Canada Killing Prisoners via Assisted Suicide Decades after Capital Punishment Ban

Canada is letting prisoners end their lives through assisted suicide decades after banning capital punishment, according to newly released federal data.

In 2025 alone, 12 federal inmates requested assisted suicide, which Canada calls Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD), according to an Order Paper response from the Correctional Service of Canada. 

Since 2018, at least 15 inmates have died by assisted suicide while in federal custody, according to data reported by the Daily Mail. Over this period, 67 prisoners applied for assisted suicide after it was legalized nationwide in 2016.

Canada abolished the death penalty for civilian crimes in 1976 and removed it from military law in 1998. Life imprisonment replaced capital punishment for murder and other serious offenses. Even so, the state now permits prisoners to request physician-assisted death while serving their sentences.

The Correctional Service of Canada has reported an increase in assisted suicide requests following the expansion of eligibility rules under the country’s liberal government.

Assisted suicide was legalized in 2016 under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for patients with terminal illnesses. Since then, the government has broadened eligibility to include individuals whose deaths are not imminent.

Canada Euthanized a Record 16,499 Patients

 A record 16,499 people died by euthanasia in Canada in 2024, accounting for 5.1% of all deaths in the country.

According to the latest report on “medical assistance in dying” (MAiD) from Health Canada released at the end of last month, there was a 6.9% increase in state-assisted deaths in Canada in 2024.

In 2024, although assisted suicide is permitted, in which the person who wishes to end their own life self-administers the lethal substance, there was not a single case of assisted suicide. Instead, every single person who died under Canada’s MAiD programme died by euthanasia. In 2023, there were fewer than five instances of assisted suicide.

Minelli Approved the Deaths of 4,200 Men and Women. Then He Killed Himself.

Raimundo Rojas  |   Dec 3, 2025   |  Washington, DC.

The day Ludwig Minelli died, November 29, 2025, he was in the same sterile blue room where he had approved the deaths of over 4,200 men and women.

The founder and main profiteer of Dignitas ingested the poison his organization had perfected, calling it a final victory. It was a chilling climax to a lifetime spent convincing desperate people that the world is better off without them.

Minelli grew up the eldest child of a Swiss house painter, with no signs of personal trauma or a tragic loss pushing him toward advocating for assisted death. He didn’t care for a dying spouse. He didn’t lose a child. No major tragedy molded him. What shaped him was cold ideology, cloaked in the noble language of rights, autonomy, and mercy, but beneath every polished phrase lurked an old, murderous lie: some lives aren’t worth living.

In 1998, Minelli turned his deadly lie into a thriving business, setting up in a quiet residential area on Gloria Street in Zurich. From the start, the bodies started to pile up. He welcomed people with treatable depression, disabled individuals who had spent decades proving their worth, terrified elderly men and women, and even healthy people feeling weary; he asked almost no questions, took their fees, and handed them death in a plastic cup.

Quebec has the Highest Euthanasia Death Rate in the World, Will Great Britain Be Next?

According to the 2024-25 report of the Commission on end-of-life care, medics directly killed 6,268 people in Quebec, accounting for almost one in every twelve deaths.

Politicians at Westminster and Holyrood are currently scrutinizing legislation that would allow state-sponsored suicide across Great Britain.

Self-coercion

The Commission noted that the number of “MAID (Medical Aid in Dying) procedures administered and the proportion of deaths resulting from MAID” have been on the rise in the province since euthanasia was legalised in 2015.

During the study period, 7.9 per cent of all deaths were attributed to MAID, an increase of nine per cent on the previous year.

More than half cited feeling a burden on family, friends or caregivers as a reason they chose euthanasia, while 24 per cent said they wished to die because they felt lonely or isolated.

Approximately 4 per cent of people received MAID “on the same day or the day after signing the official form”, and there were 19 reports of “non-compliance”, where the patient’s death did not meet all the legal criteria.