Calls grow for independent MAiD oversight in B.C.

And yet again, more of my work on MAiD in the B.C. Catholic.

In this fourth part of our MAiD at 10 series examining the scale and impact of Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, reporter Terry O’Neill looks at growing concerns with oversight and accountability as MAiD deaths continue to rise. Critics say British Columbia’s largely opaque review system leaves vulnerable patients at risk and provides little public transparency about how safeguards are being enforced.

B.C.’s euthanasia oversight system operates largely in secret, with no public reports and little accountability, says the opposition health critic, who is calling for public accountability so vulnerable people aren’t wrongly euthanized.

Dr. Anna Kindy (shown in photo, speaking in legislative committee)

, a family physician and MLA for North Island, said in an interview that B.C.’s opaque oversight system should be abolished and replaced with transparency and better guardrails in how medical assistance in dying is administered and delivered.

Speaking in the B.C. Legislature on May 4, Kindy questioned how MAiD is administered in B.C., calling for Health Minister Josie Osborne to create a public, impartial review board similar to Ontario’s MAiD Death Review Committee. The independent, multidisciplinary, expert body would be established by the office of the chief coroner.

Kindy cited figures in a 2025 B.C. Catholic report on B.C.’s MAiD Oversight Unit, calling the findings “staggering.”

In an interview she said, “There is no independent oversight, obviously. There have been people falling through the cracks … vulnerable people.”

She called for a team of independent experts to oversee MAiD, saying the province may be breaking the law.

Osborne said she would provide written responses to Kindy’s questions.

Kindy’s concerns are being echoed by Dr. Ramono Coelho, a leading Canadian MAiD critic who says the B.C. government’s euthanasia oversight is so inadequate that even doctors and nurse practitioners who “deliver” MAiD complain about its shortfalls.

“B.C.’s oversight system is a black box,” said Coelho, a family physician who practises in London, Ont. In an interview, she said the oversight system issues no public reports, nor does it provide feedback to MAiD practitioners.

The result is a secretive system that leaves MAiD providers in the dark. “They don’t know if what they are doing is wrong,” she said.

Critics say the need for rigorous oversight is especially great in B.C., where 6.5 per cent of deaths in 2024 were attributed to MAiD—the highest rate in Canada. B.C. recorded 2,997 MAiD deaths that year.

The B.C. government has never issued a public report on the findings of the MAiD Oversight Unit, which last year was overseen by the same bureaucrat who headed overall MAiD administration. B.C. has never publicly announced the existence of the unit.

Only one report, detailing MAiD assessors and providers’ 2,833 administrative and operational errors in 2023, has been made public, and only because of a Freedom of Information application by The B.C. Catholic. The newspaper is still awaiting results of an FOI application for the oversight unit’s 2024 findings.

Calls for more robust MAiD oversight in B.C. coincide with developments in two other provinces: Alberta’s announcement of a rigorous, public MAiD-review system, and reports that Ontario’s lauded MAiD Death Review Committee is being weakened.

Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery said on March 18 that, as part of the province’s new regulatory framework for MAiD, the province will have the power “to include additional oversight,” much like Ontario’s committee at the time.

The oversight committee will “make sure that decisions made by MAiD assessors and those who provide ... MAiD are reviewed,” Amery said.

He made the announcement during a news conference (photo at right) led by Premier Danielle Smith and attended by Coelho, who provided expert advice to the government.

Alberta’s new safeguards will also:

*Ban Track 2 MAiD procedures, in which the patient’s “natural death” is not reasonably foreseeable

*Ban MAiD where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition

*Ban MAiD for mature minors

*Protect the rights of facilities that refuse to carry out MAiD

*Prevent medical personnel from initiating discussions about MAiD.

Meanwhile , the Globe and Mail reported this month that the Ontario government has removed MAiD critics such as Dr. Coelho and Trudo Lemmens, a health-law professor at the University of Toronto, from its review committee.

The newspaper also reported that the government is scaling back the committee’s responsibilities, shifting its focus from “independent expert review” to that of “guidance to practitioners” and “supporting emerging MAiD practice.”

In a letter to Ontario’s chief coroner, obtained by the Globe, Lemmens said the changes coincide with “demands from MAiD providers for less transparency, less scrutiny, and diminished responsibility.”

Coelho said the changes will weaken the committee by diluting feedback to MAiD providers and leaving it made up entirely of MAiD providers and supporters.

“It’s like having a panel on tobacco safety but saying that you’re not going to have people who are concerned or against tobacco, you’re just going to have tobacco lobbyists or people who are supportive of tobacco.”

“No one in Canada is doing enough” to keep MAiD providers in line, Coelho said. The Ontario committee is not reporting to police incidents of wrongdoing, nor are malpractice cases being prosecuted.

She is “hopeful” Alberta will get it right.

Kindy said she remains concerned that B.C.’s inadequate health-care system is forcing patients to choose between MAiD and long wait times.

“It’s not the first time she has sounded the alarm. In a December social-media post, she said, ‘In British Columbia, it’s not uncommon to be able to access MAiD faster than accessing timely life-saving treatments, and this government doesn’t want you to know that.’

She elaborated in a later interview with CortesCurrents.ca, saying the Vancouver Island health region has the highest MAiD rate in the world, something some people might see as a “cost-saving measure.”

“But I kid you not, it’s occurring when people are not accessing timely care,’ she said.

She told of individuals in Campbell River who had mental-health and pain issues who received MAiD after being unable to get help from a pain clinic soon enough.

Describing herself as a libertarian who thinks MAiD is a matter between doctor and patient, it’s also necessary to protect vulnerable populations, “especially in the midst of a health crisis where you cannot access health care.”

“We want to make sure that if MAiD is done, it’s done for the appropriate conditions, and right now we’ve bypassed that.”