In this third part of The B.C. Catholic’s MAiD at 10 series examining the scale and impact of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, reporter Terry O’Neill examines Indigenous concerns surrounding MAiD, including warnings that euthanasia conflicts with traditional beliefs and may be replacing needed health care and supports.
As the Canadian Senate considered expanding MAiD eligibility in 2021, a group of 15 prominent Indigenous leaders complained they had not been properly consulted on the matter and, moreover, that they had “grave concerns” about legalized euthanasia’s adverse impact “on our vulnerable population.”
Parliament pressed ahead with the expansion despite the Indigenous concerns. The federal government then launched a program that focused more on better data collection and “listening” to diverse viewpoints than on protecting vulnerable Indigenous people from MAiD.
For at least one prominent MAiD critic, the federal government appeared more concerned with actively increasing Indigenous peoples’ access to MAiD than with improving the delivery of health services to them. health service delivery for them.
“It’s a sort of reverse discrimination,” Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said in an interview. “It’s horrible, because the Native community was saying, ‘We don’t want this.’”
Indigenous peoples were very clear that euthanasia does not fit with their cultural values, Schadenberg said. “And how does Health Canada respond? By focusing on ways to make it easier for Indigenous people to access MAiD.”
He said the evidence is in Health Canada’s Sixth Annual Report on MAiD, released last November with statistics from 2024. of last year, which focuses on 2024 statistics.
The report noted that Caucasians, who make up about 70 per cent of Canada’s population, accounted for 96 per cent of those receiving MAiD in 2024. Indigenous people, by contrast, represent about five percent of the population but only 0.4 percent of MAiD recipients.
“You’d think Health Canada might at least wonder why so many Caucasians were opting for MAiD, but it doesn’t, said Schadenberg. “But there’s a whole section on the Indigenous numbers, and it seems more concerned about improving data collection and addressing inadequate access to MAiD than about protecting Indigenous life.”
The section entitled “Indigenous people who received MAiD” reports that low euthanasia numbers among Indigenous persons may be due to challenges in accessing MAiD, as well as “distrust of the health care system, based on experiences of anti-Indigenous racism,” potential “discomfort and/or lack of understanding” regarding MAiD, and “potential disconnection between MAiD and Indigenous worldviews.”
Given that three of the four factors suggest Indigenous opposition to MAiD, Schadenberg wonders why more isn’t being done to protect them from euthanasia.
It’s a concern shared by Brendon Moore, national chief of Canada’s Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. As reported in August 2025 in Canada’s National Observer, Moore said MAiD’s availability, especially related to the looming March 2027 expansion of MAiD to those whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness, is especially troubling for communities that already experience high rates of suicide as a result of intergenerational trauma and systemic racism.
“We’re looking for an equitable opportunity to live first,” he said. “If we had culturally safe palliative care and mental health support, some people might choose that path instead of moving toward MAiD.”
Reporter Sonal Gupta summed up the problem by writing, “The nightmare scenario: MAiD could substitute investments in living supports and mental health care if underlying conditions aren’t addressed first.”
Moore did not respond to a request from the B.C. Catholic to comment further on the issue.
Gupta also reported that, according to a document obtained through an access-to-information request, the federal government invested more than $3.3 million in Indigenous-led MAiD consultations across the country. In fact, just weeks after Health Canada published its latest MAiD statistical report, it published a report on the results of those consultations.
The December 2025 report says Indigenous opinion on MAiD is generally divided into three camps: support without qualification, openness only in certain circumstances, and opposition. The report does not provide percentages for each group.
Among those opposed, some participants feared that MAiD might normalize or even encourage suicide, while others said there is an urgent need for accessible, culturally appropriate health care, mental health care, and life-promotion initiatives.
The report’s summary on Indigenous opposition points to strong moral, spiritual, and religious values as the foundation of that opposition. “They said that an end-of-life decision should not be made by humans and to control it through MAiD was to overstep human boundaries,” the report states. “Death should be left in the hands of a Creator, God or higher power.”
Some opponents also view MAiD as a continuation of colonial policies or a means to control and harm Indigenous peoples. “For them, MAiD is the same as murder, genocide or a sin and the systematic euthanasia of vulnerable people,” the report states. “Some participants felt that an individual could be coerced into choosing MAiD, with one participant saying that Indigenous peoples may be ‘bullied into a decision.’”
Pat Gray rested on her bed at Chilliwack General Hospital, her Bible at her side. She was 67 and dying of lung cancer.
