Medical Assistance in Dying Committee on April 28th, 2026

[Dr. Sanjeev Sockalingam]

I'll just reiterate my statement. I do not think we are ready at this time, and I don't think so for the foreseeable future, to be honest, because we need to do further research, seek evidence and evolve our approach for assessment and treatment for mental health, both for individuals and for the system at large. Will I say that ever? I won't go that far. I'm saying we can't predict the course of mental illness. I'm not going to predict the future of psychiatric research.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marcus Powlowski]

Thank you, Dr. Sockalingam and Professor Mishara, for your valuable testimony. We appreciate your coming out tonight.

With that, we'll suspend and wait for the next group of witnesses to arrive.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marcus Powlowski]

I call the meeting back to order.

Let me introduce the witnesses for the second hour. In the room we have Mr. Neil Belanger, chief executive officer of Indigenous Disability Canada. By Zoom, we have Dr. Rod McCormick, professor.

Dr. McCormick, you're here as an individual. Is that right?

[Roderick McCormick, Professor, Thompson Rivers University, As an Individual]

That's right.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marcus Powlowski]

Thank you.

Maybe we'll start in the room with Mr. Belanger.

You have five minutes. When there are about 30 seconds left, I'll hold up the paper, and, as we discussed, you can go a little over the time.

[Neil Belanger, Chief Executive Officer, Indigenous Disability Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you—

[Rosemary Moodie]

I have a point of order.

Mr. Chair, is it possible for us to learn a bit more about our witness? We have in front of us a person who is a professor. Do we know anything more that you can share with us about this esteemed witness in front of us? That's not my job.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marcus Powlowski]

Mr. Belanger is the chief executive officer of Indigenous Disability Canada. Is that who you're talking about?

[Rosemary Moodie]

Yes.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marcus Powlowski]

That's all the bio I have on Mr. Belanger. If Mr. Belanger would like to add some remarks about his bio, that would be at the expense of other parts of his speech.

[Rosemary Moodie]

Can you request that, Mr. Chair?

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marcus Powlowski]

No. It's his time. It's his five minutes, and he can do with it as he pleases.

It's your five minutes; it's not the senator's time to ask questions.

[Neil Belanger]

Thank you.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marcus Powlowski]

She can ask questions during her three minutes.

[Neil Belanger]

Thank you again, committee, for having me here.

My name is Neil Belanger. I'm a member of the Lax Seel Clan in the House of Nikateen of the Gitxsan Nation. I'm also the chief executive officer of Indigenous Disability Canada, IDC. IDC is a national indigenous cross-disability organization that has provided disability-related supports and services across Canada for the past 35 years.

Before I begin, I would like to recognize and thank the Algonquin Anishinabe people, whose territory we are meeting on today.

IDC was the lead organization working with over 55 national disability groups on Canada's second and third reviews of the CRPD. From this review, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recommended to Canada, under article 10, which is the right to life, to repeal track 2 MAID, including the provision to expand MAID to those whose “sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness”. To date, despite one year passing, Canada has failed to respond.

On a daily basis, IDC works with individuals and families from across Canada with disabilities, including those with mental illness. Our work is to assist in obtaining necessary disability and health-related supports and services. This is so individuals and families can have a good life, where their disability and health-related needs are met.

IDC works with thousands of individuals annually, including those who have been approved for track 2 MAID, those who have applied for it and those who are considering requesting it.

Individuals we have worked with include those from the deaf community who were approved for track 2 MAID. They requested MAID due only to the denial of requested technology and disability accommodations while in the correctional system. This denial resulted in their inability to participate in group sessions and activities or to communicate with their legal representatives, causing increased mental stress and increased isolation, which in turn eroded their will to continue.

Other individuals IDC has worked with and is currently working with have conveyed that they are intending to apply for MAID due to inadequate housing, discrimination and racism experienced in health care, and the general lack or inadequacy of disability services and supports on most levels, all of which have greatly impacted their mental health and their desire to go on.

IDC has been in contact with persons approved for track 2 MAID who, despite being approved for state-assisted death, haven't been assisted in obtaining their disability tax credit, DTC. The DTC is a gateway benefit for other benefits, including the registered disability savings plan, Canada disability benefit, Canada workers benefit disability supplement and the Canadian dental care plan, etc. These are all benefits that could be significant in alleviating a person's suffering.

