Assisted suicide deaths account for 5% of Canada’s deaths in 2024

The federal government’s recently released annual euthanasia report revealed that government-assisted yearly suicide deaths accounts for more than five per cent of Canada’s total yearly deaths.

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The federal government’s recently released annual euthanasia report revealed that the growing number of government-assisted yearly suicide deaths accounts for more than five per cent of Canada’s total yearly deaths.

Health Canada released its Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, which revealed that a total of 16,499 people were medically euthanized in Canada in 2024, a 6.9 per cent increase in assisted suicide deaths since 2023.

According to the report, MAiD deaths represented 5.1 per cent of the total deaths in Canada in 2024. However, the report notes that the percentage may increase with “final counts of deaths in Canada” from Statistics Canada.

Between 2016 and 2024, a total of 76,475 Canadians have died through Canada’s assisted suicide program, nearly double those the federal government marks as having died due to COVID-19.

Despite the continued yearly increase of state-sanctioned suicides, the annual growth rate in the number of MAiD provisions increased at a slower rate between 2023 and 2024 than in previous years.

In 2024, 4.4 per cent of euthanasia deaths were accessed through “Track 2” of the program, which was introduced under the Liberal-NDP coalition government in 2021. Under “Track 2,” euthanasia is available for individuals whose natural deaths are not “reasonably foreseeable.”

Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia accounted for 85 per cent of all assisted suicide provisions in 2025. Quebec had the highest percentage of total MAiD deaths in 2025, with 36.4 per cent, followed by Ontario with 30 per cent and British Columbia at 18.2 per cent.

Government euthanasia was accessed almost exclusively by white Canadians in 2024, following the same trend as previous years. Out of the 15,927 people who died by government-assisted suicide and answered questions about their race, 95.6 per cent were white.

The report also notes that 692 individuals withdrew their MAiD request after being approved to die, a 20 per cent increase in those choosing life from the previous year.

The most common reason MAiD recipients gave for choosing life was that they found other means to relieve their suffering, including medicines.

Of those who changed their minds about being euthanized, eight per cent of those who backed out said they changed their minds about dying through the program because individuals they consider “important in their lives,” such as family, caregivers, professionals or religious leaders, did not support government-assisted death.