In a host of posts at BIOPOLITCAL PHILOSOPHY (for e.g., here, here, and here), in my monograph Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability, in “Disaster Ableism, Epistemologies of Crisis, and the Mystique of Bioethics” (my chapter in The Bloomsbury Guide to Philosophy of Disability), and in my forthcoming article in Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, I have aimed to demonstrate that philosophers and bioethicists (including feminist philosophers and bioethicists) have steadily created a culture of eugenics in Canadian philosophy and Canadian society more broadly, as well as within philosophy and societies elsewhere.
With their cherished trove of liberal constructs and rhetoric, for example, Canadian (feminist and other) bioethicists and philosophers have produced a discourse about euthanasia and assisted suicide from which the Liberal government of Canada has consistently drawn to justify, normalize, and extend its eugenic policies. The uncontested success of this discourse and its expansion, I have pointed out, requires (among other things) the continued exclusion of disabled philosophers and philosophy of disability from Canadian philosophy; for the continued exclusion of disabled philosophers and philosophy of disability from Canadian philosophy enables, among other things, the continued promotion within Canadian philosophy departments, bioethics courses, and Canadian society more widely, of MAiD as a “progressive” social policy.
Some corners of radical and genuinely progressive independent media in Canada have recognized, nevertheless, that MAiD–rather than a policy (or set of policies) that promotes the social values and practices that they should advance–has been incrementally designed to increasingly disenfranchise disabled people in Canada and render their lives unlivable, extinguishable by allegedly voluntary action. An article by Simon Spichak that appeared in The Breach this week is the latest intervention of this kind. Spichak’s article, “Canada Sidesteps UN Scrutiny Over Assisted Dying,” which constitutes this week’s quote-of-the-week post, is copied in its entirety below.
Canada sidesteps UN scrutiny over assisted dying
Calls by disability advocates and the UN to halt an expansion of medically assisted death have gone largely unacknowledged by the federal government
When the United Nations released a scathing report on Canada’s treatment of disabled people last spring—calling out inadequate financial supports and urging Ottawa to halt the expansion of medical assistance in dying—the federal government was silent.
Nearly a year later, it still is.
Internal government emails obtained by The Breach suggest officials anticipated little public scrutiny of the report, even as they acknowledged mounting anger from disability advocates, particularly over the federal government’s decision to eliminate a dedicated minister for disability.
The UN report and its recommendations weren’t “surprising to anyone listening to the disabled community,” said Gabrielle Peters, a disabled writer and policy analyst and co-founder of the Disability Filibuster. Disabled Canadians, she said, expressed the same concerns in government testimony, to the media, and to “anyone who would listen.”
Canada is not mandated to formally respond to the report; instead, it is reviewed internally. Ten months after it was released, The Breach asked federal departments for comment. They said they are still reviewing the UN’s recommendations, and are organizing a closed-door consultation. But the government has not publicly responded to the findings nor has it committed to holding public consultations on how they will be implemented.
Canada is required to respond to other recommendations issued by the United Nations and has done so faster. A periodic review on human rights issued in November 2023, which contained nearly three times as many recommendations, received an official response within five months. It took almost twice as long to table the UN disability report in Parliament and almost a year to organize a closed-door consultation.
This isn’t the first time Canada has been tight-lipped when criticized about medical assistance in dying, or MAiD. Three UN human rights experts cautioned Canada in 2021 about MAiD expansion but did not receive a formal response.
Enabling death ‘without safeguards’
In March 2025 Canadian officials met in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss Canada’s track record on disability. They were asked to justify how the expansion of MAiD differs from “state-sponsored eugenics.”
Rosemary Kayess, vice-chair of the UN’s disability rights committee, questioned officials about the 2021 creation of the Track 2 pathway for MAiD. Track 2 expands access to medical euthanasia to people with significant and irreversible medical conditions, whose deaths are not foreseeable, if they experience what the law defines as “substantial suffering.”
Under Canada’s MAiD framework, Track 2 exists alongside Track 1, the original pathway created under federal law in 2016. Track 1 is for people who meet the core eligibility criteria for MAiD and whose natural death is considered “reasonably foreseeable”—typically people with terminal or end-stage illnesses.
According to federal records, 16,499 Canadians died by medical assistance in dying in 2024, including 732 whose deaths were not considered reasonably foreseeable and who accessed MAiD through Track 2.
The UN committee was not satisfied with the responses they received. In a report they released a month later, they argued the federal court case that led to the creation of Track 2 MAiD established euthanasia based on “negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities.” It implied, they said, that suffering is intrinsic to disability rather than that “inequality and discrimination cause and compound ‘suffering.’”
According to the Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner, as well as federal government reports, women and marginalized individuals are more likely to access Track 2 MAiD. One woman, referred to as Mrs. B, was euthanized within one day because her husband was “experiencing caregiver burden.” The woman, who was in her 80s, experienced complications after a coronary artery bypass graft.
Critics also say MAiD advocates often ignore the role that systemic deprivation —including poverty, inadequate services, lack of access to publicly funded psychotherapy, and social isolation—has in shaping who seeks assisted death.
In 2022, a 51-year old woman known as Sophia, who lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, accessed MAiD after being unable to secure affordable housing with adequate ventilation that would ease her symptoms.
Disability rights and anti-poverty advocates say Track 2 MAiD exposes people already facing structural disadvantages to heightened risk. By offering death as a medical solution instead of addressing unmet support needs, the law leans on ableist assumptions that cast disabled lives as less valuable, and disability-related suffering as exceptional and inherently unbearable.
