I'm Native American and know of the wildly disproportionate rates of suicide among Native Americans so I looked up the rates among First Nations people in Canada. I was not surprised to learn the suicide rates among First Nations people are approximately three times higher than among non-Indian people. In some tribes, the rate is up to 25 times higher. Since assisted suicide is legal in Canada then are First Nations people also disproportionately represented in that form of suicide? If not then why would a suicidally-prone group not also participate in disproportionate numbers in assisted suicide? Apart from cultural and religious reasons, I immediately thought of one potential factor: lack of access to quality healthcare. So here's a bizarre question to ask: Are white Canadians disproportionately committing assisted suicide because they have better healthcare?
The Indigenous nations seem to be under-represented in MAID deaths. There were only 166 recipients who identified as First Nation, Metis or Inuit:
"A total of 15,927 people who received MAID responded to the question on racial, ethnic or cultural identity. The vast majority (95.6%) identified as Caucasian (White). The second most commonly reported racial, ethnic or cultural identity was East Asian (1.6%). These percentages are close to those reported for 2023 (95.8% Caucasian; 1.8% East Asian).
• A total of 16,115 people who received MAID in 2024 responded to the question on Indigenous identity: 102 people self-identified as First Nations, 57 people self-identified as Métis and 7 people self identified as Inuit. " (p. 4)
I doubt that access to healthcare is a factor. Wait times tend to be longer in Quebec than in Ontario, yet whites are proportionately less at risk of euthanasia in Quebec.
Wonderful essay. There are so many influencing factors here that keeping them all in mind must have been like juggling ten balls at once. Incredibly, I came away with a clear understanding of which factors are likely playing a role in this phenomenon and to what degree, and the whole thing has the smell of something unpleasant though not surprising.
As Peter Frost said, this topic warrants more work and with more up-to-date statistics, but I can well imagine this avenue of research representing a damning piece of evidence against the anti-white wokeness of those who run our countries and our institutions.
I hope to get more data. For me the "smoking gun" is the difference between the national total of MAID deaths and the combined provincial/territorial total of MAID deaths.
That difference is about a thousand individuals, and almost all of the white over-representation is confined to those individuals. If this discrepancy is due to the address field being left blank, what does that tell us? It seems to tell us that the excess white mortality is occurring in certain institutions where MAID requests are rubberstamped if they come from Euro-Canadians.
I don't know the full story, and I suspect that certain people don't want too much questioning on this point.
Why wouldn't an institution include the address? Can't be bothered? Is the address the name of the institution or the person's address prior to being admitted to the institution?
I think a contributing factor to the wider adoption of MAID is that Canadians are overly trusting of the government, often to their detriment. The social welfare dependency is quite pervasive. And when you market this with the usual buzzwords of compassion and dignity to tweak the perceived morals of the populace they’ll sign on gladly.
Canadians have created a high-trust society where you can take people at their word, especially people in authority. Unfortunately, that kind of society works only when you have a mechanism to expel people who are not trustworthy.
That mechanism no longer exists, since it constitutes a form of discrimination. So we extend our trust to people who have done nothing to earn our trust. In the case of untrustworthy public officials, it's becoming impossible to get rid of them. We now have a large permanent government that stays in power regardless of any election outcome.
My initial reaction is that white Canadians are more likely to be plugged into the system and know how it works, better able to navigate it, as happens for other types of care, like cancer care and joint surgery. The article really got me thinking about it.
As a (now-retired) white physician who never had occasion to deal personally with requests for euthanasia, I can confirm that it is easier to have long involved discussion about wishes and preferences and values with people who more or less share one's cultural background....and who speak English as a first language. I can't imagine doing a MAiD discussion through an interpreter or those telephone translator services that were becoming in wide use when I retired. They were fine for explaining what a colonoscopy was, and the small risk of perforation, but for DNR discussions they got seriously overwhelmed. Sometimes the human on the other end of the machine was uncomfortable even rendering the discussion, which of course was very common with family members interpreting (and editorializing) at the bedside.
Also, going by DNR, I think the more religiously oriented non-white cultures have more deep seated opposition to doctors killing people and are unlikely even to bring it up as a request. "Do everything, Doctor", is their default, at least it was in DNR discussions -- they rarely agreed to DNR.
