Thank you very much for the invitation to appear, Chair and committee members.
My name is Christopher Lyon. I'm Canadian, a family witness to MAID, academic staff at the University of York and a visiting fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath.
Since my father's death, I've researched and published on MAID. I speak as an individual. My dad, John Lyon, lost his life to a MAID provider in Victoria, B.C., in July 2021, one week after he moved into an assisted living apartment. With a low income, he was very anxious about how much assisted living would cost. The day he moved in was the first day of the record-setting but transient heat dome event that hit B.C. Five days later, potentially affected by the extreme heat wave, he fell in his new apartment. On day seven, as the heat dome broke, my dad received a lethal injection.
When he found out about MAID, he told me a doctor told him he should have it. He was approved for track 2 MAID for rheumatoid arthritis, frailty, recent falls, chronic pain and conditions he often coped with. Halfway through the mandatory 90-day assessment period safeguard for track 2, his providers labelled him track 1, foreseeable natural death, three days before he was killed. His medical certification of death indicates this track change was for early sepsis NYD. NYD is medical shorthand for “not yet diagnosed”. However, the Criminal Code for both tracks first requires a person to have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, stating they must have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability. Track shifts like this won't be easy to see in the data Health Canada uses.
When he first applied, I sent the local MAID coordinator a family document of collateral information detailing his history of mental health issues, including bouts of strong suicidal ideation during life transitions like moving homes. The heat crisis, combined with the move to assisted living, was absolutely in keeping with when he would struggle with his mental health the most. A few months before he died, my family arranged a call with the suicide prevention hotline, and he seemed to back away from this ideation, which was a recurrent pattern for him. The day he was killed was also the birthday of a family member who was present. I cannot begin to describe the horror.
Dad's provider permitted him to drink wine both the evening before and the day of his death. At the same time, he was prescribed prednisone, eszopiclone, trazodone and hydromorphone, all of which have severe psychotropic capacity-impairing effects and can mimic early sepsis markers and mental disorders. He had trouble remembering when or if he scheduled his death, or even if he had been assessed. “Get me out of here” was the flimsy assent interpreted as his final consent.
I pressed for a last-minute psychiatric assessment and was told the psychiatrist would just agree with the provider. They were right. The assessment was full of errors. It denied suicidality, minimized his history of depression, denied he was a smoker and claimed he'd been living in his assisted living flat for a month, not four or five days. His provider told me he'd probably just kill himself anyway, and that she knew she was good at MAID because she'd never lost sleep over her deaths and later told me not to raise my concerns.
Attempts by his executor and me to file complaints and access his medical records, which might confirm or refute non-compliance, proved mostly futile. We obtained only a somewhat redacted copy of his psychiatric evaluation and his medical death certificate.
B.C.'s system is a pinball machine of deflection among colleges, police and coroners, with records protected by privacy law that extends to deceased persons, though this does not seem to apply to the MAID providers, who may use them for self-promotion and commercial ventures. If this is already the de facto standard of care for MAID when mental illness and psychotropics are involved, what will happen if sole mental illness is permitted?
In my research, I found evidence that the charity lobbyist and constitutional litigant, Dying with Dignity, or DWD, cares little for safeguards around people's mental health status, historically and now. A large body of archived evidence from DWD sources suggests that it ran a—so far—unprosecuted scheme of payment-based pro-suicide counselling, assisted suicide and homicide of adults in the decades up to Carter and Bill C-14, and potentially, children. It hosted open-access workshops on suicide methods amenable to assistance, homicide and concealment from investigators. Its public website still describes alternatives for those who are ineligible for MAID, like stopping eating and drinking, refusing treatment and options in Switzerland. This web page is accessible to all, including those with mental disorders and children.
Last year, Philip Nitschke, the inventor of the Sarco pod, who gives speeches alongside CAMAP founders and DWD leaders at the World Federation of Right to Die Societies conferences, claimed to the British press that he provided material support to Kenneth Law. After facing first-degree murder charges, Law had just agreed to plead guilty to aiding suicide in 14 deaths. Nitschke claims to have met him at a more recent suicide workshop he ran in Toronto. Law's alleged victims were typically teenagers and adults with mental illness.
I find myself forced to ask very uncomfortable questions about what happens in those secret encounters with patients, despite all the MAID laws and safeguards meant to protect them from negligent care or unlawful death.
