Assisted suicides now makes up more than 1 in 10 deaths in parts of Canada and rates are rising
These people are dying to leave Canada.Canada’s medically assisted suicide is responsible for nearly one in 10 deaths in some part of the country — with one area seeing rates over 13%.Lanaudière — a mountainous region of Quebec just north of Montreal — had 13.4% of its deaths come from Canada’s medical assistance in dying program (MAID) in 2025, official records showed.Across French-speaking Quebec, which is Canada’s second most populous province, 6,268 died by assisted suicide that year.Nearly 8% of all deaths across the province of 8.5 million people were by assisted suicide, according to the health department data.And it’s not just Quebec where the numbers are high and rising — across Canada in British Columbia more than 7% of deaths that year were through MAID, accounting for 3,189 out of 44,000 deaths in 12 months.Nationwide, about 1 in 20 deaths were from assisted suicide.Numbers from 2025 are expected to be released soon, but the latest figures show 76,475 people have died by assisted suicide between 2016 when MAID was enacted and 2024.The median age of assisted suicide patients was about 78 in 2024.And experts have predicted the total MAID deaths have likely already passed the 100,000 mark as the controversial law turned 10 back in June — even though the official reports may not finalize that grim total for another year or two.Canada has a population of 42 million and, like most developed economies, birthrates are plunging and the average age is rising.
With the nation’s universal health system, that means the wait times for specialized care has been increasing.The average wait to be treated by a specialist doctor was 28.6 weeks in 2025 — more than half a year, according to the Fraser Institute.
For orthopedic surgery it was 48 weeks, a month short of a full year.In the US the average wait time is 12 days.
“What was introduced as an exceptional measure is now a normalized part of clinical care,” Dr.Ramona Coelho of the Macdonal...