As told to the B.C. Catholic by her daughter Bronwyn Gray, Pat was calm during those summer days two years ago as she prepared for what she believed could be her final journey.
Weakened by the disease that was taking her life, she could only speak in a whisper, but she could still read, and it was to her Bible that she turned in she and her family believed were her final days.
On one July morning, Pat’s doctor approached her as usual. This time, however, it wasn’t to ask how she was doing, but to offer to euthanize her by administering medical assistance in dying (MAiD).
Pat’s own account picks up the story:
“I quickly said no,” Pat said in a note she dictated to Bronwyn, “and then showed her my bookmark that said, ‘With God all things are possible.’ She agreed with me and then added that God uses tools to help us and that MAiD was a help for those in great pain.”
Pat said she felt saddened that, instead of offering hope, her doctor seemed to want her “gone.”
Bronwyn said her mother had every reason to be upset by the uninvited offer, and by what she perceived as an attempt to use her faith to justify it.
Pat used the moment to reflect more deeply on her beliefs.
“The doctor didn’t realize that God has such a BIG plan for His children, that one’s life, no matter what, is sacred and precious, that God through Jesus puts hope in our hearts daily to sustain us,” Pat wrote. “And if God wants to use my life longer for even one more miracle, it will be worth it.”
After Bronwyn finished typing the note, Pat initialled it simply: “P.G.”
Pat died naturally and peacefully, more than than three months later, on Oct. 29, and during that time she received the “one more miracle” she had hoped for.
It was not a physical healing, but a reconciliation. In the final weeks of her life, Pat was reunited with her estranged husband, who had left her and their four children more than 30 years earlier. After decades apart, and nearly 20 years after their divorce, the couple remarried.
“It’s almost prophetic, what happened,” Bronwyn said. “My father’s reconciliation with my mom definitely made a difference in my relationship with my dad—a positive one. It was healing for the whole family.”
The healing deepened when her father spoke at Pat’s funeral.
“It was beautiful how he honoured her,” Bronwyn said. “It was amazing.”
Bronwyn later chose to share her mother’s story through a film-based ministry she founded called WorthMore, which promotes the dignity of human life and offers support to those facing end-of-life decisions.
As the 10th anniversary of MAiD’s legalization approaches, stories like Pat Gray’s offer a response to what critics describe as a dominant cultural narrative that frames euthanasia as compassionate and inevitable.
A recent analysis by the Cardus think tank suggests public support for MAiD may not be as firmly grounded as often portrayed. Cardus’s Feb. 12 report said many Canadians misunderstand key aspects of the law.
More than a quarter of respondents in one poll confused MAiD with withdrawing treatment, while nearly 40 percent conflated it with palliative sedation.
Only 19.2 percent correctly understood that a person does not need to be terminally ill to qualify for MAiD, and only 20.7 percent knew that a person may refuse effective treatment and still be eligible.
“Canadians’ majority support for MAiD only as a last resort is incongruent with the law,” author Rebecca Vachon wrote.
That disconnect may help explain growing political resistance in some provinces.
On March 18, Alberta introduced the Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act, which would restrict aspects of MAiD within the province.
“I think that we’re failing in our duty to give people hope,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said.
The act would also pre-emptively ban MAiD for mature minors and advance requests, as recommended in February 2023 by Parliament’s Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying.
The legislation would prevent “regulated health professionals” from providing information about MAiD unless the patient raises it, effectively barring doctors from initiating the kind of potentially coercive, uninvited conversations reported in the cases of Pat Gray and, as noted in the April 27 B.C. Catholic, Catholic priest Father Larry Holland.
Some coverage of the legislation has framed it as a restriction on rights. Other voices argue it reflects growing concern about how far the system has expanded.
Patricia Murphy, program director at the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute, said media portrayals play a significant role in shaping public perception.
“People couldn’t imagine this 15 years ago,” she said. “Now they see it regularly portrayed in a positive light.”
Murphy pointed to what St. John Paul II described as the “conditioning power” of media.
“When the dignity and beauty of life—even in suffering—is shown, it shapes how people think,” she said.
She pointed to initiatives such as the Echoes palliative-care storytelling project, which highlights experiences of accompaniment rather than assisted death.
One such story tells of a dying physician who declined MAiD in order to demonstrate that “dying with dignity is dying loved.”
Catholic teaching continues to reject euthanasia while affirming the duty to care for the suffering. Resources such as the Archdiocese of Edmonton’s Hope and Dignity program emphasize that human life remains sacred and that suffering, while difficult, is not without meaning.
