Danielle Smith defends Alberta bill restricting assisted suicide from pro-euthanasia reporter

(LifeSiteNews) — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has defended a new bill placing severe limits on who can get euthanasia, after being hounded by legacy media about the law, saying she does not want “anyone to be counseled to end their life prematurely.”

Recently, during a press conference, a legacy media reporter asked Smith why her government does not “trust that Albertans and practitioners can make the right decision for themselves” when it comes to so-called “MAiD” (Medical Assistance in Dying).

“When we read stories about a young man repeatedly refused MAiD for his mental health condition in Ontario, able to fly across the country to BC and find an amenable doctor for it, we’re concerned about that,” Smith said in reply.

“When we hear of Veterans Affairs officials saying, counseling and encouraging people with PTSD to consider MAiD, these are things we want to stop.”

Smith added that she does not want “anyone to be counseled to end their life prematurely if they do not have a terminal illness.”

“And if we have to make that clear in law, we’ll make it clear in law. And I think it’s because of those stories that we keep reading about that we think it is time for government to act.”

READ: Pierre Poilievre had a golden opportunity to condemn assisted suicide. He failed to take it

As reported by LifeSiteNews, last week, Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) government, in a Canadian first, introduced a bill that would severely limit who can get euthanasia and ban it for minors. The UCP said that the bill is to “strengthen protections for vulnerable Albertans” as well as allow doctors and hospitals to refuse to offer assisted suicide.

The Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act, or Bill 18, said Smith “strengthens safeguards and restores clear limits on eligibility to protect vulnerable Albertans facing mental illness or living with disabilities.”

Bill 18, once it becomes law, will limit assisted suicide or so-called “MAiD” (Medical Assistance in Dying”) eligibility to those whose “natural death is reasonably foreseeable and prohibit MAiD where a natural death is not reasonably foreseeable, also known as Track 2 MAiD.”

The bill will also ban assisted suicide in Alberta for those under 18 and for those “whose sole condition is a mental illness.”

It would also let all physicians and health care facilities “refuse to assess or provide MAiD” as well as ban “physicians from making referrals for individuals to receive MAiD outside of Alberta.”

The new law will also restrict health care professionals from “initiating conversations about MAiD with a patient” and will mandate that euthanasia “providers” meet “education and training requirements and introduce sanctions for MAiD assessors and providers not complying with the law.”

While current federal assisted suicide rules already ban most of these conditions, there is a strong possibility that this will not remain the case in the future.

Because assisted suicide is federally legal, provinces can regulate the procedure but can’t ban it outright.

In February 2024, the federal government delayed the mental illness expansion until 2027 after pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups, as well as most of Canada’s provinces.

The Liberal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and now Mark Carney, however, has worked to expand euthanasia 13-fold since it was legalized in 2016. Canada now has the fastest-growing assisted-suicide program in the world. Meanwhile, Health Canada released a series of studies on advanced requests for assisted suicide.

Euthanasia is now the sixth-highest cause of death in Canada, after it was not listed in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.