Euthanasia by the numbers: Canadian doctors have already killed the equivalent of a small city

Caryn Lipson

September 16, 2024

This article about the extent of Canada's euthanasia program follows on from "Is euthanasia compassionate if offered to those who don’t want to die and doctors misjudge imminent death?" If you have not read the first article in the series, "White coat euthanasia: A license to kill in the name of care?" please read the preface.

Staggering numbers of people killed by doctors

During the eight years from 2016, when MAiD (medical assistance in dying) was legalized in Canada, through 2023, over sixty-thousand people were killed by doctors. In essence, healthcare professionals have became agents of death, being required to suggest the option to patients (including those who are just disabled or have a chronic illness) and/or by actively killing them. The annual numbers are staggering. As PJ Media's Ben Bartee reported, Canadian euthanists killed 13,241 people in 2022 alone.

Last year 4.1% of all deaths in Canada were due to MAiD (medical assistance in dying), according to the country’s health ministry. This amounts to a total of 13,241 people who died under Canada’s MAiD programme in 2022, marking a 31% rise on the previous year.

The numbers keep growing; an estimated 15,280 people were murdered by those calling themselves doctors in 2023, as reported by Daily Mail Social Affairs correspondent James Reinl.

Canada is on track to break euthanasia records once again with 15,280 doctor-assisted suicide deaths in 2023 — a 15 percent jump on the previous year, a campaign group warns . . .

MAiD now accounts for 4.6 percent of all fatalities — making it the most common cause of death after cancer, heart disease and accidental injuries, official data show. (Emphasis added.)

Director of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Alex Schadenberg compiled death figures (see image below) showing that about 60,238 people were put to death in the seven years after MAiD became law.

Sixth leading cause of death left off death statistics

TNC revealed that Statistics Canada does not include doctors killing patients in its list of Canada's leading causes of death, even though it was number six at the time. Instead, according to Statistics Canada, the deaths are recorded as related to illness they had which precipitated their killing, as author Isaac Lamoureux explained:

Health Canada’s fourth annual report on medical assistance in dying (MAID) highlighted 13,241 MAID deaths in 2022, positioning it as the sixth-leading cause of death in the country. MAID accounted for 4.1% of all deaths in Canada in 2022. However, this figure remains conspicuously absent from Statistics Canada’s annual mortality data.

, , , The leading causes of death, as per Statistics Canada’s report, were cancer (24.7%), heart disease (17.2%), COVID-19 (5.90%), accidents (unintentional injuries) (5.50%), cerebrovascular diseases (4.17%), and chronic lower respiratory diseases (3.73%).

. . .

“Causes of death are coded using the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) 10^th revision (ICD-10)… There is no code for MAID in the ICD,” Statistics Canada told the Epoch Times.‍

What does the disappearance of 60,000 people look like?

The equivalent of a small city is gone

In 2024 Canada's New Westminster has 58,549 people, Norfolk has 62,563, and Saint-Jérôme has 63,729.
In 2024 Florida's North Miami Beach has 59,008 people, The Hammocks has 59,843, and Palm Beach Gardens has 61,146.
In 1800 New York City had about sixty-thousand people.

A large stadium is empty

Canada's Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta has a capacity of 56,302. Quebec's Montreal Stadium seats 56,040.
California's Oakland Coliseum has a capacity of up to 64,829 for concerts.

An industry disappears

In Wisconsin, the beer industry, which employs over sixty thousand people, would be gone.

⪫⪫ Is it acceptable for doctors to kill the equivalent of a city?

How Does Canada compare?

California: 486, Canada: 10,064

By comparison, California has the same population as Canada but has just a fraction of the deaths from euthanasia that its neighbor to the north reports, according to Alexander Raiken for The New Atlantis.

One of the greatest reasons for concern is the sheer scale of Canada’s euthanasia regime. California provides a useful point of comparison: It legalized medically assisted death the same year as Canada, 2016, and it has about the same population, just under forty million. In 2021 in California, 486 people died using the state’s assisted suicide program. In Canada in the same year, 10,064 people used MAID to die.

A lesson from the Netherlands

Lynne Cohen, in her report on MAiD for C2C Journal, included statistics from the Netherlands (image below), which introduced medical killing in 2002, showing the ages of those killed in 2017 and the magnitude of increase in the fourteen years from 2002 to 2016.

‍An excerpt . . . from a report by the Netherlands’s Regional Euthanasia Review Committee showing the age distribution of assisted suicide and euthanasia cases in 2017. The total accounts for more than four percent of all deaths in the country, up from just over one percent when it was legalized in 2002. (Graph on right from consciencelaws.org)

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Live Action's Cassy Fiano-Chesser wrote about the resulting cessation of medical care in countries and states where euthanasia has been legalized.

MAiD expansion being planned

In March 2027, MAiD is scheduled to be extended to people whose only problem is mental illness.
Canada is considering extending MAiD to mature minors.
Quebec College of Physicians has demanded that MAiD become available to babies.

⪫⪫The equivalent of how many more cities will be eliminated if these expansions to MAiD go through?

Organ harvesting behind push for more MAiD?

Is Canada getting rid of "undesirables," people who are/would cost the government (taxpayer) money? Are their organs more valuable than their lives? White coat euthanasia and organ harvesting can often go hand in hand. This will be the topic of the next piece in the series, "MAiD for organ harvesting. Why Canada has more organ donors than other countries."

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