During the chaotic, frantic pace and hysteria of this historic federal election, we must not forget the horror of the thousands of Canadians killed because of the disastrous changes the Liberals made to the Criminal Code which have allowed for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). For the first time in our history, these changes to the Criminal Code permit a physician, instead of treating the patient, to deliberately kill the patient by a lethal injection.
The MAiD regime has become an undeniable disaster. It has tumbled down a slippery slope to become the most permissible euthanasia regime in the world, devoid of guardrails. The procedure is now being applied for non-medical reasons. Instead of providing necessary social services to relieve poverty, homelessness, loneliness and disability, MAiD is being provided.
According to Health Canada there were 15,300 deaths by MAiD in 2023, with a total of 60,301 deaths by MAiD since the legislation was passed in 2016. To put these numbers in context: during the six years of World War II, Canada lost approximately 45,000 lives in combat. This application of MAiD to extinguish the lives of vulnerable individuals such as the aged and disabled has led even the woke United Nations to raise concerns about MAiD. On March 27, 2025, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities published a 19-page report on the MAiD situation in Canada. The Committee recommended that the Canadian government implement comprehensive measures to provide health and well-being services for the vulnerable instead of terminating their lives by the MAiD regime. It also recommended that the federal government provide an independent national oversight of MAiD procedures, as there is presently no such oversight, and the provinces review the deaths only after the MAiD deaths have happened.
The MAiD regime does not require any collection of data as physicians merely self-report. Family members are not able to obtain the records of the deceased because of privacy reasons. The amendments to the Criminal Code allowing for MAiD are written in vague terminology which has enabled the courts to expand its application. Most significantly, the MAiD regime is unique in the world in that it does not require that health professionals ensure that there are no other options available for the patient. Nor does it include a provision that a patient must not be approached to consider euthanasia when seeking medical treatment. Instead, physicians or nurse practitioners may introduce the possibility of MAiD to the patient even though it is not being sought by the patient, even if there are other medical treatments available. Consequently, under the guise of compassion, MAiD has been normalized and elevated as another “medical treatment” option for a patient.
MAiD Based on False Premises
Advocates for MAiD, such as Canada’s leading pro-euthanasia organization, the wealthy Dying with Dignity Canada, has based its position on the premise that MAiD relieves suffering and leads to a peaceful dignified death. This argument is without foundation. It is in fact propaganda that is applied to encourage the use of, as well as garner political support for, MAiD. This perception that a death by MAiD is a serene, peaceful death is created by the use of a paralysing drug that leaves the dying patient unable to move and with an expressionless face caused by the paralysing drug. In short, the drug prevents the patient from indicating pain, physical or mental discomfort such as fright, even though the patient may be undergoing these experiences.
This significant information came to light on February 2, 2021, in the testimony given by Dr. Joel Zivot, Associate Professor at Emory University School of Medicine (Atlanta, Georgia), and Professor at the Emory School of Law, and who is also associated with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Dr. Zivot is an anaesthetist and pharmacologist. He was in a unique position in that he obtained access to 300 autopsies of individual prisoners executed in the United States, the largest collection ever brought together. The execution protocol for prisoners in the U.S. is similar to the protocol for MAiD. According to Dr. Zivot, these autopsies showed findings that the lungs were filled with fluid. He stated as follows:
… Two hundred of those autopsies showed findings in the lungs, and again, in 85% of the cases, the lungs were filled with fluid.
According to Dr. Zivot, the person killed by lethal injection, had basically drowned to death. He stated, “the lungs fill with fluid, and I would describe that experience of dying under that circumstance is more akin to death by waterboarding, which is recognized as cruel.” Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines waterboarding as follows:
An interrogation technique usually regarded as a form of torture in which water is forced into a detainee’s mouth and nose so as to induce the sensation of drowning.
Dr. Zivot went on to state,
When I looked at the method of dying by Medical Assistance in Dying, the technique is strikingly similar as the pharmacology is similar in design to the death by lethal injection in the United States. Autopsies performed on inmates executed show the presence of significant quantities of fluid.
