UN committee urges Canada to abolish MAiD for people with disabilities
Plus, Canada continues exporting weapons to Israel through the U.S.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has recommended that Canada repeal the expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) for people whose deaths aren’t imminent, also known as “Track 2.”
In its March 21 report on Canada’s compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the committee said it’s “extremely concerned” with the Canadian government’s 2021 decision to remove “reasonable foreseeability of natural death” from its eligibility criteria for MAiD.
The expansion came as a result of the Quebec Superior Court’s 2019 Truchon decision, which determined that the reasonable foreseeability clause was excessively narrow, violating the section 15 Charter right to equality for people who aren’t near death.
The UN committee criticizes the Truchon ruling for adopting “negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of life of persons with disabilities, including that ‘suffering’ is intrinsic to disability rather than the fact that inequality and discrimination cause and compound ‘suffering’ for persons with disabilities.”
The Canadian government chose not to challenge the decision in the Quebec Court of Appeal.
Track 2 MAiD was introduced in 2021.
A year later, Tim Stainton, director of the Canadian Institute for Inclusion and Citizenship at the University of British Columbia called the expansion “probably the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis’ program in Germany in the 1930s.”
In January 2023, I wrote about how the risks of expanding MAiD to those who aren’t on death’s door without offering robust social supports led me to re-evaluate my previous support for the policy:
I’ve come to realize euthanasia in Canada has become the ultimate neoliberal policy — we’ll starve you of the funding you need to live a dignified life, demand you pay back pandemic aid you applied for in good faith, and if you don’t like it, well, why don’t you just kill yourself?
The problem with my previous perspective was it held individual choices as sacrosanct. But people don’t make individual decisions in a vacuum. They’re the product of social circumstances, ones often out of their control…
Combined with COVID policies that have consigned disabled and immunocompromised people to a life of perpetual self-isolation, a lack of funding for people on disability assistance makes MAiD an increasingly palatable solution to ending their suffering.
In this context, the cavalier way in which MAiD has been implemented in Canada serves as a form of eugenics, where only the able-bodied survive.
There are clear alternatives to opening up the MAiD floodgates for people with disabilities, the UN committee notes, citing
the myriad of support options for persons with disabilities to live dignified lives, and the systemic failures of [the Canadian government] to address the social determinants of health and well-being, such as poverty alleviation, access to healthcare, accessible housing, prevention of homelessness, prevention of gender-based violence, [and] the provision of mental health supports and employment supports.
A coalition of disability rights groups are leading a Charter challenge to Track 2 MAiD in Ontario Superior Court.
Plans to expand eligibility to people whose sole reason for seeking MAiD is mental illness were initially scheduled for implementation in 2023, but have since been delayed until 2027.
In addition to recommending the abolition of Track 2, the UN committee is calling on the federal government to abandon all future expansion plans and establish a third-party federal “oversight mechanism to monitor, regulate and handle complaints in relation to MAiD.”
Noting the lack of consultation with Indigenous Peoples on the MAiD expansion, the committee recommends the government engage in a “distinctions-based, community-led consultation process” for Indigenous people with disabilities, including those without status and those who live off-reserve.
A March 27 news release from the Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA) notes that the committee’s recommendations “reinforce the need for Canada to align its laws with international human rights standards.”
Elizabeth Sheehy, a professor emerita in law at the University of Ottawa, brought the committee’s recommendation to my attention.
A couple weeks ago, Sheehy presented to the UN alongside Janine Benedet of the University of British Columbia’s Peter Allard School of Law about the impact of Track 2 on women with disabilities on behalf of FAFIA .
The presentation was based on a submission Sheehy and Benedet co-authored with Allard School legal scholar Isabel Grant in January, which described MAiD expansion as part of “an ableist regime built on the premise that some disabled people are better off dead.”
The submission notes that since Track 1 MAiD was introduced in 2016, the number of people dying from MAiD has increased each year, reaching a total of 60,301 people. Since Track 2 was introduced, the number of people with disabilities opting for MAiD has grown consistently.
In 2021, there were 219 people with disabilities who died from MAiD. In 2022, that number more than doubled to 463, and in 2023 it was 622. In 2022 and 2023, women made up 59% of all Track 2 deaths.
The academics argue that Track 2 MAiD violates the following sections of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities:
Article 5 - Equality and non-discrimination
Article 6 - Women with disabilities
Article 8 - Awareness-raising
Article 10 - Right to life
“These violations occur not only through disproportionate impacts supported by data, but are also inherent in the targeting of people with disabilities for Track 2 MAiD,” the professors wrote.
“They are borne out through the incalculable burdens placed upon people with disabilities, and most particularly, women with disabilities, in Canada.”
In an email, Sheehy praised the committee’s “strong and unequivocal recommendation” against Track 2 MAiD, which she noted are “entirely consistent” with the arguments brought forward by the disability rights groups challenging the expansion in court.
“Canadian politicians can no longer hide behind ‘the courts made us do this’ and must address the discriminatory nature of Track 2 MAiD,” she wrote.
Canada continues selling arms to Israel through U.S., despite commitment to halt exports
The Canadian government is using the U.S. as an intermediary to continue military exports to Israel, despite its commitment to the contrary, according to a new report from Project Ploughshares.
In March 2024, the Liberal government voted in support of an NDP-initiated motion in parliament that promised to “cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel.”
Global Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly clarified this would strictly apply to future military exports, which she claimed were halted earlier that year.
Six months later, according to publicly available U.S. Department of Defense procurement records Project Ploughshares discovered, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Canada (GD-OTS-C) signed a $55.1 million USD contract with the U.S. government to provide artillery propellants for Israel.
GD-OTS-C has been contracted to provide M31A2 Triple Base propellant to the U.S. military for its 155 mm artillery shells since 2019.
In 2022, that agreement was amended to allow the U.S. to send the propellent to Ukraine, and after October 2023 it was amended again to send it to Israel.
According to reporting in the Jerusalem Post, in just the first six weeks of Israel’s Operation Swords of Iron, its military fired 10,000 U.S.-supplied 155 mm shells in Gaza.
Israel is on trial at the International Court of Justice for allegedly committing genocide in Gaza. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a UN special committee have echoed these concerns.
Canada is a signatory to the international Arms Trade Treaty, which prohibits exporting weapons that “could be used to … commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law or international human rights law [emphasis added].”