Report: Hundreds of Canadian euthanasia violations not reported to police

CNA Staff, Nov 12, 2024 / 15:30 pm

A bombshell report out of Canada alleges that, out of hundreds of violations of the country’s controversial euthanasia law over the course of several years, none of them have been reported to law enforcement.

Alexander Raikin, a visiting fellow in bioethics at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote in the New Atlantis on Monday that since 2018 “euthanasia regulators” in Ontario have identified over 400 “issues with compliance” with the country’s medical aid in dying (MAID) law. 

Physicians who administer fatal doses of drugs to people in Canada are required to abide by various regulations when doing so, including determining a suicidal patient’s eligibility for the program and making sure patients do not suffer any additional abuse. 

Ontario Chief Coroner Dr. Dirk Huyer has boasted that his office is “probably the most robust in Canada” for overseeing compliance with the law. 

Yet Raikin said several whistleblower doctors came forward with evidence showing that Huyer’s office has “identified hundreds of ‘issues with compliance’ with the criminal law and regulatory policies” of MAID without having moved to prosecute any of the offenders. 

In some instances the office identified incomplete documentation regarding how a physician determined eligibility for assisted suicide. In others the physician was found to have failed “federal reporting requirements.”

The total number of violations identified since 2018 sits at 428. For 2023 alone Huyer’s office reported 178 compliance problems, Raikin wrote, “an average of one every other day.”

Of the more than 400 violations, just four cases were reported to a regulatory body, while “all others were deemed lower-level offenses, and not a single case was reported to the police.”

‘A cover-up of mammoth proportions’

Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of the Ontario-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told CNA on Tuesday that the few cases reported to the Ontario College of Physicians “haven’t even resulted in an effective ‘slap on the wrist.’”

“This is a cover-up of mammoth proportions,” Schadenberg said. “We demand a complete investigation into the noncompliance with the law especially since the Ontario Coroner recognizes that certain physicians have persisted in noncompliance even after receiving an ‘email’ or a warning about their noncompliance.”

Since it was first legalized in 2016, assisted suicide has been growing at a fast pace in the country. Government statistics in 2022 indicated that MAID was the sixth-leading cause for death in Canada, with 13,241 “MAID provisions” reported that year, accounting for 4.1% of all deaths nationwide. 

Activists have regularly pushed to expand MAID, including allowing individuals to obtain lethal drugs if they are suffering from a mental illness. Quebec recently began allowing individuals to be euthanized even when they are incapable of giving consent.

‘A serious indictment’

Jack Fonseca, the director of political operations for Canada’s Campaign Life Coalition, called the report “a serious indictment of the chief coroner’s office.”

“This report brings to light for the first time some essential and illuminating data on the number of illegal euthanasia killings taking place in Canada, and especially in Ontario,” he said. 

The coroner’s office “should be presenting this data to the public on a regular basis, and to the police,” he said. “Not in closed-door, friendly gatherings organized by the very euthanasia practitioners on whom he is supposed to be exercising oversight.”

Schadenberg pointed out that euthanasia “is about killing people” but that the violations identified by Huyer’s office are separate from the larger pro-life question. 

“We oppose killing people, but even the basic concept of the law is being ignored by many,” he said. 

“Further to that, the only other person who could make an effective complaint about these cases has been killed by euthanasia, leaving noncompliance a silent problem.”

Fonseca said that when euthanasia was first legalized in Canada, “we warned that it would expand rapidly until everyone who wanted to be killed by the state could be killed, and that none of the promised safeguards would protect the vulnerable.”

“This report proves us right,” he said.

Schadenberg, meanwhile, called it “misguided” for a government to think it can “legalize killing by assisted death and ensure compliance.” 

“The Ontario coroner’s office proudly boasts that all of the deaths are reported and all of the deaths are examined,” he said, “and yet noncompliance with the law not only persists but is swept under the carpet with the hope that nobody notices.”

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“And yet someone is dead,” he added.