Dr. Zivot further stated:
Let me add that what is most distressing about this is the fact that MAiD includes in its protocol the use of a paralysing drug. Now, once a paralysing drug is given, a person can no longer move. To claim that this is a death that is peaceful, well, it can be nothing else because now a person is unable to move in any way. Paralytics are not even used in the United States as part of euthanizing animals, so the fact that we are using them in medical assistance in dying is most distressing.
Dr. Zivot went on to say:
The paralytic serves no purpose other than to make it appear outwardly to witnesses that it’s peaceful.
Complications of MAiD
Advocates for MAiD also claim that the procedure provides a beautiful, serene death without complications. This is not factually correct. Although some patients may die relatively quickly, some may linger on for hours. One cannot bear thinking, therefore, about the possibility that a MAiD patient may linger on for hours during which he is experiencing the horrific sensation of waterboarding. According to Dr. Zivot,
It should be clear to the Canadian public that the kind of death that they will experience as a consequence of MAiD will be something other than the way it is represented. It could be exceedingly painful and more akin to drowning.
The public has been led to believe that death by MAiD is simple, painless and efficient. Except it isn’t. Dr. Brick Lantz an Oregan orthopaedic surgeon and State Director of the American Academy of Medical Ethics, warned about the brutal and not infrequent failure of the drugs used in assisted suicide. Such a pattern emerged in Washington State where a third of assisted suicides endured lingering deaths, while dozens of others suffered often unspecified complications. Many ended up dying of asphyxia. Assisted suicide by physicians has also involved seizures, vomiting and regaining of consciousness. Dr. Claude Regnard has written a new book, The Reality of Assisted Dying: Understanding the Issues, (McGraw Hill, August 28, 2024), stating that the available data reveals about one in five assisted suicide deaths involves complications.
Why Did Dr. Zivot’s Testimony Fail to Become Public Knowledge?
There are several reasons why Dr. Zivot’s testimony did not become public knowledge. When Dr. Zivot provided his testimony in 2021 at the Senate Committee, most of the senators had been appointed by Trudeau and were left-leaning supporters of the Liberal Party. Those senators as well as the mainstream media, which also published mountains of positive information on MAiD, were delighted at the woke concept of a physician administering a lethal injection to a patient under the guise of “compassion” which justified the breaking of thousands of years of medical ethics based on the concept of “Do no harm.”
The supporters of MAiD believed that objections to MAiD come only from those on the religious right. This was not correct. Objections to MAiD were broader than that, owing to the fact that MAiD is a state-sanctioned and promoted, killing of an individual. There is a great danger that state-sanctioned euthanasia, as occurred in Nazi Germany, which brings into its sphere other medical personnel such as pharmacists and nurses, leads to the normalizing of state killing for the purpose of cost-saving benefits. This appears already to be the incentive behind many MAiD deaths.
Further, physicians who participate in MAiD (which remains always a secretive practice) often have concerns that their participation in this procedure will be disclosed to their other patients. Moreover, to protect themselves from disclosure, physicians invariably tell the patient (and their family) that since the cause of death is known, there is no need for an autopsy. No autopsy has ever been done on the over 60,301 MAiD deaths that have occurred in Canada since 2016. An autopsy discloses the actual cause of death, and also discloses how that patient died, i.e. fluid in the lungs. Therefore, no autopsies have been performed in Canada on MAiD patients. As a result, although we know the cause of death – MAiD – we do not know how the patients died. Very critical information.
An Alternative to MAiD
The best way to deal with the problem of suffering at the end of life is by providing high-quality palliative care. Death by a lethal drug cocktail may be a cheaper option, but if patients are aware of the possibility that a MAiD death may be a painful lingering death rather than a serene and peaceful one, they may not choose to undergo this less expensive option.
It appears that after eight years of experience with MAiD and the frightening information that MAiD deaths can be lingering and painful, it is apparent that the practice of MAiD should be halted in Canada so that a careful, competent investigation of the effects of MAiD on the patient is examined by unbiased researchers. We must carry out this critical research to save individuals from a journey to death by MAiD which may lead to dying in horrible and painful circumstances. It is time to restore the principle of “First, do no harm” to the delivery of health care and stop the fraud of MAiD!