Canada has conducted thousands of same-day assisted suicides, with one case highlighting an elderly woman who was euthanized despite retracting her request just a day prior.

The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program, initially sanctioned in 2016, has broadened its scope to allow applications from patients not facing imminent death, and it will soon encompass those with mental health conditions.

In 2023, over 200 individuals in Ontario chose to undergo the procedure within 24 hours of receiving approval, according to a 2024 report from Ontario, as reported by The Free Press.

Among these 219 cases, a striking 30 percent opted for the procedure on the same day they were approved.

Throughout 2024, the MAiD program saw participation from 16,500 Canadians, including a woman known only as Mrs. B.

According to the Ontario report, Mrs. B experienced complications after undergoing a coronary artery bypass graft, leading to further surgeries. This prompted her decision to pursue palliative care as her treatment strategy.

The woman, who was in her 80s, later expressed to her family that she desired an assisted suicide. On her behalf, her spouse requested MAiD, and the following day, a MAiD practitioner assessed her eligibility. 

Mrs B told the practitioner that she wanted to withdraw her request after rethinking, citing religious and personal reasons, and that she’d like to continue with hospice care and palliative sedation, the report said. 

A woman only identified as Mrs B was given a same-day assisted suicide in Canada after have an urgent evaluation when she was denied inpatient care at a hospital. Just the day before, she had withdrawn her request due to religious reasons (stock image) 

A man identified as Mr C had to be ‘vigorously roused’ to give consent after he put in his request five days earlier following an admittance to the hospital for cancer. He rapidly deteriorated between making the request and the procedure 

However, Mrs B ended up in hospital the next day, only to be released back home, but not before physicians noted her spouse had ‘caregiver burnout.’ A request was made on her behalf to have in-patient hospice care to help the spouse, but she was denied. 

The same day, her spouse contacted MAiD again and requested an urgent assessment. A different practitioner determined the elderly woman was eligible for the program, despite her withdrawing her request the day before. 

The practitioner, however, did not approve a same-day assisted suicide due to the ‘drastic change in perspective’ and the possibility of coercion. 

Despite the original evaluator wanting to speak with Mrs B again, it was denied due to the urgency of the request. A third person was sent to Mrs B’s home, where she was once again approved. 

Hours later, the assisted suicide happened and Mrs B was killed.  

A man, who was only identified as Mr C, made a MAiD request five days after he was admitted to the hospital for cancer. 

His condition rapidly deteriorated and he became delirious. Despite his mental state, a medical provider ‘proceeded to vigorously rouse’ him so he could mouth ‘yes’ when asked about his request, the Ontario report found.  He was then killed. 

Canada got rid of the 10-day reflection period following a request in 2021, leaving eligible patients to only have to prove their condition is ‘intolerable.’ 

Canada’s MAID program has recieved backlash, especially from Kiano Vafaeian’s family who accused his doctor of coaching him on how to get approved for the prodecure. He was 26 when he died and was suffering from depression 

Price Carter, 68, applied for the MAID program after being diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. He died in June 2025

His mom Kay Carter’s died by assisted suicide in Switzerland in 2010, before it was legal in Canada 

Those who are approved but whose ‘natural death is not reasonably foreseeable’ do have to wait a 90-day waiting period and get two physicians to sign off on their request. The Free Press found that many deaths were completed before the 90-day mark. 

There is an exception for those who could lose their capacity to consent within those 90 days to move their procedure forward. 

More than 2,200 doctors and nurse practitioners performed assisted suicide in Canada in 2024, The Free Press said. Around 100 of those did more than 30 patients each, federal data showed. 

Canada’s program has faced backlash, including from the family of 26-year-old, Kiano Vafaeian, who was partially blind and who chose to die from assisted suicide to escape his depression. 

His family said his mental illness often flared in the winter and they were able to get his requests repeatedly denied. 

Eventually, his request was approved by Dr Ellen Wiebe, whom the family accused of coaching the young man on how to qualify. 

‘We believe that she was coaching him on how to deteriorate his body and what she can possibly approve him for and what she can get away with approving him for,’ Marsilla told Fox News Digital. 

‘We don’t want to see any other family member suffer, or any country introduce a piece of legislation that kills their disabled or vulnerable without appropriate proper treatment plans that could save their lives.’ 

Vafaeian’s doctor, Ellen Wiebe, is among the more than 2,000 doctors and nurse practitioners in Canada that perform assisted suicide 

In 2022, Vafaeian attempted to die under the program for the first time after being approved, even going so far as to schedule a time, date and location for the procedure in Toronto.

But the plan unraveled when his mother accidentally discovered the appointment email and called the doctor, posing as a woman inquiring about MAiD. She also took to social media to publicly voice her opposition.

She taped the conversation with the doctor and sent it to a reporter. The doctor then postponed the procedure due to the outcry and decided not to go through with it. 

Canada approved adding mental illness to the MAiD program, but it has been postponed as many detractors have questioned how a patient will be properly evaluated. 

Patients in this category will have their approvals postponed until at least March 17, 2027. A parliamentary committee is set to study the issue next month, The Free Press reported. 

Kay Carter, a Canadian citizen, flew to Switzerland in 2010 to get an assisted suicide at the age of 89 after years of suffering from spinal stenosis. Her death came before it was illegal to get the procedure in Canada. 

However, 15 years later, her son, Price Carter, 68, applied for the MAiD program after being diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. He died in June 2025.

‘I’m okay with this. I’m not sad,’ he told the Canadian Press before his death. ‘I’m not clawing for an extra few days on the planet. I’m just here to enjoy myself. When it’s done, it’s done.’