Claire Elyse Brosseau to seek emergency relief to receive MAID — Statement from DWDC CEO Helen Long
Toronto, Monday, May 4, 2026… Dying With Dignity Canada is the national human-rights charity committed to improving quality of dying, protecting end-of-life rights, and helping people across Canada avoid unwanted suffering.
Following the Carter vs Canada decision, in 2016 medical assistance in dying, or MAID, became a legal end-of-life option in Canada for those who meet the eligibility criteria. In 2021, Canada’s MAID legislation was amended to remove the eligibility requirement that natural death be reasonably foreseeable.
Despite courts in Canada concluding that people with mental illnesses as their sole condition are not excluded from accessing MAID, a clause was included in that 2021 amendment, which saw individuals whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness excluded from MAID eligibility. This exclusion was only meant to last two years.
In 2023 this exclusion was extended an additional year. Then in 2024 it was extended for a further three years. These five years of unnecessary and painful delay and discrimination impact one small but very specific group of people — individuals living with grievous and irremediable mental illnesses. It discriminates against a category of people who already face stigma and prejudice in Canadian society.
In August of 2024, more than 18 months ago, Dying With Dignity Canada, along with Claire Elyse Brosseau and Dr. Patricia Smith, filed a court challenge with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice arguing that the exclusion of individuals living with grievous and irremediable mental illness from MAID eligibility is discriminatory and violates the right to equality protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Politicians insist that all people with mental illnesses need to be protected from themselves. A belief that demonstrates the stigmatizing and paternalistic attitudes our society still holds. Instead of showing compassion, the way we show to other suffering, severely ill people, they convey the message that the suffering of those with mental illness is less serious, less devastating, than those with physical illnesses.
Our full record was filed in July 2025, more than nine months ago. The government has now failed to meet multiple deadlines for responding to our court challenge, leaving Claire and others in her situation in a cruel, unbearable limbo.
Today we are here to talk about the step Claire is now forced to take, in the face of government silence, as she endures intolerable suffering and has reached her limits.
I’ll pass the microphone to Michael Fenrick, legal counsel for Claire and for Dying With Dignity Canada on this case.
— Helen Long, CEO, Dying With Dignity Canada
