According to the most recent federal figures, of the 326,230 deaths registered in Canada in 2024, 16,499 were medically assisted. That year, Ontario reported 4,944, and British Columbia 2,997. Quebec registered the highest rate of medical assistance in dying, or MAID, by any jurisdiction in the world, contributing 36.3 percent of medically assisted deaths that occurred in the country.

If one were to classify MAID as a cause of death in Canada, in 2024 it would have been the fourth after cancer, heart conditions, and accidents, and ahead of cerebrovascular diseases. Consistent with previous years, the vast majority of medically assisted deaths in 2024 were for people of a median age of seventy-eight whose natural deaths were considered reasonably foreseeable, with 4.4 percent for people of a median age of seventy-six who might otherwise live indefinitely (albeit intolerably).

In Canada, how people die with medical assistance varies legally: legislation defined eligibility criteria but not how the death was to occur. Trends emerged: 99.99 percent of medically assisted deaths in Canada have been instances of active euthanasia—for obvious reasons. Whereas assisted suicide usually involves an anti-nauseant, the passage of an hour, and drinking half a cup of lethal liquid with or without observation, active euthanasia—directly administered by a medical or nurse practitioner—consists of the three-drug cocktail midazolam (an anxiolytic), propofol (a coma-inducing sedative), and rocuronium (a paralytic) injected in this sequence. It has a near-zero failure rate, and death typically occurs within minutes.

Born in Ottawa, Ian Michael Ball is an associate professor in the Division of Critical Care Medicine and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Western University, a trauma physician with the London Health Sciences Centre Trauma Program, and the Critical Care Medicine lead for Southwestern Ontario. He was among the first physicians in Canada to administer MAID. With an LHSC ethicist, Ball was instrumental in developing a step-by-step procedural guide for hospitals across the country establishing MAID programs.