Canada’s government-run euthanasia program claimed more than 16,000 lives last year, making medically assisted suicide the fourth leading cause of death nationwide, according to a newly released federal report.
The Canadian government’s annual Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) report shows that 16,499 people died through the program in 2024, a 6.9% increase over the previous year. Of the 22,535 people who applied for euthanasia, nearly 75% were approved.
Based on 2023 mortality figures cited in the report, an estimated one in every 20 deaths in Canada is now the result of government-approved assisted suicide.
Report authors suggested the rapid growth of the program may be “possibly stabilizing,” while acknowledging that long-term trends have not yet been established.
Expansion of the MAID Program
Canada legalized assisted suicide in 2016, originally limiting eligibility to those with terminal illnesses. Since then, the law has undergone multiple expansions, loosening restrictions and broadening eligibility criteria beyond patients with reasonably foreseeable deaths.
Under current law, MAID applicants are placed into one of two categories, referred to as “tracks.” Track 1 includes individuals with terminal diagnoses or whose death is considered reasonably foreseeable. Track 2 applies to individuals without a terminal illness but who are deemed to have a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.”
According to the report, men made up a slight majority of those euthanized under Track 1, with an average age of 78. In Track 2 cases, women comprised the majority, with an average age of 75.9.
The MAID program has grown every year since its inception, despite mounting concerns raised by disability advocates, ethicists, and international observers over reports of coercion, inadequate safeguards, and the use of assisted suicide in cases involving poverty, isolation, or lack of access to care.
Several developed nations have cited Canada’s experience as a warning, pointing to how government-administered euthanasia has expanded rapidly from an exceptional measure to an increasingly normalized outcome within the public health system.
Canada remains one of the most permissive countries in the world when it comes to government-sanctioned assisted death, with further expansions still under consideration.
2 thoughts on “Fourth leading cause of death in Canada is government-assisted suicide”
I wish I could say I am surprised, but I’m not. The third leading cause of death in the US is medical malpractice. The data in both Canada and the US demonstrates that one has a much longer life-expectancy if they can avoid the medical profession in those countries.
Did you AI that? Please list your source.
According to the CDC the top 5 leading causes of death are heart disease, cancer, accidents, stroke and chronic lower respiratory illness. If one follows your advice(avoiding the medical profession all together), you are back to witchcraft and herbal remedies. Life expectancy when these were the prevailing treatment options, was not all that great.
You also seem to think that Canada deliberately killing its citizens somehow equates to medical treatment in the US. The two are not comparable. You may need to examine your moral compass.
As with anything you need to be your own advocate, but your wholesale assertion of avoiding the medical professions, ignores how greatly medical procedures and medications have extended life expectancy for millions of Americans.