Also I think white doctors are worried (subconsiously) that if they euthanize too many non-whites, they will get accused of racism if anyone reviews their individual statistics. Even though all euthanasia requests are supposed to come from the patient, not from us, -- "Have you ever considered MAiD?" is improper I think -- I think most of us would be relieved that it was a white patient making the request. If an aboriginal patient made the request, we'd be worried that we would run afoul of some cultural competency shared-decision-making thing we didn't even know about and the family and the whole First Nation would get on our case about it, complaining to our licensing regulator.
With regard to your first point, my impression is almost the opposite. White Canadians tend to feel guilty about abusing the system. There is also a widespread belief among older Canadians (like my late mother) who felt that doctors kill more people than they save. She tried to stay away from hospitals as much as possible.
It's hard to generalize about immigrant groups, but many of them seem to be more savvy than Canadian-born people when it comes to accessing health care. They are aware of the long wait times and will often book appointments at the first sign of illness, knowing they can cancel if it turns out to be nothing to worry about.
I suspect that many immigrant physicians readily approve MAID requests because they don't want to argue with a white person. So the approval may be more a gesture of respect than anything else. Again, we need better and more recent data to answer this question with any certainty.
Everyone should review the short documentary Extremis on Netflix before discussing end of life care. The difference is that some groups are more willing to continue suffering while praying for a miracle. Maybe whites are more willing to admit that a miracle is not coming.
If that were so, whites should be more over-represented in Track 1 deaths — where there is a medical justification of foreseeable death. Instead, we see the opposite: whites are more likely to be euthanized where there is no medical justification, and presumably no physical suffering.
It's understandable you feel that way, as that's the norm we've all been conditioned to.
But perhaps it's time to reevaluate why something that's acceptable, even celebrated, for every other group is somehow disapproved of when Euros want to do it.
It's a double standard. Frankly, it's anti-White racism.
I wanted to put all possible explanations on the table. If you had read further, you would have found that I largely discount this explanation, as well as the more general explanation that Euro-Canadians have a greater desire to be euthanized.
Obviously, New Found land, Quebec and Alberta do not have the right point of view. Executing evil people is always good, right? Unless they've committed a crime. Then it's wrong.
I really think Canada has a MAIDS epidemic
I'm Native American and know of the wildly disproportionate rates of suicide among Native Americans so I looked up the rates among First Nations people in Canada. I was not surprised to learn the suicide rates among First Nations people are approximately three times higher than among non-Indian people. In some tribes, the rate is up to 25 times higher. Since assisted suicide is legal in Canada then are First Nations people also disproportionately represented in that form of suicide? If not then why would a suicidally-prone group not also participate in disproportionate numbers in assisted suicide? Apart from cultural and religious reasons, I immediately thought of one potential factor: lack of access to quality healthcare. So here's a bizarre question to ask: Are white Canadians disproportionately committing assisted suicide because they have better healthcare?
The Indigenous nations seem to be under-represented in MAID deaths. There were only 166 recipients who identified as First Nation, Metis or Inuit:
"A total of 15,927 people who received MAID responded to the question on racial, ethnic or cultural identity. The vast majority (95.6%) identified as Caucasian (White). The second most commonly reported racial, ethnic or cultural identity was East Asian (1.6%). These percentages are close to those reported for 2023 (95.8% Caucasian; 1.8% East Asian).
• A total of 16,115 people who received MAID in 2024 responded to the question on Indigenous identity: 102 people self-identified as First Nations, 57 people self-identified as Métis and 7 people self identified as Inuit. " (p. 4)
I doubt that access to healthcare is a factor. Wait times tend to be longer in Quebec than in Ontario, yet whites are proportionately less at risk of euthanasia in Quebec.
Wonderful essay. There are so many influencing factors here that keeping them all in mind must have been like juggling ten balls at once. Incredibly, I came away with a clear understanding of which factors are likely playing a role in this phenomenon and to what degree, and the whole thing has the smell of something unpleasant though not surprising.
As Peter Frost said, this topic warrants more work and with more up-to-date statistics, but I can well imagine this avenue of research representing a damning piece of evidence against the anti-white wokeness of those who run our countries and our institutions.
I hope to get more data. For me the "smoking gun" is the difference between the national total of MAID deaths and the combined provincial/territorial total of MAID deaths.
That difference is about a thousand individuals, and almost all of the white over-representation is confined to those individuals. If this discrepancy is due to the address field being left blank, what does that tell us? It seems to tell us that the excess white mortality is occurring in certain institutions where MAID requests are rubberstamped if they come from Euro-Canadians.
I don't know the full story, and I suspect that certain people don't want too much questioning on this point.
