The scale of growth of Canada’s assisted-dying industry has become an easy talking point for skeptics both in Canada and abroad. The New York Post, in typical tabloid fashion, announced that Canada will “soon cross the sickly six-figure threshold” of 100,000 deaths by medical assistance in dying (MAID), noting the figure will surpass the number of Canadian deaths during the Second World War. Conservative MPs cited that figure in social-media posts, adding that what was once pegged as a “last resort” has metamorphosed into an entirely different operation. During a press conference announcing new restrictions on MAID in Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith noted the pace of growth in MAID deaths in cautionary terms (up 64 per cent nationally between 2021 and 2024), saying these trends “should give anyone pause.”
