February 24, 2025
BCCLA stands by our extensive work to make the right to choose MAiD a reality in Canada and the immense, unnecessary suffering that has been prevented since the right to MAiD was recognized by our courts.
Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) is a complex, sensitive, and nuanced issue. There are many differing views about it, including within disability communities.
As a civil liberties organization, our work has always emphasized the importance of choice, agency, and bodily autonomy. It is this same set of values that requires us to stay informed about concerns around coercion regarding MAiD, particularly from communities of people with disabilities, and to receive and consider current reports to understand the true nature and extent of this possible threat to civil liberties. We do not shy away from engaging with voices that challenge our positions or from considering new information as it becomes available.
If MAiD is administered absent legally required safeguards, or offered as an alternative to necessary social supports including available but costly healthcare, then the potential for coercion arises. BCCLA is carrying out our work in a manner consistent with our mandate to protect, defend, sustain, and extend civil liberties and human rights. We are also working consistently with our goal to ensure that MAiD remains legal and accessible in Canada.
BCCLA has not called for a review of safeguards.
Recent media coverage referred to BCCLA staff comments that were surreptitiously recorded and shared with media in an attempt to discredit our past work to advance MAiD. These comments do not and were never intended to represent BCCLA’s policy position on MAiD. In response to media coverage, BCCLA commented, as we always have, that effective safeguards are necessary to ensure that MAiD remains accessible and legal, and that the government is responsible for setting and reviewing these safeguards. This is all the more relevant in light of cases challenging the right to access MAiD on the basis that it is discriminatory (see for example: https://inclusioncanada.ca/2024/09/27/press-release-disability-rights-coalition-challenges-discriminatory-sections-of-canadas-assisted-dying-law-in-court/).
We will continue to stand by the right to choose a dignified death. We will also continue to act courageously in testing our positions and responding to new and emerging information as legal and social landscapes change, with the aim of developing an informed, clear, and well-reasoned position. We believe that appropriate and adequate safeguards strengthen the right to MAiD, rather than weaken it.
As a civil liberties organization that champions free expression, we invite rigorous debate and believe that it is often through this discourse and disagreement that the best positions are reached. We will continue to hold governments accountable as our work around MAiD evolves, recognizing MAiD’s role in reducing intolerable suffering and the importance of preserving bodily autonomy and the right to choose.
