the medical professionals. CBC News will identify the daughter as M.V. and the father as W.V. While Justice Colin Feasby acknowledged the "profound grief" that W.V. would suffer with the death of his child, he ruled the loss of M.V.'s autonomy was more important. "M.V.'s dignity and...

On Jan. 27, Dutch blogger Lauren Hoeve passed away through assisted suicide. After enduring years of chronic fatigue syndrome (also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, ME/CFS), autism, ADHD, and anxiety, she, at the young age of 28, chose euthanasia to escape a life dominated by pain. As a Canadian, I am familiar with the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program, which has allowed eligible adults to request assisted death services since the federal legislation passed in June 2016. As of this year, the MAID program was also set to allow those with mental illness to choose euthanasia.

Canada’s psychiatric community has been divided on the country’s emergence as a global leader in assisted death under the MAID program. The number of Canadians ending their lives through medically assisted death has grown at a speed that outpaces every other nation in the world. As Canada is poised to expand eligibility criteria under medical assistance in dying (MAID) legislation, data from all 11 countries where the controversial end-of-life treatment exists shows Canada is the fastest-growing adopter in history, an analysis by the Investigative Journalism Bureau and the Toronto Star has found.

Health Canada’s latest findings that assisted suicide made up 4% of all deaths in Canada has raised alarm among various groups and experts who are calling for more comprehensive palliative care options and a reconsideration of expanding eligibility for euthanasia. Health Canada released its fourth annual report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada Wednesday, revealing that assisted suicide accounted for 4.1% of all deaths in the country during the past year, marking a substantial increase from previous years. In 2022, there were 13,241 Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) deaths reported, reflecting a staggering 31.2% growth rate compared to the...