It seems unimaginable that state-assisted euthanasia could be facilitated and approved while, at the same time, the individual received no assistance in accessing their DTC before, during or after their MAID assessment.

Track 2 MAID, including MAID where the sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness, has been framed by pro-euthanasia and assisted suicide groups as a so-called “equality right”. This equality right, however, is reserved solely for those who are considered to be unequal. No other group is afforded access to this state-provided euthanasia, regardless of their suffering. No, this equality right is only for those who are commonly portrayed as less than, defective and wanting—people no one would ever want to be.

Overwhelmingly, past and present committee members have heard from expert witnesses—persons with disabilities, indigenous leaders, clinicians and disability organizations—all of whom said that the reason many persons with disabilities and mental illness request or even consider track 2 MAID is the lack or inadequacy of available services and supports.

These gaps in services leave persons with disabilities and with mental illness in isolation, frustration and desperation. Life for many becomes too hard. Again, it's not because of their disability or mental illness but because of the systems they are forced to endure and the suffering that those systems inflict.

We could fix those systems and ensure that persons with disabilities and mental illness have the necessary supports to lead a good life, but in Canada, we are opting to present them with state-assisted euthanasia as an acceptable and normalized alternative.

Persons with disabilities and mental illness taking or contemplating MAID due to the lack or withholding of necessary and adequate supports and services is not a voluntary action by them, nor is it done freely, as some might suggest. It is, in fact, a response to tactical omissions within our disability, health and social systems. It is a result of external pressures, and it is the definition of coercion.

During the previous and current session of the AMAD committee, you've heard from expert clinicians who have overwhelmingly testified that mental illness can never be deemed to be irremediable and that there are no standard medical tests nor specific clinical criteria existing to determine irremediability.

Simply put, if this expansion is allowed, there is no way to predict that the individual euthanized could not have led a good life and a full life once proper supports and treatments were in place. There are no safeguards, policies or procedures that can be put in place to correct this.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marcus Powlowski]

Thank you.

We have Dr. McCormick for five minutes, please.

[Roderick McCormick]

Shé:kon.

My name is Rod McCormick. I'm a Mohawk and a professor and research chair in indigenous health at Thompson Rivers University. I would like to thank the committee for the invitation to provide input on this impending legislation that has literally life-or-death implications.

For context, I'm talking to you from my house on my partner's reserve of Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc in Kamloops, B.C., where I'm the director of an indigenous research centre called All My Relations. Academically, I've been recognized as a distinguished university scholar and a fellow at the Royal Society of Canada. I'm also a mental health clinician who has had almost 40 years of experience as a mental health service provider and consultant for indigenous peoples. One of the consulting projects I'm working on that has pertinence to MAID is the development of a provincial indigenous suicide prevention and life promotion strategy for B.C. on behalf of the First Nations Health Authority.

The expansion of MAID for mental illness goes against every effort I have made in my work in suicide prevention and life promotion. In my work with clients suffering from mental illness and mental anguish, I have worked with numerous clients who are suicidal. Upon recovery, many of them shared with me what they learned from this challenge in life. They realized that suicide was a permanent solution to what proved to be a temporary problem. They realized that they were not thinking clearly at the time they were suicidal. They realized that they had isolated themselves from friends, family and those who could help them. They realized that they were looking for an easy way out. They admitted that they were not aware of the many treatment options that worked for others. They realized in retrospect how their suicide would have devastated their friends and families.

From a study I conducted with 25 indigenous people who recovered from being suicidal, it turns out that responsibility to others is a great protective factor. Although I obviously cannot speak for all indigenous people, the pattern I'm seeing in the expansion of MAID is an abdication of responsibility by the Government of Canada. Instead of making every effort to provide the range of mental health services needed by indigenous people to overcome their pain, Canada is instead imposing upon them the burden of deciding whether or not they should choose a government-sanctioned and medically sanctioned permanent solution to what could easily be a temporary problem.

