By Ian McIntosh, Executive Director, Not Dead Yet, 12/03/25, pictured here.
This year's focus on disability inclusivity as the predicate for social development (including economics, employment, social service systems, etc.) feels practically defiant in view of (and certainly at odds with) several international developments this year regarding legalization and expansion of assisted suicide and euthanasia which, rather than promoting inclusivity, sanction elimination of disabled people from society.
Among them, and hot off the federal government presses, Health Canada just five days ago released the Sixth Annual Report on Medical Aid in Dying in Canada. In it, continued and increasing disturbing trends for nonterminal disabled Canadians showcase anything but a disability inclusive society that is advancing social progress.
The following are among the most harrowing storytelling statistics about the "Track 2" cohort -- those who qualify for state-sanctioned assisted suicide or euthanasia whose death is not reasonably foreseeable, but who have a "serious and incurable illness, disease, or disability that causes intolerable suffering":
- In 2024, 732 Canadians were given state-sanctioned assisted suicide and euthanasia under Track 2, a 17% increase since last year; a 56% increase to 2022's figures; a 227% increase to 2021's figures; and a nearly a net 4,000% increase since Track 2 deaths were reported in 2020 as 18 deaths. This is fast upward trendline.
- Of those Canadians receiving state-sanctioned assisted suicide or euthanasia in 2024, the percentage of those whose need and receipt of disability support services is "unknown" is uncomfortably high across provinces, with one province noting 42% of its recipients under this category. Though likely underreported, 151 people who received assisted deaths are noted as requiring but never receiving disability support services.
- 65 Canadians with nonterminal diseases or disabilities under the age of 55 were among the Track 2 assisted suicide / euthanasia deaths last year.
- 43% of Canadians with nonterminal diseases or disabilities who died under Track 2 in 2024 had had their diagnosis less than five years.
- 78.7% of Track 2 recipients of assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada reported their nature of suffering which helped qualify them was a loss of independence.
- 85.1% of them reported their nature of suffering included an inability to perform activities of daily living.
- Half of those (50.3%) who died by assisted suicide or euthanasia under Track 2 perceived they were a burden on their family, friends, and caregivers.
- 44.7% said that their nature of suffering included isolation or loneliness.
The aforementioned statistics paint the bleak picture of our neighbor to the north, my country of origin, as running counterpoint to a disability inclusive society given that it has become chillingly normative for the government to report, as completely acceptable, that hundreds and hundreds of Canadians with nonterminal disabilities, who are stating that their lack of ability to perform activities of daily living is motivating their decision to kill themselves, scores of whom may need and not be receiving disability support services from the government, are being assisted in their suicide or actively euthanized each year. And this says nothing of the over 15,000 Track 1 deaths in Canada last year, the combination of which represented nearly 5% of all deaths in Canada last year.
Earlier this year, the UN cried foul on this tragic indifference of the Canadian government when the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities specifically called on Canadian government to repeal its Track 2 program, citing that the program is based on "negative, ableist perceptions of the quality and value of the life of persons with disabilities, including that 'suffering' is intrinsic to disability rather than the fact that inequality and discrimination cause and compound 'suffering' for persons with disabilities." The Committee went on to note that the state party was enabling their deaths but not guaranteeing supports for their lives.
Taking it States side as we reflect here on how we in America can work toward a more disability-inclusive society -- in contrast to the Canadian march to the opposite -- surely we can agree that we should both support more investments into robust disability support services and reject any state's effort to rationalize state-sanctioned assisted death of disabled lives.
For the remainder of this year, during the holiday season no less and as a challenging 2026 looms, our attention must turn to New York and Illinois, toward Governor Kathy Hochul and Governor J.B. Pritzker and the eugenical assisted suicide bills that await our best efforts to stop them before they are allowed to endanger those states' most vulnerable populations.
Part 2 to follow: Disability Rights Organizations Letter Urges Governor Hochul to Veto Assisted Suicide Bill.
In Solidarity,
Ian McIntosh, Executive Director
Not Dead Yet.