From suicide prevention to suicide provision: The troubling growth of Canada’s medical assistance in dying program.

This article discusses trends in Canada's medical assistance in dying program (MAID). Canada reported over 15,000 deaths via medical assistance in dying in 2023; for comparison's sake, California recorded fewer than 900. As both jurisdictions legalized MAID in 2016 and have similarly sized populations, neither timing nor size can explain the discrepancy. Instead, Canada's uniquely large presence of MAID reflects an intersection of several key factors discussed in the article. The present and future of Canada's MAID program lie in direct opposition to the mission of clinical psychologists, medical professionals, policymakers, and society at large. Collectively, we have long worked to understand, predict, and prevent suicide, identifying risk factors such as perceived burdensomeness, isolation, and hopelessness. Once considered treatment targets, these factors are becoming sufficient grounds for ending a life. Within Canada's MAID program, MAID and suicide are indistinguishable; motivations are identical, barriers are overcome, and a person concludes that life is no longer worth living. What results is suicide by another name, provided by the very system that has historically worked to prevent it. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).