Ottawa to indefinitely bar assisted death when mental illness is the only condition

Keep MAID shut where mental illness is the only condition. Calling that suffering irremediable when the care was never offered is bullshit. Fraser says there is no consensus on irremediability and that mental-health care is uneven. Uneven care means the people this system already writes off are the ones who get called incurable. That is a starved public system.

Dying With Dignity calling this a Charter breach over a diagnosis skips the material fact underneath. Inclusion Canada is closer. People need treatment and support, and Krista Carr is right that consent at the time is the basic protection. Advance requests in this same package cut against that. Quebec already allows them. Fraser will not split the two, and no bill has been tabled.

I need the text, whether indefinite includes a review, and whether any of this funds the care he cites. Anything less leaves the neglect sitting there.

I support keeping the exclusion for now. I do not support letting “indefinite” become an excuse to leave both care and eligibility unresolved forever.

Fraser cites uneven access to mental-health services and disagreement over when illness is irremediable. Those are serious reasons to pause. A treatment someone cannot access is not an exhausted treatment. Equal dignity requires an actual chance to receive care, not merely a place on a waiting list. The waiting room will tell you.

But people with mental illness deserve more than a closed door and another promise of coordination. I want funded treatment, accountable provincial delivery and explicit criteria for reviewing the exclusion. No bill has been tabled; we cannot yet know whether it contains that accountability.

Advance requests need their own scrutiny of consent and safeguards. Quebec’s experience matters, but bundling these decisions does not answer the difficult questions in either.

Ottawa is right to keep MAID closed where mental illness is the only condition. You need a firmer basis for an irreversible decision than a deadline on the calendar.

Personal independence matters to me. So does our duty to make actual care available. Fraser cites uneven access to treatment and no consensus on when mental illness is irremediable. That is enough reason to hold the line. It also leaves governments with a job to do. Announcing an exclusion doesn’t build a functioning mental-health service. You still have to build it.

I’d reconsider if evidence from comparable communities showed reliable assessments alongside accessible care. We haven’t been given that here.

And split off the advance-request proposal. Whether someone can consent later is a separate, serious question. I want the actual wording and safeguards, plus whether this “indefinite” exclusion has a review clause, before buying the whole package.

Keep mental illness out of MAID. Fraser's reasons are the right ones: no consensus that it is irremediable, and mental-health care is uneven. You don't mark someone hopeless because treatment is a patchwork, then offer death. Wilson at Inclusion Canada called it the right decision. It is.

The bundling is bullshit. The same planned bill, still not tabled, would allow advance requests so the state can carry out MAID after a person can no longer refuse. Carr is right: consent at the time is the basic protection. Fraser declined to split the two. Lawton said the Liberals are playing politics with people's lives. Quebec has permitted advance requests since October 2024. That choice belongs to the province that made it.

Who signed us up for this? Terminal illness in 2016, incurable conditions in 2021, and now an exclusion with an expansion welded on. No bill text, and nothing on what happens if Parliament misses 17 March 2027. Ottawa can explain itself.

Pausing is defensible. Pausing "indefinitely" with no stated exit is not. Fraser's reasons, no consensus on when mental illness is irremediable and uneven access to care, are real risk evidence, and you don't underwrite a risk you can't measure. But a pause with no review trigger is a hope, not a policy. Name the evidence that would reopen the question and who decides. Expansion has already been delayed twice. Dying With Dignity's equal-access argument gets stronger every time the goalposts move, and that is a legitimacy cost, not just a legal one.

Bundling the exclusion with advance requests is poor governance too. Fraser declined to split them, so one contested measure now carries another.

And if care access is the stated reason, someone finances it. Does the bill say who?

What I'd need to know: whether "indefinite" includes a review clause, how many people this touches, and the government's legal position on the court case the BBC copy mentions. The sources don't say.

I'd back the pause for now, but not an open-ended one. "Indefinite" with no review date isn't honest. It's a door painted shut.

Fraser's reasons are real: no consensus on when mental illness is irremediable, and mental-health care access is uneven. Okay, but hang on. If uneven care is the problem, where's the plan and the deadline to fix it? Otherwise the gap just becomes the permanent excuse.

Dying With Dignity says this denies people because of a diagnosis. That's a fairness point and I can't wave it off. Inclusion Canada says people need treatment and support first. Also fair. I think both can be true at once.

Bundling it with advance requests bugs me too. Fraser won't split them, so it's one take-it-or-leave-it package.

What I'd need: does "indefinite" include a review clause, and how many people does this touch? Nobody's said yet. No bill's tabled.

Verdict: an indefinite bar with no published exit test isn't policy, it's a delay with the end date removed. Fraser cites uneven access to mental-health care and no consensus on irremediability. Show the denominator. How uneven, measured how, and what reading would lift the exclusion? None of that is in what I've read.

We also don't know how many people this touches, or whether "indefinite" means permanent or carries a review clause. Outlets variously say indefinite, indeterminate and permanent, and no bill exists. Follow the revisions: expansion was due in 2023, was delayed twice, and now the delay loses its date.

Bundling the bar with advance requests, and refusing to split them, forces one vote on two separate questions.

Dying With Dignity's Charter claim needs the same scrutiny. But the burden sits with the government that wants the bar. Publish the criteria, the data and a review date.

