this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
79 points (98.8% liked)
Canada
11920 readers
625 users here now
What's going on Canada?
Related Communities
🍁 Meta
🗺️ Provinces / Territories
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Northwest Territories
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Prince Edward Island
- Quebec
- Saskatchewan
- Yukon
🏙️ Cities / Local Communities
- Anmore (BC)
- Burnaby (BC)
- Calgary (AB)
- Comox Valley (BC)
- Edmonton (AB)
- East Gwillimbury (ON)
- Greater Sudbury (ON)
- Guelph (ON)
- Halifax (NS)
- Hamilton (ON)
- Kingston (ON)
- Kootenays (BC)
- London (ON)
- Mississauga (ON)
- Montreal (QC)
- Nanaimo (BC)
- Niagara Falls (ON)
- Niagara-on-the-Lake (ON)
- Oceanside (BC)
- Ottawa (ON)
- Port Alberni (BC)
- Regina (SK)
- Sarnia (ON)
- Saskatoon (SK)
- Squamish (BC)
- Thunder Bay (ON)
- Toronto (ON)
- Vancouver (BC)
- Vancouver Island (BC)
- Victoria (BC)
- Waterloo (ON)
- Whistler (BC)
- Windsor (ON)
- Winnipeg (MB)
Sorted alphabetically by city name.
🏒 Sports
Baseball
Basketball
Curling
Hockey
- Main: c/Hockey
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Montréal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Soccer
- Main: /c/CanadaSoccer
- Toronto FC
💻 Schools / Universities
- BC | UBC (U of British Columbia)
- BC | SFU (Simon Fraser U)
- BC | VIU (Vancouver Island U)
- BC | TWU (Trinity Western U)
- ON | UofT (U of Toronto)
- ON | UWO (U of Western Ontario)
- ON | UWaterloo (U of Waterloo)
- ON | UofG (U of Guelph)
- ON | OTU (Ontario Tech U)
- QC | McGill (McGill U)
Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.
💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales
- Personal Finance Canada
- Buy Canadian
- BAPCSalesCanada
- Canadian Investor
- Canadian Skincare
- Churning Canada
- Quebec Finance
- Canada Grown Business
🗣️ Politics
- General:
- Federal Parties (alphabetical):
- By Province (alphabetical):
🍁 Social / Culture
- 2 North American 4 You (Shitposting & Memes, North America focus)
- Ask a Canadian
- Bières Québec
- Canada Francais
- Canadian Gaming
- Eh Buddy Hoser (Shitposting & Memes, Canada focus)
- EhVideos (Canadian video media)
- First Nations
- First Nations Languages
- Indigenous
- Inuit
- Logiciels libres au Québec
- Maple Music (music)
Rules
- Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I do disagree with you a bit. MAID isn't like a take-a-number system, I don't think it would be aiding impulsive suicidal thoughts. There is a doctor involved who should be on the hook for how and why the call to permit MAID is handled. That's not perfect though.
That's a good point, but I think it's where I think you need someone with intimate knowledge of the situation to decide.
Denying someone MAID is also deciding if the person should live or die. You just don't like the "or die" part of that decision.
You are missing the point. You are doing that right now. You are deciding that they shouldn't die now, but later. You are deciding when other people should die.
Not at all. The default stance would be "I do not care one way or the other if someone has access to MAID."
By taking a stance against MAID, you are in fact deciding that they should not be able to die now. No one is asking you to personally do the killing, but you take umbrage with the idea that it would be accessible to people, so you are therefore deciding that they should be die now, but later.
I am not advocating for a stance for or against MAID. I have not stated my position on it. All of my comments are pointing out a flaw in your argument that I observed.
To decide whether their situation warrants MAID or not.
Sure, go ahead and pretend there's no nuance and phrase it that way.
I never said it was a decision for just anyone or an easy one. I said it's a decision that requires context and nuance.
It's like deciding who gets donated organs, when does a doctor declare brain death, when do you shut off the machines or give a large morphine dose, etc.
They're hard decisions. They need to be made with care.
Deciding not to allow MAID is also deciding who lives and dies, and how. But denying people the right to die can be a cruelty all on its own. This is a decision we need to make. It's healthcare, it's quality of life, it's managing suffering and pain with consent and thoughtfulness.
