Canada should 'indefinitely exclude' people with mental illness from assisted dying, report says

Canada should 'indefinitely exclude' people with mental illness from assisted dying, report says9 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleNadine YousifSenior Canada reporterGetty ImagesCanada's assisted dying laws should "indefinitely exclude" people whose sole condition is a mental illness, a new parliamentary committee report recommends.The debate around expanding medical assistance in dying, known as MAID, to people with mental illness is one of the most contentious in Canada since the country allowed the end-of-life policy a decade ago. Wednesday's report by the joint House and Senate committee on Medical Assistance in Dying could guide how - and if - Canada chooses to move forwards on the already twice-delayed expansion of the programme. Last month, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he would wait for the report before deciding on next steps. The joint parliamentary committee's 98-page report contains a single recommendation: that Canada "indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from eligibility for medical assistance in dying".It noted that there are a "divergence of perspectives" on the issue, and that a reoccuring point raised in testimony before the committee was the "pressing need for increased and more equitable access to adequate mental health services".Some committee members, however, disagreed with the findings and published a dissenting report, arguing the process was "fundamentally flawed", "biased" and favoured testimony from those opposed to the expansion. "When you have bad inputs, you have bad outputs," Kristopher Wells, a dissenting senator from Alberta, told the BBC. "That is why we're calling into question the reliability and the credibility of the report and the recommendation."Canada's government must respond to the report by 11 July. In 2023, Canada first delayed eligibility fo...