{"id":639292,"date":"2026-04-30T20:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/639292\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T20:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T20:18:10","slug":"archbishop-calls-on-carney-to-stop-extension-of-maid-for-mental-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/639292\/","title":{"rendered":"Archbishop calls on Carney to stop extension of MAID for mental illness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\tBy Sarah Ritchie<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Canadian Press\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tPosted April 30, 2026 2:57 pm<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tUpdated April 30, 2026 2:58 pm\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t1 min read\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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The Archbishop of Toronto has written a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney appealing to his Catholic faith and urging him to \u201cchoose life and not death\u201d when it comes to assisted dying.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The letter, dated April 20, expresses support for a private member\u2019s bill that would prevent access to medical assistance in dying from being extended to people whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness.<\/p>\n

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That change is set to take effect next March and a parliamentary committee is now studying whether Canada is ready for that to happen.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Frank Leo urged the prime minister to allow Liberal members of Parliament to vote freely on the private member\u2019s bill to restrict MAID.<\/p>\n

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He also urged Carney and Justice Minister Sean Fraser to consider restricting any further expansion of assisted dying laws and prioritize palliative care and support for people who are struggling.<\/p>\n

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Carney\u2019s office refused to answer any questions about the letter or his government\u2019s plans for assisted dying.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sarah Ritchie The Canadian Press Posted April 30, 2026 2:57 pm Updated April 30, 2026 2:58 pm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[233863,49,48,84,62255,393,394,714],"class_list":["post-639292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-assisted-dying","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-maid","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}