As a result, the UN committee recommended repealing Track 2 MAiD and pausing a further expansion of MAiD.
The federal government has been considering expanding MAiD so that people with mental illness as their only underlying medical condition could qualify. That expansion has been delayed until 2027 to allow more time for provincial health systems to prepare.
There is significant controversy over this expansion. Supporters say it’s illogical and discriminatory to deny MAiD to those with mental illness as their sole underlying condition, particularly those suffering from what are known as “treatment resistant” disorders. This position is promoted by a well-funded pro-MAiD group, Dying with Dignity, that repeatedly lobbied members of Canada’s Special Joint Committee on MAiD while they were deliberating expansion in 2023.
Critics, however, point out that it has so far proved impossible to determine whether someone’s mental illness is truly untreatable. The International Association for Suicide Prevention, an official partner of the UN, echoed similar concerns.
The report recommended investments to alleviate poverty, improve access to health care and housing, prevent gender-based violence, and provide more employment and health care supports.
Canada had previously ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on March 11, 2010, formally committing to protect the dignity and rights of people with disabilities.
An ‘illusion of involvement’
For almost 10 months after the report was released, the Government of Canada did not issue a response. When The Breach asked for comment on the report in January, a spokesperson for the Public Health Agency of Canada wrote over email that “Participating in the committee’s review was an important exercise in accountability, reflection, and dialogue.” They said the recommendations have been shared internally through Canada’s National Mechanism for Implementation, Reporting and Follow-Up on human rights.
But they won’t be subject to public discussion, as it isn’t mandated.
“Though there is no consultation process on the Committee’s recommendations, we continue to listen to the advice of experts, health care providers, and people with lived experience on the federal legal framework for MAID,” the spokesperson wrote.
A spokesperson for Health Canada added that organizations, including ones the government has previously consulted on disability, will be invited to a closed-door engagement roundtable on February 26 to discuss “priorities and opportunities” for collaborating on the report’s recommendations. The participant list is still being finalized with no public details available.
“The government’s default is to turn to disability charities as a proxy for disabled people,” said Peters. But she questions whether these charities are truly conveying the concerns of to disabled Canadians or if they act as a moat shielding the status quo.
Many such groups rely heavily on government funding. According to Stats Canada, more than half of the funding for non-profits in the social services sector comes from government sources. Peters questions if these non-profits can provide more than “controlled opposition” to government policy.
She called the government’s consultation on disability “An illusion of involvement that props up a policy of horror disguised by euphemisms and omissions.”
For disability advocate Sarah Colero, the trust between the government and the disabled community has long since evaporated because “even when they do hold public consultations and include disabled people in the process, they still do the opposite of what is suggested.” For example, when the federal government asked for feedback on the proposed Canada Disability Benefit, it received more than 3,000 comments from 1,000 individuals and organizations but made no meaningful changes to its proposal.
Federal supports ‘woefully inadequate’
Last year marked the ill-fated rollout of the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB), which pays out up to $200 per month to some disabled Canadians. The program has been criticized by disability advocates and analysts for being inadequate and only lifting about two per cent of recipients above the poverty line.
Narrow eligibility rules also mean hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities who rely on provincial programs are excluded from the benefit, while complex application requirements deter others from applying.
The UN report calls the benefit “woefully inadequate” and overly bureaucratic, and criticizes the income-testing requirements for disability allowance. These requirements reduce the amount given to people who have a full-time job, live with a partner or spouse, join a rehabilitation facility for treatment, or travel outside their province.
“The federal government is also continuing to engage regularly with provincial and territorial governments with the intent to maximize the benefit of the CDB to eligible persons with disabilities,” an Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) spokesperson wrote to The Breach.
Alberta is clawing back the benefit from individuals who receive other provincial assistance, and despite federal efforts to coordinate with the province, these reductions have not been stopped.
Unprepared for attention
On June 25, 2025, The Breach filed an access to information request with ESDC to obtain any documents or communications related to the UN report from between March 1, 2025 and June 24, 2025.
In one email, ESDC manager Mariejosee Therrien, writing to employees at the Department of Canadian Heritage, described “significant concern” from the disabled community.
In a follow-up email, they wrote: “I usually wouldn’t anticipate much attention on this at all either but we currently have a very engaged community that is extremely disappointed and vocal about not having a Minister for disability.”
In response, Annik Lussier of the Department of Canadian Heritage noted that previous tabling of UN reports, including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Universal Periodic Review, had elicited no questions from parliamentarians and no media coverage, and predicted “a very low chance” that this report would draw more interest.
Email correspondence received from this request suggested that Parliament would table the concluding observations from the UN report in the second week of June 2025.
According to Samuelle Carbonneau, a spokesperson from the ESDC, this was delayed because it overlapped with the annual Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The concluding observations were tabled five months later on November 19, 2025.
Almost a year after the report’s release, there is no plan to substantially act on any of the UN’s recommendations. Government officials guessed right: mainstream news outlets have largely ignored the report’s criticisms of MAiD. Meanwhile, the situation for disabled Canadians—the poverty, health-care inequity, and other systemic neglect contributing to these deaths—remains unchanged.
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Read/listen to the original version of the article at The Breach here: https://breachmedia.ca/canada-sidesteps-un-scrutiny-over-assisted-dying/
BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 