No, Canada did not vote for euthanasia to kill the poor

• Last March, the Canadian government announced a new law on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), promising greater openness in the criteria for access to euthanasia.

• But according to several articles, this would make it easier for the country to euthanize the poor.

• According to the lawyers cited by

  20 Minutes

  , the examples cited are false and contain misinterpretations.

“If you are poor, the Canadian state pays for your suicide”.

The hook has something to challenge the reader... except that the reality is far from it.

In an article published on June 11, the Canadian media New World assures us that the Canadian government voted last May to support euthanasia as a “means of fighting against unsustainable poverty”.

It would be, according to the author, a “global depopulation plan” in order to kill people who no longer have the means to live.

The article refers to several publications, including a

article written by Yuan Yi Zhu, a researcher at Oxford University.

According to him, access to euthanasia would allow the government to save money on health care.

He also adds several examples implicating an overuse of medical end-of-life, in particular on people living in poverty.

"In Ontario, a woman was forced to be euthanized because her housing benefits did not allow her to obtain better housing, which did not aggravate her debilitating allergies", quotes the researcher.

According to the latter, the new Canadian law – named C7 – would above all be “a slippery slope”.

Very quickly, the information was relayed by other information sites, mostly linked to religion and fiercely opposed to the question of the end of life.

“Five years ago, it would have been hard to believe that a modern, civilized western nation would allow people to commit physician-assisted suicide because they think they lack 'dignity'.

We were all created in the image of God, and therefore all have dignity and worth.

Suicide should never be an option, especially if it is fortunately paid for by the government”, can we read in particular in the article of the site The gateway pundit, known for publishing false information as well as conspiracy theories.

But what does the C7 law really say?

Does Canada really allow itself to eradicate poverty by inciting them to euthanasia?

takes stock with two lawyers, specialists in health law in Canada, on this “completely false” information.

FAKE OFF

To understand, we have to go back to the premises of the legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada.

It's 2015 and the Carter case [named after one of the patients wishing to end his life after a degenerative disease] is pushing the Supreme Court of Canada to change the country's Criminal Code and outlaw the illegality of assisted suicide.

“The Carter ruling defined this ban as unconstitutional and opened the door to the administration of assisted dying,” explains lawyer Me Patrick Martin-Ménard, with

.

A few years later, in 2019, justice is questioning the notion of the end of life and its still vague definition.

This is the Gladu-Truchon trial, names of plaintiffs who did not have the right criteria to respond to MA.

This time, the case makes it possible to invalidate the provisions of the Criminal Code which admitted conditions at the end of life.

“The Supreme Court had defined at that time what constituted a serious and incurable disease.

But we did not use the term end of life, but “reasonably foreseeable death”, recalls lawyer Jean-Philippe Le Roux, also co-prosecutor in the case.

Finally, the Supreme Court rules that the end-of-life criterion is not constitutional and infringes the freedom of people in a situation of suffering.

A new law must see the light of day and it is called C7.

“This new law has created a system where we allow access to medical assistance in dying for people who are at the end of their life, but also for people who are not,” summarizes lawyer Jean-François Le Roux. .

The end of life is then no longer only accessible to terminal illnesses, but also to incurable illnesses associated with an irreversible decline in the patient's capacities.

“It remains marginal for people who have access to medical assistance in dying.

The majority of cases remain cancers in the terminal phase, ”admitted however the lawyer specializing in health.

For now, only the subject of mental health has been excluded from the new law.

"Nonsense"

But back to the subject of poverty.

Where does this idea come from that the Canadian government could have put in place this legislation in order to solve the problem of poverty in the country?

"There is a discourse that seems to be directed by opponents of medical assistance in dying who will look for all kinds of stories to highlight or distort them: it's nonsense," says Me Jean-François Red.

"It's not only inaccurate, it's completely false," adds lawyer Patrick Martin-Ménard.

Consider the example cited earlier by researcher Yuan Yi Zhu in the

article .

As we explained earlier, he claims that in Ontario, a "woman was forced to be euthanized because her housing benefits did not allow her to obtain better housing, which exacerbated her debilitating allergies" .

Poverty is not a criterion, illness is

But according to the CTV news channel, the woman actually has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a chronic condition that has made her allergic to her environment, including smells and chemicals.

No longer able to live in her home, she was forced to leave and was unable to find a healthier one, despite calls for help.

“Faced with the lack of a medical solution, the doctors who assessed her considered that she was eligible for medical assistance in dying,” recalls lawyer Patrick Martin-Ménard.

Before adding: "In the end, extrapolating this story to say that medical assistance in dying was rendered as a solution to fight against extreme poverty is false and in bad faith".

Contrary to what the

said , MAID was offered to this patient because of her serious and irreversible disease, and not because of her lack of resources.

Contrary to what is imagined in the articles, it is not so simple to receive medical assistance in dying in Canada.

The request must be accepted by two different doctors and a period of 190 days must be respected between the request and the day of the injection, recalls the lawyer Jean-François Le Roux.

“It is clear that social problems alone cannot provide access to medical assistance in dying,” concludes the specialist. 

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