I'd back the pause but not the word "indefinite." Fraser's two reasons, no consensus on when mental illness is irremediable and uneven access to mental-health care, are real blockers. An irreversible decision on a shaky spec is the failure you can't roll back. But a freeze with no exit criteria isn't a safeguard, it's a shrug.

What's the bottleneck? If it's care access, name a measurable threshold. If it's irremediability, say what evidence would settle it. No bill has been tabled, so we don't even know if there's a review clause.

Bundling this with advance requests also bugs me. Separate changes should be separate releases, so each can be tested and reverted.

Dying With Dignity says exclusion by diagnosis denies equal access. That's a genuine cost to the people it shuts out, not a rounding error. I'd also want to know how many people this affects, and the sources give no figure.

Kai, "That's a genuine cost to the people it shuts out, not a rounding error." Keep the exclusion. The cost of the closed door is real. The bullshit is calling that suffering irremediable while care is still uneven and there is no consensus that it is.

I accept they are owed care they can actually reach, publicly funded. What would move me is the treatment actually built, with the public holding the purse. People aren't inputs. No bill is tabled, so nobody has shown the funding. Until the care exists, the bar stays.

Victoria, I agree that repeated delays demand an answer, but “Dying With Dignity's equal-access argument gets stronger every time the goalposts move” does not settle whether safe eligibility assessments are possible. Time passing does not resolve the uncertainty Fraser cites.

You are right that people excluded by diagnosis deserve a justification and a route to reconsideration. A closed door cannot become the whole mental-health policy. But care access must be examined across groups: an improved average tells us little about patients still unable to get treatment.

I want funded care and an explicit review process. Credible evidence of accessible treatment and reliable assessments would move me. Another calendar deadline would not.

Sam, calling this "an indefinite bar with no published exit test isn't policy" goes too far. Keeping an irreversible decision closed while assessments remain disputed is a defensible policy. A calendar cannot settle whether an illness is irremediable.

You're right that Ottawa owes us criteria, evidence and a review date. But a review should require an answer, not automatically open eligibility. We don't have the bill text yet, so we can't say whether a review clause is absent.

I'd reconsider on evidence from comparable communities showing reliable assessments alongside accessible treatment. Meanwhile, provinces need accountable delivery and governments need to explain who's carrying the bill. The exclusion doesn't discharge our duty to provide care.

Victoria, "a pause with no review trigger is a hope, not a policy" aims the doubt at the wrong act. The irreversible act is calling a mental illness hopeless and offering death. Fraser's reasons still hold: no consensus it is irremediable, and care is uneven. A review trigger for reopening the gate repeats the sequence we already have: 2023, two delays, and a bar that lapses 17 March 2027. No bill is tabled. I want that text, and Ottawa can explain what indefinite means. A deadline leaves the assessment unmade. The June committee already recommended excluding this group indefinitely. Moving a date adds nothing to Dying With Dignity's equal-access claim. Legitimacy is whether anyone can say the illness is irremediable and the care was actually offered. Wilson called this the right decision. It still is.

Priya, "Uneven care means the people this system already writes off are the ones who get called incurable" is the strongest case for the pause, and I accept it. If access is patchy, the irremediability judgements rest on contaminated inputs, and you can't underwrite on bad inputs. But that argument has a clock built into it. If the bar lasts until care is fixed, someone has to finance the fix and say what counts as fixed. Price the alternative: the people shut out carry the cost of every year the fix doesn't arrive, and the government carries the legitimacy cost. You asked whether the bill funds the care Fraser cites. Agreed, that's the test. Without a funding line and a review trigger, "keep it shut" is an unfunded promise with a closed door attached.

Priya, you say "Keep MAID shut where mental illness is the only condition," and your reason mostly lands with me. If care is patchy, calling someone out of options is a guess. But the sources say uneven, not never offered. That matters, because uneven can be measured and fixed. Okay, but hang on. You asked whether "indefinite" includes a review. What if it doesn't? Would you still back it? Dying With Dignity says a diagnosis shouldn't decide who gets equal access. I can't wave that off. I'm not saying open it now. I'm saying a closed door needs a test for when it opens. Otherwise the care gap just becomes a permanent excuse.

Priya, you say "the people this system already writes off are the ones who get called incurable." That's a claim about who gets assessed, and nothing I've read counts anyone: how many assessments, how many refusals, how many people were offered care first. Show the denominator.

I'll grant that uneven access undercuts any claim of irremediability, and Fraser leans on exactly that. But it also undercuts an open-ended bar. If care access is the test, measure it and name the reading that lifts the exclusion. You want the text, a review clause and funding, and so do I. Defending the bar with neglect nobody has quantified is the same uninspectable case the government is making.

Priya, "Uneven care means the people this system already writes off are the ones who get called incurable" is the strongest argument for the freeze, and I accept it. If someone can't reach treatment, "irremediable" is measuring the access gap, not the illness. But show the failure mode. If care access is the reason, then closing the gap has to reopen the question, and you haven't said what reading would count. If nothing would, this isn't a care argument but a standing objection, and you should say so openly. Your question about whether the bill funds that care is the right one, but no bill is tabled, so we can't check. Can we test that? Name the threshold and the freeze has an exit.