During a Monday morning news conference in West Block, members of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition offered their support for Bill C-218, a private member’s bill intended to prevent next year’s inclusion of mental illness as the sole medical condition for seeking physician-assisted suicide.

Dr Peter Blusanovics

Dr Peter Blusanovics, a physician from Montreal Quebec with 30 years experience caring for patients in psychiatric wards. Passifiume reported him saying:

“I want to provide a voice to our most vulnerable, those who have or are suffering from mental illness,”

“Basic needs are currently not being met in our healthcare system. Without (Bill C-218,) we are condoning a bypass towards suicide, and blatantly admitting defeat.”

Mental illness, he said, needs to be identified and treated. He said those seeking to commit medical suicide aren’t seeking death, but healing.

“There is a current lack of medical support, such as physicians, psychologists, social workers — there is a lack of psychiatric support and long waiting lists to be assessed,” said Blusanovics, a physician at a Montreal psychiatric hospital.

Passifiume stated that Canada plans to extend euthanasia to people with psychiatric conditions alone starting on March 17, 2027. Passifiume reports that:

Patients seeking MAID are assigned to one of two tracks: Track one for those with terminal illnesses or whom natural death is near; and track two for those whose death is not a reasonable outcome in the foreseeable future.

Although Statistics Canada doesn’t include MAID in its annual top-10 list of most common causes of death, government figures said 16,499 Canadians died via MAID in 2024 — making medical suicide that year’s fourth most common cause of death between accidents (20,260) and strokes (13,725.)

Passifiume explained that MP Tamara Jansen introduced Bill C-218 last year to stop the implementation of euthanasia for mental illness alone in March 2027.

Dr Paul Saba

Passifiume then commented on the statements by Dr Paul Saba, a family physician from Lachine Quebec who said:

there’s no way for most psychiatrists to determine which patients’ conditions are untreatable.

“From a legal standpoint, those with mental disorders requesting euthanasia, which has been euphemistically called ‘medical assistance in dying,’ do not meet the condition of free and informed consent, because the desire to die in most cases is a symptom of mental illness,”

Passifiume ends his article by commenting on the Alberta governments proposed changes through Bill 18 to there provincial euthanasia protocols. Passifiume reports:

Last month, Alberta’s provincial legislature tabled a bill that would prevent their physicians from prescribing MAID for track two patients — citing patient safety and growing skepticism for the federal government’s efforts to expand MAID eligibility.

“The consequences of the decision are permanent and irrevocable, and because of this, we have an obligation to consider MAID with the utmost care and caution,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said at a news conference in Edmonton last month.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition urges Canadians to sign our petition in support of Bill C-218. (Petition Link).