Betrayed. Dehumanized. Devastated.
These are the words some Canadians use to describe how they feel about a special government committee recommending not to expand medical assistance in dying to people seeking the procedure for a mental illness.
On June 17, the recommendation was released, stating that there was a lack of consensus on whether it was possible to determine if a patient has any prospect of getting better, and how to distinguish a MAID request from suicidality.
Reading the decision from bed, Kyle Thomson felt like a ghost. The 52-year-old had been waiting to apply for years, ever since the government first asked a group of experts to study the matter in 2021.
“People don't understand what it's like to have all of your hope, like, you're holding all of hope around you like the tightest hug possible, trying to walk head first into a hurricane wind, trying to cross the finish line, and you're almost there, and they move the finish line on you and you're left alone, cold and scared,” Thomson says.
He squeezes his eyes shut behind black rimmed glasses.
The report was prepared for the federal government in advance of a long-awaited decision on whether to allow MAID for people who are suffering because of a mental illness, or if they should be permanently excluded. Justice Minister Sean Fraser said he will review the report before deciding on the government's next steps.
Most witnesses who spoke at the committee hearings were opposed to the expansion. A number of psychiatrists said they worried people who don't have access to proper mental-health treatment would seek MAID. Some also raised concerns about how providers could determine with any degree of certainty that a person's mental disorder is irremediable.
Psychiatrist Dr. Mona Gupta is among the experts who hold the opposite view. She asks why the committee did not hear from people who live with mental illness and who want access to MAID.
"The idea that the only person in five years that they would hear from with lived experience would be someone who didn't want MAID and who was opposed to MAID, I think is telling," she said.
Dr. Margaret McKinnon, a clinical psychologist, was invited to share her story of living with major depressive disorder for 40 years. She said she would have applied for MAID had it been available a year ago. "Instead, I am now in a period of primarily sustained recovery, despite my previous persistent wish to die," she testified in April 2026.
The report has a section on lived experience, though the rest of the people included did not testify, and instead wrote briefs.
Thomson, who has persistent depressive disorder, says he asked to testify, but in emails with a committee clerk reviewed by The Canadian Press, he was told that the panels were "quite full."
Now, he says he feels “backed into a corner,” unsure of what to do next.
Some who are in a similar position have turned to the law to make the case for their eligibility, while others are looking to travel abroad and apply for the procedure. The Canadian Press spoke to four people about the impact this decision has had on their lives.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
