Ottawa Plans to Indefinitely Extend the MAID Ban for Mental Illness Alone

The federal government will introduce legislation this fall indefinitely extending the ban on medically assisted death for people whose sole condition is mental illness, Justice Minister Sean Fraser said Wednesday. The exclusion was already in place; what changes is the timetable, since the government is now proposing to hold it open-ended rather than let a scheduled expiry do the work. “Indefinitely” is a choice of word as much as a policy: it declines to promise the exclusion will never lift.