Alex Schadenberg criticized the federal government’s consultation process and plan to expand euthanasia.
The media is reporting that there have been more than 6700 medically assistance in dying (MAiD) deaths in Canada since it was legalized in June 2016. I estimate that there have been at least 13,000 euthanasia deaths and here is how I defend this estimate.
First, the 6700 statistic was based on the Fourth Interim Report on Medical Assistance in Dying released by Health Canada on April 25, 2019 which stated that there were 6700 medically assisted deaths up to October 31, 2018. The data in the report from Quebec and the three Territories was incomplete. The Quebec data in the Health Canada report was up until March 31, 2018.
The Health Canada report was sloppy by stating that the number of medically assisted deaths represented 1.12 per cent of all medically assisted deaths. The Health Canada report divided the number of reported medically assisted deaths into the total medically assisted deaths, but it did not remove the total Quebec medically assisted deaths from March 31 – Oct. 31 from the equation.
The accurate number of medically assisted deaths as of Dec. 31, 2018, was 7949.
On March 21, 2019, I reported that there were 7949 medically assisted deaths in Canada as of December 31, 2018 representing 4235 medically assisted deaths in 2018, an increase of 50 per cent over 2017, representing almost 1.5 per cent all deaths in 2018. The data from my report was obtained from a presentation by Jocelyn Downie, an academic euthanasia activist, who spoke on March 15, 2019 at a Royal Society of Canada luncheon in Ottawa.
Similar to the Netherlands and Belgium, nearly all of the medically assisted deaths are euthanasia (lethal injection) rather than assisted suicide.
We don’t have national assisted death statistics for 2019 but we do have accurate data from Ontario and Alberta.
The Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner sends monthly updates on the number of medically assisted deaths. According to the data there were 1789 reported medically assisted deaths in 2019, 1499 in 2018, 841 in 2017. There was almost a 20 per cent increase in Ontario medically assisted deaths in 2019. What is more striking about the data is the increase in the second half of 2019 where there were 1015 medically assisted deaths in the second half of 2019 up from 774 in the first six months of 2019, meaning that Ontario will likely have more than 2000 medically assisted deaths in 2020.
Alberta Health Services updates its assisted death data regularly. The Alberta data indicates that there were 377 medically assisted deaths in 2019 up from 307 in 2018, and 206 in 2017. The data indicates a 23 per cent increase in Alberta medically assisted deaths in 2019.
Since both Ontario and Alberta had approximately a 20 per cent increase in 2019, I would assume that there was a similar increase nationally. Therefore there are approximately 5000 (4235 + 20 per cent) medically assisted deaths in Canada in 2019 and 13,000 medically assisted deaths since legalization. Even if the numbers were slightly lower than 5000 in 2019, it is safe to say that there have been 13,000 medically assisted deaths since legalization as of mid-January 2020.
But that is not the whole story.
Canada’s data collection system does not account for under-reporting of medically assisted deaths, but Quebec’s data collection system can account for under-reporting. Quebec employs a multi report system making it possible to uncover the number of times a physician didn’t report the assisted death.
Based on an analysis by Amy Hasbrouck and Taylor Hyatt, the Quebec interim report indicated that between April 1, 2017 – March 31, 2018 there were 142 unaccounted medically assisted deaths in the data representing 17 per cent of all medically assisted deaths. The Quebec Interim report also indicate that seven medically assisted deaths did not fit the criteria of the law, 22 medically assisted deaths did not follow procedural safeguards and in 67 medically assisted deaths, the physician did not provide the necessary information to determine if the patient fit the criteria of the law.
Based on the Quebec Interim report, if we extrapolate the data to all of Canada, it would suggest that there may have been more than 2000 (17 per cent) unreported medically assisted deaths in Canada and approximately 60 medically assisted deaths that did not fit the criteria of the law.
This article is based on hard facts and conservative estimates. The fact is that Canada’s assisted death law is quickly going out of control. The recent federal government consultation, that employs biased questions, is not concerned about Canadians whose lives are taken without due process.
Alex Schadenberg is the executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. This article originally appeared on Schadenberg’s blog on Jan. 20.
