(LifeSiteNews) — Thanks to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ever-growing euthanasia regime, 1 in 20 Canadian deaths were from assisted suicide in 2023.
According to Health Canada’s fifth annual “Medical Assistance in Dying” (“MAID”) review, 15,300 Canadians were euthanized in 2023, totally 4.7 percent of the roughly 320,000 deaths in the country.
The report stated that the majority of the euthanasia deaths, 95.9 percent, were “Track 1” deaths, or euthanasia requests from a person deemed to have a “terminal” condition, and 4.1 percent were “Track 2” deaths, or requests from a person deemed to not have an allegedly terminal condition.
READ: Pro-life leaders slam Trudeau’s attempted expansion of euthanasia: ‘A gamble they may lose’
Additionally, the assisted suicide deaths increased 15.8 percent from 2022. While still large, the increase was smaller than between 2019 and 2022, during which the average growth rate was approximately 31 percent, according to the report.
The report further found that Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia had the highest increase rates at 36.5 percent in Québec, 30.3 percent in Ontario, and 18 percent in British Columbia. The next highest increase rate was Alberta at 6.4 percent.
“When analyzing the 5th Annual Report we question, ‘What makes British Columbia, Ontario and Québec different than the rest of Canada?'” Euthanasia Prevention Coalition director Alex Schadenberg asked in a recent blog.
Indeed, Quebec appears to have made it its provincial goal to expand its euthanasia regime with the highest rate of assisted suicide in Canada. In 2023, the province’s euthanasia program claimed the lives of 5,686 people, representing a staggering 7.3 percent of all deaths in the province, putting Quebec at the top of the list of euthanasia rates worldwide.
In October, the province began taking advance requests for “MAID,” despite it being illegal to do so under Canadian law.
Similarly, Ontario’s euthanasia program has not only expanded, but Ontario euthanasia regulators have tracked 428 cases of potential legal violations while failing to refer a single case to law enforcement.
As disappointing as it is that euthanasia practitioners’ disregard of patients has had little to no consequences, it is in keeping with the culture of death created by legalizing assisted suicide in the first place.
Since there can be no such thing as “moral” euthanasia, it comes as little surprise to pro-lifers that regulations are not followed. Indeed, in July, euthanasia provider and abortionist Ellen Wiebe enthusiastically revealed that she has killed over 400 people under Canada’s permissive regime, a statement that drew international headlines with people concerned about the nonchalant treatment of human life.
However, there are some doctors who have realized the dangers of “MAID” and have questioned the morality of the practice, at least in certain cases, with some physicians noting that many patients choosing euthanasia are doing so principally because they are impoverished or lonely.
The most recent reports show that assisted suicide is the sixth highest cause of death in Canada. However, it was not listed as such in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.
When asked why euthanasia was left off the list, the agency said that it records the illnesses that Canadians had when choosing to end their lives via euthanasia, not the actual cause of death, as the primary cause of death.
According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by “MAID” lethal injections. This accounted for 4.1 percent of all deaths in the country for that year, a 31.2 percent increase from 2021.