If you read my other comment in this thread it should be clear that I think MAID due to being poor is not acceptable at all. That’s a whole lot of failures all stacking up. It’s wrong and horrible.
Other countries do make these decisions. Usually they leave it to doctors to do in a sort of shadow and pretend it doesn’t happen and look the other way. There are other countries with MAID too.
Yeah I agree with you.
We need to fix the issues and we’ve massively widened the gaps in the system.
except it doesn't just because maid has been authorized it automatically happens. that decision is as it has always been placed with the one asking for it.
then lets not circle back around to who is involved and look at the results of not allowing it. the alternative is failed suicide attempts and long term suffering. assuming we can treat or make people jump through hoops or find some kind of grand arbiter just prolongs suffering and helps us look the other way as we force people poorly trained or in immense pain to figure it out themselves or put themselves/others in legal jeopardy in addition to suffering. If I have the right to life as long as it is not at the expense of others than i have the right to end it.
Mental Health Illnesses aren't just "oh I'm depressed, I should kill myself, humph!".
You're either very young, or very ill informed of mental health issues. Either way you should take time to learn about some of the different mental health disorders out there and what kind of hell living with some of them can be before speaking with such absolute conviction on a topic you know little to nothing about.
As for your
That's what the medical team is for. They don't just tell you to kill yourself because you had a bad day. Have you ever interacted with a medical team for a long term health issue for any length of time? It is a slow meticulous process of tests and treatments and elimination of options that can take years. Get your head out of your ass and use your brain for fuck sakes.
Have you even watched the Genvia session?
I have. It takes some liberties from the video it is citing to put it nicely.
failed suicide attempts are rarely clean or lead to deep reflection if they have already gone through the maid process. maid is not some kind of instant approval we do it in an hour situation. failed suicide attempts at this level are messy and tend to involve mutilation and even deeper suffering. You seem to assume i am ableist and completely ignore the fact that there are people who have and will suffer to the very end and want assistance in doing something that is inherently undignified with some dignity while not having to worry about a doctor or a family member being charged with manslaughter for being with them in their last moments. maid gives those people a pathway to self reflect before they make a rash decision. please familiarize yourself with maid and the process before misrepresenting how it works.
I watched a documentary about MAID in Canada and in a European country (where they allow MAID for depression) for a philosophy of law class. One of the people in the story was a young woman who was in the process of applying for MAID because she was suicidal. By the end of the documentary she had been approved but had chosen not to go through with it yet. She was keeping her approval in her back pocket while attending counselling as provided to her by the process.
She said having the approval made her feel a lot better, like she was back in control of her life.
I think it’s important to design a process like this where you can always back out, and you always retain control.
You talk them down as many times as you can but some people will still jump in front of that subway car and ruin a few people's lives.
True, but enough do act upon it that it's a big issue. When hope dies is when people die. The biggest problem is at provincial levels because they're the ones who decide what mental healthcare is paid for ... and right now it's very little. Usually only psychiatrists, but not psychologists, social workers, or any other mental health specialists. Those are all out-of-pocket and it's expensive. Nevermind remote regions who often don't have any.
This is not on the feds because they don't control healthcare. The provinces do, and when you've got provincial leaders who care more about giving away tax dollars to big business than caring for the people, dying by MAID becomes an easy solution to a provincial greed problem.
I didn't justify the use of MAiD. I just explained why it's being used by poor people.
Canada has always had a pathetic budget to fund biomedical research, because government assumed the US would pay the bills and we just buy the drugs.
Now, the US budget is zero, and we are paying hundreds of billions for drugs we should be making locally. This amplified under Trudeau and Carney, because CDN voters don't care. Carbon tax was the priority.
More than likely depression isn't the mental health condition this targets.
However you need the recommending and preforming doctor to sign off on it and be deemed able to consent the day of.
If you were suicidal the day they go to do it then you'd be disqualified.
It sucks for dementia patients because they can't sign off "when my mind goes". They have to do it before then.
Dying on your own terms isn't suicidal in the sense of mental illness/depression.
That is a massive over-simplification. MAID gives people the ability to die on their own terms.