Bill C-218 Medical Assistance in Dying
C-218 An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Medical Assistance In Dying)
Bill Type: Private Member’s Bill
Bill Sponsor: Tamara Jansen (Cloverdale—Langley City)
Status: Outside the Order of Precedence — First Reading June 20, 2025. This Bill hasn't passed yet.
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WHO GAINS POWER
- Parliament reasserts direct control over the definition of what qualifies as a grievous and irremediable medical condition — removing ministerial and regulatory flexibility on mental disorder eligibility
- Practitioners and assessors gain clarity — mental disorders are explicitly excluded, removing ambiguity in the current framework
WHO LOSES POWER
- Canadians whose sole underlying condition is a mental disorder lose the legal pathway to MAID — permanently under this Bill
- Physicians and nurse practitioners lose the ability to assess and approve MAID requests where mental disorder is the only condition
- Future Parliaments lose flexibility — the exclusion is written directly into the Criminal Code, requiring new Legislation to reverse
WHO GAINS MONEY
- No direct financial provisions in this Bill
WHO LOSES MONEY
- No direct financial provisions in this Bill
THE CATCH
- ⚠️ This Bill is unlikely to pass — it is an opposition Private Member's Bill introduced by a Conservative MP in a Liberal-majority Parliament
- ⚠️ MAID for mental disorders has never been available in Canada — Parliament has repeatedly delayed its implementation, most recently to March 2027. This Bill would make that delay permanent rather than temporary
- ⚠️ The preamble frames mental illness as a suicide prevention issue — critics argue this conflates MAID with suicide and stigmatizes mental illness as categorically untreatable
- ⚠️ The Bill does not define "mental disorder" — it relies on existing Criminal Code and medical definitions, which can evolve over time
- ⚠️ No accompanying mental health funding or support measures are included — the preamble states Parliament considers mental health supports a priority, but the Bill itself creates no such supports
- ⚠️ Coordinating amendments are included — the Bill is carefully drafted to work regardless of whether a related 2021 Act provision has come into force, suggesting this is a permanent Legislative fix, not a temporary measure