Canada to keep mental illness excluded from MAID eligibility

Canada will not expand medical assistance in dying to people whose sole underlying condition is mental illness, Justice Minister Sean Fraser says.

Current federal law excludes people from accessing MAID when mental illness is their only medical condition. That exclusion had been scheduled to expire in March 2027.

However, Fraser said the federal government plans to introduce legislation this fall that would maintain the exclusion “on an indeterminate basis,” according to Global News.

“Canada has made a decision not to move forward with the expansion that is scheduled in the criminal code of medical assistance and dying in circumstances where mental illness is the sole basis,” Fraser said.

The announcement means the planned expansion of MAID eligibility for people suffering solely from mental illness will not take effect as scheduled next year.

Fraser also announced plans to expand access in another area by allowing advance requests for some people who are expected to lose their ability to consent.

He said the government will “grant access to medical assistance in dying to people who have provided consent at a time when they still have capacity but know that they have been diagnosed with an illness that will take that capacity from them subsequently.”

The government is expected to introduce legislation covering the changes later this fall.