Why wouldn't an institution include the address? Can't be bothered? Is the address the name of the institution or the person's address prior to being admitted to the institution?
Interesting piece
I think a contributing factor to the wider adoption of MAID is that Canadians are overly trusting of the government, often to their detriment. The social welfare dependency is quite pervasive. And when you market this with the usual buzzwords of compassion and dignity to tweak the perceived morals of the populace they’ll sign on gladly.
Canadians have created a high-trust society where you can take people at their word, especially people in authority. Unfortunately, that kind of society works only when you have a mechanism to expel people who are not trustworthy.
That mechanism no longer exists, since it constitutes a form of discrimination. So we extend our trust to people who have done nothing to earn our trust. In the case of untrustworthy public officials, it's becoming impossible to get rid of them. We now have a large permanent government that stays in power regardless of any election outcome.
My initial reaction is that white Canadians are more likely to be plugged into the system and know how it works, better able to navigate it, as happens for other types of care, like cancer care and joint surgery. The article really got me thinking about it.
As a (now-retired) white physician who never had occasion to deal personally with requests for euthanasia, I can confirm that it is easier to have long involved discussion about wishes and preferences and values with people who more or less share one's cultural background....and who speak English as a first language. I can't imagine doing a MAiD discussion through an interpreter or those telephone translator services that were becoming in wide use when I retired. They were fine for explaining what a colonoscopy was, and the small risk of perforation, but for DNR discussions they got seriously overwhelmed. Sometimes the human on the other end of the machine was uncomfortable even rendering the discussion, which of course was very common with family members interpreting (and editorializing) at the bedside.
Also, going by DNR, I think the more religiously oriented non-white cultures have more deep seated opposition to doctors killing people and are unlikely even to bring it up as a request. "Do everything, Doctor", is their default, at least it was in DNR discussions -- they rarely agreed to DNR.
Also I think white doctors are worried (subconsiously) that if they euthanize too many non-whites, they will get accused of racism if anyone reviews their individual statistics. Even though all euthanasia requests are supposed to come from the patient, not from us, -- "Have you ever considered MAiD?" is improper I think -- I think most of us would be relieved that it was a white patient making the request. If an aboriginal patient made the request, we'd be worried that we would run afoul of some cultural competency shared-decision-making thing we didn't even know about and the family and the whole First Nation would get on our case about it, complaining to our licensing regulator.
With regard to your first point, my impression is almost the opposite. White Canadians tend to feel guilty about abusing the system. There is also a widespread belief among older Canadians (like my late mother) who felt that doctors kill more people than they save. She tried to stay away from hospitals as much as possible.
It's hard to generalize about immigrant groups, but many of them seem to be more savvy than Canadian-born people when it comes to accessing health care. They are aware of the long wait times and will often book appointments at the first sign of illness, knowing they can cancel if it turns out to be nothing to worry about.
I suspect that many immigrant physicians readily approve MAID requests because they don't want to argue with a white person. So the approval may be more a gesture of respect than anything else. Again, we need better and more recent data to answer this question with any certainty.
Durkheim seems relevant here
Perhaps. But why aren't whites over-represented in MAID deaths in Quebec? Quebec is the most post-Christian, post-traditional province of Canada.
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https://x.com/chrisbrunet/status/2024936882975514795?s=20
Appreciate it
—NC
Everyone should review the short documentary Extremis on Netflix before discussing end of life care. The difference is that some groups are more willing to continue suffering while praying for a miracle. Maybe whites are more willing to admit that a miracle is not coming.
If that were so, whites should be more over-represented in Track 1 deaths — where there is a medical justification of foreseeable death. Instead, we see the opposite: whites are more likely to be euthanized where there is no medical justification, and presumably no physical suffering.
"Euro-Canadians may also feel alienated in a country that scarcely resembles the one of their youth. "
I stopped reading at this point. Ridiculous.
It's understandable you feel that way, as that's the norm we've all been conditioned to.
But perhaps it's time to reevaluate why something that's acceptable, even celebrated, for every other group is somehow disapproved of when Euros want to do it.
It's a double standard. Frankly, it's anti-White racism.
I wanted to put all possible explanations on the table. If you had read further, you would have found that I largely discount this explanation, as well as the more general explanation that Euro-Canadians have a greater desire to be euthanized.
Obviously, New Found land, Quebec and Alberta do not have the right point of view. Executing evil people is always good, right? Unless they've committed a crime. Then it's wrong.