Poilievre says Conservative government won’t change medical assistance in dying laws

OTTAWA – A Conservative government would keep the country’s medical assistance in dying regime intact, Pierre Poilievre said Saturday, but it is not looking to follow Quebec’s lead in allowing people to make advance requests for an assisted death.

“People will continue to have the right to make that choice, the choice for themselves,” Poilievre said at a press conference in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean on Saturday. 

“We are not proposing to expand medical assistance in dying beyond the existing parameters.”

Medical assistance in dying was legalized in 2016 by the Liberal government for people whose deaths were reasonably foreseeable, following a 2015 Supreme Court ruling that said banning medically assisted deaths infringed on Canadians’ Charter rights.

The Liberal government changed the law in 2021, following another court decision in Quebec. Since then Canadians who suffer from a grievous and irremediable medical condition are able to apply for a medically assisted death, whether their death is reasonably foreseeable or not. 

Dying With Dignity Canada CEO Helen Long said advance requests are what her group hears about the most. 

An advance request allows a person to ask for a medically assisted death that would happen when certain conditions are met, after they lose the capacity to consent. 

“We’re usually talking about people with some kind of capacity-diminishing diagnosis, so Alzheimer’s or dementia,” she said. 

Long said she often hears from family members of people with dementia or similar conditions who feel “they have watched their loved ones live a long, long death that they would not have wanted to experience.”

In a new Ipsos poll commissioned by Dying With Dignity, 84 per cent of respondents said they support advance requests for people who are diagnosed with a “capacity-impairing grievous and irremediable condition whose trajectory will eventually cause a loss of decisional competence.”

The poll also asked if people should be able to make an advanced request if they were not yet diagnosed with any such condition, and 72 per cent of respondents supported that change.

The poll was conducted online between March 20 and 25, surveying 1,001 adults. It cannot be assigned a margin of error because online surveys are not considered truly random samples.

Health Canada has been doing consultations about changing the law to allow people to make an advance request for medical assistance in dying. It is set to release its key findings sometime this spring. 

Long pointed out that Quebec passed a provincial law allowing for advanced requests in October 2024, which “creates a really unequal playing field for people across the country.”

“We don’t see advanced requests so much as an expansion as a different way to request MAID. This is just a way to request MAID in advance, in writing, before you’ve met the full eligibility criteria and while you still have capacity to make this choice,” she said. 

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet said his party supports advance requests “as being a Quebec value.” He also accused Poilievre of not having “control” over those in his caucus who are opposed to medically assisted dying.

“Western Canada Conservatives are very, very, very conservative, so maybe it won’t be that easy,” he said. 

Poilievre, who became party leader in 2022, voted against the legalizing medical assistance in dying in 2016 along with the vast majority of his Conservative caucus. 

When the law was changed in 2021, Poilievre and 102 of his 117 Conservative colleagues voted against it. 

At the time he told fellow members of Parliament he believed “the bill will do more to withdraw individual choice and freedom than it will to extend it.” 

Poilievre cited opposition from disability rights groups who were concerned about removing the requirement that a person’s death must be reasonably foreseeable. The change, advocates argued at the time, could lead to situations where people with disabilities were pushed to accept medical assistance in dying.

Long said it’s concerning to hear that Conservatives would not expand the medical assistance in dying regime to include advance directives or people with mental health conditions. 

When the Liberal government amended the law in 2021, it also changed the criteria to include people whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness. That was set to take effect in 2023, but was delayed until 2024. 

The change was spurred by Senators who argued the exclusion of people with mental health conditions was unconstitutional. That proved to be highly controversial during a study by a parliamentary committee of Senators and MPs, which exposed deep divisions across legal and medical lines. 

It recommended another postponement, and the expansion has now been delayed until 2027 to address concerns from the provinces and ensure clinicians have proper training. Then-Liberal health minister Mark Holland said at the time the change would happen.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

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Dying With Dignity is challenging the current law in a case filed with the Ontario Superior Court last August, arguing it discriminates against people with mental health conditions. 

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Liberal campaign said the party is committed to “safeguarding the most vulnerable in our society.”

“Our approach will always prioritize compassion, dignity, and the necessary supports for those in need,” said Guillaume Bertrand. 

The New Democrats did not immediately respond to questions about their position on changing the assisted-dying regime to include advanced directives.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2025.