Many Canadians may not realize that indigenous peoples are a vulnerable population. Due to our history of colonization and ongoing oppression, we have very high rates of unresolved trauma and unresolved grief. We watch our relatives experience death in the custody and care of social services and the justice system. We watch our people die of complex diseases and higher rates of disease than the general population. Our suicide rates are, on average, three times higher than the general population's. Many indigenous communities are affected by minimal economic and employment opportunities, remoteness, accessibility barriers, transportation issues and limited access to necessary disability, health and social services and their associated professionals. When indigenous people are one of the most vulnerable sectors of Canadian society, it seems immoral to provide an easy path to death versus the mental health assistance that other Canadians receive.

MAID is culturally biased, in my opinion, in that it emphasizes the individual's right to autonomy and choice without taking others into consideration. Other cultures do not place such a high value on individualism and autonomy. By encouraging indigenous people to put individual rights ahead of collective responsibilities, Canada is, in a sense, perpetuating colonization.

What do I mean by an abdication of responsibility? If we don't provide the care that people need, then we shouldn't be offering them death as an alternative to that care. There is a failure to understand that appropriate and timely help is the key to survival. Instead of making every effort to provide the range of mental health services needed by Canadians to overcome their pain, Canada is imposing upon them the burden of deciding as an individual to choose death instead.

Figuring out how to address mental illness for the vulnerable is difficult and costly, but resorting to the easy solution of lethal injections is, in my opinion, irresponsible and immoral. Responsibility is the ability to respond—literally to be “response-able”. It seems that the governments, provinces and communities do not feel like they're able to respond to the mental health needs of Canadians if they are now defaulting to doctor-assisted suicide.

How can we, as Canadian citizens, empower our communities and governments so that they feel able to respond? Until we figure that out, I urge the Canadian government to continue to prohibit the use of MAID for mental illness and to instead take the responsible path by improving the mental health services available to indigenous people and to all Canadians.

[The Joint Chair, Liberal, Marcus Powlowski]

Thank you. You were almost right on five minutes.

We have Ms. Jansen for five minutes.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you, Dr. McCormick.

You're doing the hard work of building a suicide prevention and life promotion strategy in indigenous communities, where your focus is on connection, culture and keeping people alive. At the same time, the broader system is moving toward offering assisted death for those very same mental health struggles. In communities where decisions are deeply connected to family, culture and future generations, that seems like a very confusing message.

How do you explain that to the communities you serve? You're working to prevent suicide on the one hand, while on the other hand, the government is expanding access to state-sanctioned death for the mental health conditions your strategy is designed to address.

[Roderick McCormick]

Yes, you're right. There's that conflicting message. I don't have any answers. I don't have any easy answers for why one system is pushing for one thing and why another.... The culture is not.... It's just not the way we operate on an individual basis like that.

That's a good point. I don't really have an answer for it.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Many indigenous leaders have spoken about how past systems imposed outside values and decisions onto their community, often without fully respecting those cultural frameworks around life, responsibility and care. When we look at MAID, it's built largely around individual autonomy and personal choice, but that's not how many indigenous communities understand decision-making. It's often relational and tied to family, community and future generations.

Do you see a risk that expanding MAID, especially for mental illness, could reflect a similar pattern of imposing an individualistic framework onto indigenous communities?

[Roderick McCormick]

Yes, definitely. You got that right.

That cultural conflict that focuses on individualism is one of the reasons why there are mental duress and struggles for people. It just adds to the pile of the media, the health system and the educational system, saying, “No, you have to be an individual. You have to master your own environment.”

It's a very biased and culturally encapsulated view of how you should function in life, and that goes against a lot of community, family and traditional values.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I attended a Métis Nation B.C. presentation, where Dying With Dignity was presenting MAID as, essentially, another treatment option and framing it as compassionate and loving. However, in the same conversation, Sheryl Sullivan, who is a Métis nurse practitioner, pushed back and said clearly that MAID should not be the alternative to a lack of services, because when a system presents death as a solution in communities that are still fighting for basic access to care, it's not a choice, but more like something being introduced into a gap.

From your perspective, is there a risk that framing MAID in this way, especially where services are lacking, reflects the typical pattern where outside systems and values are being layered onto indigenous communities instead of addressing the underlying needs?

[Roderick McCormick]

Absolutely. When we're given those messages, it's more of the same, it seems.

I'm sorry. I wish I could give more optimistic answers to your questions, but I totally agree with what you said.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

In your estimation, how many indigenous Canadians suffer from a mental illness and could be at risk of MAID with this expansion?