Canadian Minister of Justice David Lametti recently provoked outrage among his country’s political and media class after he drew an equivalence between the so-called medical assistance in dying (MAID) policy and suicide. Speaking on a radio program, Lametti said that since certain people were going to commit suicide anyway, the government may as well ensure that it is done in a more “humane way.” Proponents of euthanasia protested that the equivalence was not only false, but insulting.

Yet the way the euthanasia regime in Canada is evolving would suggest that we are, in fact, heading toward a situation like the one Lametti suggested: that is, state-enabled at-will suicide.