Ottawa should ‘indefinitely exclude’ people with mental illness from MAID: committee report

Justice Minister Sean Fraser speaks about medical assistance in dying being extended to people with a sole underlying condition of mental illness.

A parliamentary committee is calling on the federal government to indefinitely exclude people with mental illness from becoming eligible for medical assistance in dying.

Conservative and Liberal MPs on the committee co-signed that single recommendation in a report released today.

People with a mental illness as their sole underlying condition are set to become eligible to apply for medical assistance in dying, or MAID, next March.

The committee, which was tasked with studying whether the country is ready for that to happen, held hearings throughout the spring.

Four of the senators on the committee wrote a dissenting report urging the government to disregard the recommendation and calling the committee’s work flawed, biased and lacking in rigour.

Justice Minister Sean Fraser said earlier Wednesday that he would take time to review the report and the testimony the committee heard before deciding how to respond.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2026

Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press