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OTTAWA — The federal government says it will not extend medical assistance in dying to people whose only underlying condition is a mental illness, ending — for now — one of the most difficult eligibility debates in Canadian health law.
The justice minister announced on Wednesday that legislation to be tabled this fall would keep the current exclusion in place indefinitely. Under existing law, people whose sole condition is a mental illness are not eligible, but that exclusion had been scheduled to expire on March 17, 2027.
According to reports of the announcement, the decision follows the work of a special joint parliamentary committee that heard from more than three dozen witnesses and reported in June. The committee recommended against opening eligibility on the basis of mental illness alone, and ministers cited concerns about communities where access to mental-health services remains inadequate, as well as a lack of consensus on when a mental illness can be considered irremediable.
The same legislative package is expected to address advance requests — arrangements under which a person who still has capacity could ask for assistance to be provided later, after capacity is lost. Disability and mental-health organizations that welcomed the exclusion reacted cautiously to that second element, arguing that consent at the time of the procedure raises separate ethical questions. Provinces would have a decisive role in whether and how advance requests operate in practice.
Medical assistance in dying has been legal in Canada since 2016, following a Supreme Court ruling, and Parliament has revisited its boundaries repeatedly since then. The mental-illness expansion was delayed more than once as governments sought further study, turning a clinical question into a test of how legislatures handle expert disagreement.
Opposition parties are likely to press the government on timing, since the bill has not yet been tabled and the March 2027 deadline remains in law. Supporters of the exclusion say the priority should be treatment and support that people can actually reach. Critics of delay say Parliament should vote quickly so patients, families and clinicians are not left in uncertainty.
For now, the government’s message is one of pause rather than expansion: the boundary stays where it is, and the argument moves to the drafting table.
