100,000 Dead. Canada Ignored the World, and It Shows

Canada is about to kill its 100,000th citizen through Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) this spring.

Not in a war. Not on a battlefield. Not in a medical accident. Killed by policy, by a government that wants you dead.

Let’s say this by name, call it the truth. A systemic failure dressed up as compassion.

MAiD was sold as a narrow option for the terminally ill, a rare mercy. That fiction collapsed long ago. Today, assisted death is a routine outcome for people struggling with disability, isolation, poverty, and mental health challenges and when the world looked at what we’re doing, it didn’t nod approvingly. It recoiled.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities didn’t mince words: Canada must repeal “Track 2” MAiD, the legal pathway that allows people whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable to receive assisted dying. It called Track 2 “extremely concerning.” It said the law rests on “negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities,” suggesting it assumes suffering is inherent to disability rather than a product of social inequality and discrimination.

This is not fluff from ivory-tower bureaucrats. This is the authoritative UN body charged with monitoring Canada’s compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a treaty Canada ratified in 2010.

The committee didn’t just express concern. It recommended sweeping corrective action:

“To ensure the right to life for persons with disabilities,” the UN wrote, Canada must repeal Track 2 MAiD … including the 2027 expansion to persons whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness.”

It also urged Canada not to support proposals for MAiD access for mature minors and not to allow advance requests, and called on the government to address systemic failures from poverty and housing insecurity to lack of accessible healthcare and community supports.

Yet here’s the sting, Canada’s government did not appeal the legal ruling that opened the door to Track 2 MAiD. That ruling didn’t just broaden eligibility it fundamentally changed the premise of assisted dying, assuming disability itself justifies eligibility rather than focusing on end-of-life conditions.

The UN committee described this shift not as careful reform, but as a false dichotomy: framing MAiD as “choice” while failing to guarantee supports that would make life genuinely liveable.

Another telling moment came when Rosemary Kayess, Vice-Chair of the disability rights committee, asked Canadian representatives in Geneva: “How is Track 2 MAiD not state-sponsored euthanasia?” and questioned how Canada could not see Track 2 as a regression a potential step back into eugenics.

That question hits at the core of this crisis, when a government offers death more readily than dignity. When it normalizes assisted death while under-resourcing the basic conditions that make life worth living. When suffering born of neglect becomes a ticket to the morgue.

That’s not autonomy. That’s abandonment with consent forms.

The UN didn’t offer mild suggestions. It called for repeal. For suppression of expansion. For a pivot toward real supports housing, accessible healthcare, community mental health resources, economic inclusion, and genuine equality before the law.

Instead of acting, Canada has allowed MAiD expansion to continue with mental illness alone slated to become eligible in 2027. That expansion was specifically flagged by the UN as part of what must be undone.

Let that sink in for a second, because it’s as crazy as it sounds. A global human-rights body says Canada is violating the right to life of people with disabilities by allowing them access to assisted death when they are not terminally ill and the government still pushes forward.

That’s not leadership. That’s denial. Thats murder.

The worst part is were not just failing the vulnerable, we’re selling their death as some form of progress. Canada’s MAiD system is rapidly approaching a body count that would make it one of the nation’s leading causes of death and yet we still frame it as humane.

The UN committee flagged exactly why this matters: without addressing systemic barriers — poverty, inaccessible healthcare, lack of community supports — offering assisted death is not a safeguard. It’s a band-aid on a bullet wound.

When the world watches and says “stop,” we should listen.
When a treaty we ratified tells us our policy undermines basic human rights, we should act.

But Canada did not.

There is a difference between letting people choose death and engineering a social environment where death becomes the most accessible option and that difference matters.

History will not judge Canada by how cleanly it ended lives, but by whether it had courage enough to reverse course when the world told it to.

One hundred thousand deaths is not a milestone. It’s a warning light flashing red.

And we are driving straight toward it.

KELSI SHEREN

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Sources:

United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Concluding Observations on the Combined Second and Third Periodic Reports of Canada.
Adopted March 21, 2025, Geneva.
The Committee expressed that Canada’s Track 2 MAiD regime is “extremely concerning” and recommended repeal, citing discrimination and violations of the right to life for persons with disabilities.

United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Recommendation urging Canada to:
“Repeal Track 2 MAiD, including the expansion to persons whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness.”
CRPD Concluding Observations, 2025.

Rosemary Kayess, Vice-Chair, UN CRPD Committee.
Question posed to Canadian delegation during Canada’s review in Geneva, March 2025:
“How is Track 2 MAiD not state-sponsored euthanasia?”
Reported by Canadian Affairs, March 30, 2025.

Canadian Affairs.
“‘Extremely concerned’: UN tells Canada to stop Track 2 MAiD.”
March 30, 2025.
Coverage of UN CRPD hearings and direct questioning of Canada’s MAiD framework, including concerns about regression toward eugenic logic.

Inclusion Canada.
“Do Better: Inclusion Canada Welcomes UN Committee’s Concluding Observations on Canada’s Disability Rights Record.”
January 2026.
Summary and analysis of UN findings, including concerns that MAiD reflects “ableist assumptions about the quality and value of disabled lives.”

Vivre Ignite (Coalition of Disability Rights Organizations).
Press Release: UN Calls on Canada to Roll Back MAiD Expansion.
March 27, 2025.
Details the UN’s recommendation to repeal Track 2 MAiD and halt future expansions, including for mental illness as a sole underlying condition.

Health Canada.
Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada (2023).
Reports 15,342 MAiD deaths in 2023, making MAiD one of the leading causes of death if classified as such.

Health Canada.
Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada (2024).
Reports 16,499 MAiD deaths in 2024, with 76,475 total deaths since legalization in 2016.

United Nations.
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
Ratified by Canada in 2010.
Guarantees the right to life, equal protection under the law, and freedom from discrimination for persons with disabilities.

Amy Hasbrouck.
Substack Essay, January 20, 2026.
Analysis of Canada approaching the 100,000 MAiD death milestone and critique of Health Canada’s retrospective reporting model.
Hasbrouck is a founder of Toujours Vivant – Not Dead Yet and former President of the