OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) — Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) said that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is “playing with lives” after opening the door for advance death requests while at the same time voting against a bill banning euthanasia for those with mental illness as the sole cause yet also promising to pause the deadly practice for the mentally ill. 

“The Liberal government is playing with lives,” CLC national president Jeff Gunnarson said in a press release sent to LifeSiteNews.

“It voted down a bill that would protect the mentally ill while claiming it will introduce its own protections. And on the same day, it says that it plans to make euthanasia more available for those suffering with dementia. The Liberal government is still bent on expanding death — it just changed its target.”

As reported by LifeSiteNews, on October 7, the federal government paused a planned expansion of allowing euthanasia to those with mental illness as the sole cause but then said it would allow Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) by advance request. On the same day, it voted against Conservative Bill C-218, which would have banned the practice outright.

Despite not allowing MAiD for those with mental illness, Liberal Justice Minister Sean Fraser told reporters that new legislation would in a way allow for more euthanasia.

CLC campaigns manager David Cooke told LifeSiteNews that what the Fraser did was give “lip service to the need to protect the mentally ill.” He added the Liberals have really just shown its “true obsession with death” that “shows through as he reveals their plan to expand their euthanasia program in a new and dangerous direction.”

“The Liberals have had four months to craft legislation since a parliamentary committee recommended in the strongest of terms that mentally ill Canadians be safeguarded from euthanasia,” he told LifeSiteNews.

“They have heard from the best medical experts in the field, from disability rights groups, and from individuals suffering from mental illness, and the message was clear: No MAiD for mental illness. Instead, the Liberals make us yet another promise that somehow, sometime, a law will come forth.”

Cooke said that by allowing MAiD through advance directives, the government plans allowing future killing by “removing the need for ‘final consent.’”

“This will allow doctors to kill a patient at their discretion, so long as that patient had signed off on it at some time in the past. A change of heart or a change of values in the patient need not be considered,” he added.

Euthanasia in Canada has become so prevalent that recent statistics show the nation recorded more deaths by euthanasia than murders by guns in the United States in 2024.

Currently, the expansion of euthanasia for the mentally ill is slated to become law in 2027 as a consequence of the passage of Bill C-7. The bill has an exclusion in it for those who are mentally ill. Fraser’s new bill would expand the exclusion indefinitely, but the exact wording of the bill is unclear.

Many provincial governments such as Alberta had protested the planned MAiD expansion. Alberta placed strong limits on assisted suicide, as LifeSiteNews reported.

The Liberal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and now Carney has worked to expand euthanasia 13-fold since it was legalized in 2016. Canada now has the fastest-growing assisted suicide program in the world. Meanwhile, Health Canada released a series of studies on advanced requests for assisted suicide.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Canada’s Catholic bishops had said they supported Bill C-218.

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