Hundreds of violations of euthanasia procedures in Ontario not reported to police

More than 400 possible criminal violations of euthanasia procedure in Ontario, Canada, have not been reported to the police, according to leaked documents.

Dirk Huyer, head of Ontario’s Chief Coroner’s office which is responsible for flagging violations, identified 428 compliance problems over five years with 178 in 2023 alone — an average of one every other day.

But such cases are not required to be reported to the police and instead, a “notice email” is sent.

Non-compliance

At a 2024 conference, Huyer shared that of the 428 compliance issues, only four cases triggered a report to a regulatory body.

He reported that, for euthanasia cases where the patients were not terminally ill, 15 per cent were reported as having a compliance issue.

And he revealed that for some non-terminally ill cases, the legal safeguard of consulting a medic with expertise in the patient’s illness was not complied with.

Huyer described these non-compliant cases as “a learning opportunity”.

’Distressing’

The Macdonald–Laurier Institute, a public policy think tank, wrote: “it has been distressing to learn that some authorities, well aware of non-compliance with the law, did not publicly report them”.

Trudo Lemmens, a law professor at the University of Toronto, said: “any violation of the MAID law, considering that it’s a criminal law, should be reported to the police and to the College — as a matter of principle — and should certainly be investigated by an independent prosecutor”.

He explained: “It’s a serious issue. I mean, this is a criminal law and I’m worried that the lack of referring for prosecution and for investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons reflects a kind of normalization of MAID as some kind of inherent beneficial practice.”

Huyer commented: “From an oversight point of view, trying to understand when it happens and how it happens, we’re probably the most robust in Canada.”