StatCan Says Mortality Totals Don’t Include MAID Deaths Because WHO Hasn’t Classified the Procedure

At 13,241 deaths in 2022, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) should be Canada’s sixth-leading cause of death, but Statistics Canada isn’t counting assisted dying in its yearly mortality datasets because the World Health Organization hasn’t given the procedure a classification. On Nov. 27, StatCan released its annual dataset on mortality, which found there was a 7.3 percent increase in deaths across Canada in 2022, with life expectancy decreasing for a third year in a row. The report found that the top six causes of death were cancer (82,412), heart disease (57,357), COVID-19 (19,716), accidents (18,365), cerebrovascular diseases (13,915), and chronic lower respiratory diseases (12,462). However, according to Health Canada’s Fourth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, there were 13,241 MAID provisions reported in Canada in 2022, which would have made it the sixth-leading cause of death....