Amid MAID pause, work hard on suicide prevention

Opinion

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This article was published 06/02/2024 (606 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Suicide. It’s a topic I can hardly bring myself to think about, let alone acknowledge the staggering number of lives lost to it each year.

And I’m not talking about medically-assisted suicide, legalized in Canada in 2016 and embraced by the nation to the extent that its usage has outpaced growth seen in any other country offering medical assistance in dying (MAID). Last year alone, there was a 30 per cent increase in assisted dying, and it now constitutes four per cent of all deaths in our country.

As someone originally apprehensive about MAID, I’ve long since changed my way of thinking, to the point of taking comfort knowing it is an option for me and my loved ones if our end-of-life illnesses ever become irremediable and our suffering unbearable.

Once nearly inconceivable and highly contentious, public policy surrounding MAID has seemingly landed on agreement with a majority of Canadians.

What is still largely unresolved, while reaching epidemic proportions, is how to react to a suicide crisis and the number of people suffering debilitating mental illness and unbearable depression.

For those with anguish that has become too much to tolerate, and for those who can no longer see any hope of achieving a life they can live on reasonable terms because of mental illness, there are but two options: continue the arduous and sometimes seemingly hopeless path toward recovery, or end their life at their own hands, often alone. A third option had become close to realization until Ottawa swiftly yanked it from them last week as they announced a pause on expanding MAID to include those suffering mental illness.

For people like Cathy Van Buskirk, a woman living in Brandon who shared her story with Winnipeg Free Press readers, the news was devastating. Originally set to kick in on March 17, it was especially egregious for Van Buskirk, and other sufferers like her, that there’d been a build-up of expectation as the date loomed near, only to be told they’d now have to wait another three years — until after the next federal election. And only if the Trudeau government gets re-elected, as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has already announced he would scrap the expansion altogether.

I’d like to think that politics had no bearing on this life-and-death decision, but that’s possibly just me being naive. Sad to say, but psychiatric MAID is now a wedge issue that may be wielded like a sword in the upcoming federal election.

Having said that, the reasons for the pause were many. Provinces and territories had indicated their health systems were not equipped with enough psychiatrists and doctors to make proper assessments of a patient’s suitability for psychiatric MAID, safeguards hadn’t been put in place to protect the vulnerable, and agreement on when, how, and under what circumstances mental illness could be labelled irremediable could not be landed upon.

Pausing the expansion was the right thing to do.

Yet in this vacuum, much more needs to be done.

As my friend and former colleague Steven Fletcher — who was one of the original advocates and architects of MAID during his time in Ottawa as an MP — stated in a 2023 Globe & Mail column, Canadians should be given access to more resources to sustain life even on its most complicated terms, before making it easier to access death. He argued that the pendulum had “swung too far” in the expansion of MAID and went on to question the methods for determining how someone experiencing mental illness could have the cognitive ability to make such a decision.

Fair point, but sadly, it bears noting that people across the country are indeed making those decisions all too frequently, as evidenced by an unprecedented suicide rate.

To that end, just last week, the International Association for Suicide Prevention wrote a letter signed by 121 leading experts calling on Canada to do more while highlighting that we are far behind other similarly-resourced countries in terms of federal public policy and a concrete action plan. They cited evidence that countries with robust action plans have lower suicide rates than those that don’t.

So while this pause exists, why not take the advice of these experts and make Canada a leader in suicide prevention?

That’s something I’d think we’d all rather see becoming a wedge issue in the upcoming federal election as parties put forth ambitious plans for ending suicide and addressing mental illness.

Meanwhile, Canada recently launched its first ever 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline. If you or someone you know is suffering with suicidal thoughts, please call or text 9-8-8 to be connected with help.

Rochelle Squires is a recovering politician after serving 7 1/2 years in the Manitoba legislature. She is a political and social commentator whose column appears Tuesdays.rochelle@rochellesquires.ca