Prisoner death rates in Canada climb as assisted suicide expands behind bars

Capital punishment was banned in Canada in 1976, but under the Liberal government’s assisted suicide program, the state is once again involved in the deaths of Canadian prisoners.

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Capital punishment was banned in Canada in 1976, but under the Liberal government’s assisted suicide program, the state is once again involved in the deaths of Canadian prisoners.

Federal prison death rates have climbed since the Liberal government’s assisted suicide policy took effect in 2016, rising from 3.32 per 1,000 inmates in the 2016/2017 fiscal year to approximately 4.66 per 1,000 in 2022/2023, before surging again, according to the most recent Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI) annual report.

This escalation coincides with the rollout of the assisted suicide policy introduced in 2016 through Bill C-14.

Total deaths in federal prisons hovered around 47 to 55 annually from 2016/2017 to 2018/2019, but jumped to 69 in 2020/2021 before stabilizing near 59 in 2021/2022 and 2022/2023—only to apparently surge again, according to the OCI’s report, which notably conflicts with Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) data.

So-called “natural cause deaths,” which form the bulk of these figures, appear to have doubled in recent years, from an average of about 37 per year between 2017 and 2020 to 74 in 2023/2024, even as the federal inmate population declined from around 14,000 to under 13,900.

CSC classifies deaths under the assisted suicide policy as “natural causes,” bundling them with illnesses like cancer or heart disease in official statistics rather than categorizing them as non-natural alongside suicides or homicides.

The OCI, in its report, notes its “disappointment” over Parliament adopting Bill C-83, which in 2019 eliminated CSC’s obligations to investigate deaths in custody for individuals receiving medical assistance in dying (MAID).

This accounting method, confirmed in CSC’s own reports, means the policy’s footprint is embedded within the rising natural death tally, potentially masking its role in inflating overall numbers.

At least nine federal inmates have died under the program since government-assisted suicide was legalized in 2016, according to data from CSC up to March 2022, with more cases reported since then.

As for tracking, CSC no longer issues dedicated annual reports on deaths in custody—the last, covering 2017/2018 to 2019/2020, was published in 2024—but continues to monitor them internally. Data now surfaces piecemeal in broader overviews from Public Safety Canada, the OCI, and Statistics Canada.

This shift, following the 2019 legislative changes under Bill C-83, has reduced scrutiny for natural deaths, including those via the assisted suicide policy, limiting full investigations to non-natural causes.