A lead campaigner for Canada’s euthanasia programme may have chosen to live if adequate care had been available, according to reports.
Jean Truchon, who had cerebral palsy, was one of the key figures in campaigning to expand the scope of euthanasia and assisted suicide legislation in Canada in 2019 so that the law did not only apply to people whose death was ‘reasonably foreseeable’. Following his successful legal challenge in Quebec, in 2021, the Canadian Parliament ultimately repealed the requirement that the natural death of those applying for euthanasia or assisted suicide be “reasonably foreseeable”.
After Truchon’s life was ended by euthanasia in 2020 aged 51, he was praised for his contribution to the assisted suicide debate by François Legault, the Premier of Quebec, and then-Health Minister Danielle McCann.
However, in an email seen by The Telegraph from 2016, Truchon suggested he may not have wished to die at all if he had been able to access better care.
“In response to your question regarding home care, I think that indeed if there were services for 70 hours or more, I would have preferred to stay at home and possibly I would not have had the same desire to die”, he said in a letter transcribed by his psychologist.
Lives of disabled people “devalued”
Experts warned that the 2019 ruling risked “devaluing” the lives of people with disabilities and that assisted suicide would become an option for patients before all other options had been explored. Canadian MP Michael Cooper wrote “Now persons with disabilities qualify for state-administered death on the basis that they are disabled – stigmatising and devaluing the lives of persons with disabilities”.
“By removing any connection to the foreseeability of natural death, eligibility has become significantly more subjective. This has widened the door for potential abuse”.
Trudo Lemmens, professor of law at the University of Toronto, who initially supported Canada’s assisted suicide and euthanasia law, also highlighted the ease of access to assisted suicide in Canada, saying “It is a problematic oversight in Canadian law that people have access to [euthanasia and assisted suicide] even if there are other medical or social support options that could relieve their suffering”.
Dr Sonu Gaind, professor in the faculty of medicine at the University of Toronto, noted that assisted suicide was being readily offered as a “compassionate option” for “marginalised” Canadians. He said “Though Canadians have been reassured [euthanasia and assisted suicide are] compassionate option[s] only for those with incurable illness, our laws allow all sorts of social suffering to fuel [euthanasia and assisted suicide] requests”.
“I don’t think it’s ‘compassionate’ for the most marginalised people in society who suffer from poverty, lack of access to care or housing insecurity, to see state-facilitated euthanasia as their only option for relief”.
This was recently highlighted in the first official report on euthanasia and assisted suicide in Ontario, Canada: the ‘MAiD Death Review Committee Report’, in which 16 experts from various disciplines who reviewed MAiD (Medical assistance in dying) deaths in Ontario found that vulnerable people face “undue influence” and “potential coercion”.
Most of the committee “agreed that the MAiD process should give way to urgent social services intervention and maximize supportive healthcare options to reduce symptoms and suffering prior to proceeding with MAiD”.
Bill puts “enormous pressure” on disabled, elderly and poor to opt for assisted suicide
MPs shared their concerns during the Second Reading debate before Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide Bill passed its first hurdle at the end of November.
Labour MP Paulette Hamilton said the Bill “would place enormous pressure on disabled, elderly and poor people to opt to end their lives so as not to be a burden on their loved ones”.
Labour MP Anna Dixon said “Older and disabled people with a terminal illness may feel an unspoken pressure to go down the route of assisted dying to protect their inheritance, or because they do not want to be a burden”.
Danny Kruger referred to self-coercion, as opposed to external coercion from others such as family and the state, as the “bigger danger”.
“The Bill has nothing to say on that. Internal pressure is absolutely fine. If you feel worthless or a burden to others, if the NHS will not offer you the treatment you need, if the local authority will not make the adjustments you need to your home, if you have to wait too long for a hospital appointment, or if you want to die because you think the system has failed you, that is absolutely fine”, he said.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “Jean Truchon was a leading campaigner for euthanasia and assisted suicide, but his letter, which suggests he may have chosen to live had better care been available, indicates deeper problems with the euthanasia regime in Canada. This man needed assistance to live, not to die”.
“Truchon’s reservations should act as a warning for the UK. With the UK healthcare system in a state of crisis, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting describing the NHS as “broken”, Leadbeater’s dangerous Bill presents an acute threat to vulnerable people and people with disabilities”.
“The Bill still has a long way to go and serious concerns remain, even from those who voted in favour of the Bill. It can, and must be, defeated in Parliament”.
