Justice minister to announce next steps for MAID in Canada

Justice Minister Sean Fraser says the government is nearly ready to reveal its long-awaited decision on the next steps for medical assistance in dying in Canada, which is expected to address whether the procedure will be available to people who solely suffer from mental illness.

A press release from the Justice Department said the announcement will be made with Health Minister Marjorie Michel in Ottawa on Wednesday at noon. 

It will be the first time the federal government communicates the direction it plans to take on MAID in the wake of a parliamentary committee recommending in June that it should “indefinitely pause” an expansion of the end of life procedure to people with mental disorders. 

Fraser said he will be putting the “final touches on the path forward” over the next 24 hours, and that his office solicited a variety of views in the wake of the report’s release. 

Critics accused the committee — which was set up to study whether the country was ready for the March expansion to happen — of being biased. 

They said most of the witnesses who were invited to speak were opposed to the expansion, while people who live with mental illness and who want access to MAID were not invited to testify.

A number of psychiatrists said they worried people who don’t have access to proper mental-health treatment would seek MAID. 

Some expert witnesses raised concerns about whether health-care providers could determine with any degree of certainty that a person’s mental disorder is irremediable.

Fraser said he’s heard from people on both sides.

“They were able, separate and apart from the parliamentary committee process, to share very directly their own plans, their own perspectives, and their desired path forward for the government,” Fraser told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday. 

“I feel confident that we’ve heard a range of different views in the development of the policy process and we’ll be able to share next steps tomorrow.”

A temporary exclusion has been in place for people who suffer solely from a mental illness since 2021. 

That exclusion has been repeatedly extended, most recently until March.

The House of Commons is also set to vote on Wednesday on a Conservative private member’s bill that would exclude people whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness from MAID. 

“We need to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask why we’re pursuing such a lethal policy,” said Conservative MP Tamara Jansen at a press conference on Sept. 23, the day the bill was debated. 

Fraser would not say how the government intends to vote on Jansen’s bill, which is at second reading. 

When MAID legislation was first passed in 2016, it required someone’s death to be reasonably foreseeable in order to qualify. 

The federal government revised legislation in 2021 to include people who suffer intolerably with a serious and incurable illness or disability but whose death was not reasonably foreseeable.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 6, 2026.

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