The government gets to decide how I die. I have no faith in them because they don’t see me as a person

In wanting to access medical assistance in dying, I’m not “taking the easy way out” as it has so elegantly been put. I've lived most of my life with a severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). In the face of constant pain and unrelenting torment, I made the most difficult decision a person can make. I am thinking not just of myself, but of my family.

I wanted to believe the fifth incarnation of the Special Joint Parliamentary Committee on Medically Assisted Dying (AMAD) would be different. As a comic, I didn’t want the jokes to be easy. Instead, the committee embraced a tradition: talking about, rather than listening to, people with SPMI. It’s the reason their report is being scrutinized by legal experts and four Senators who were part of the committee.

The committee co-chairs were openly against lifting the existing exemption for MAID eligibility for people with mental illness, and were dismissive when asked about a seemingly strategic imbalance of witnesses they picked (refusing testimony from the Canadian Psychiatric Association, people with lived experience, etc.). Did they have any concern for what that signals to people like me who struggle with worthlessness, hopelessness, shame, and self-doubt? 

According to their report, physicians can never be certain, which isn’t surprising when they talk about patients like we’re bad ideas. They were certain each time I was held in the hospital involuntarily. If a doctor can’t tell the difference between an acute mental health crisis and decades of suffering, be wary. There is deep meaning in suffering; it shouldn’t be avoided, nor extended. Did they make an oath to do no harm, or keep people alive at all costs? Do they pull plugs? Isn’t medicine case by case?

AMAD's recommendation is for an “indefinite exclusion” from MAID eligibility for people like me. It’s beyond paternalistic to tell adults with decades of psychiatric histories that their understanding of their own lives is inherently suspect. I wish it was as simple as arrogance.

Assuming the worst of AMAD was easy—they’ve consistently delivered on this front. I'd rather not leave my fate—and my death—to them. 

Two years ago, I launched a court challenge. I'm asking why it is that people living with SPMI are denied the opportunity to apply for MAID because I'm tired of waiting for AMAD. They’re having a lazy debate, confusing crime with MAID, and reducing severe and persistent mental illness to thoughts and feelings. If they could bear to sit in the same room as us, perhaps they’d stop asking so many inane, self-referential questions. 

There is no amount of suffering sufficient for them. The government keeps pushing this off because they can. We’re the easiest people to silence. Even disability activists are speaking over disabled people because we don’t look like their preferred version of what a disabled person looks like. They have no idea what living with SPMI means. How ironic for them to define ableism by their own terms. What more do they want from me? For how long?

Two years after I filed my lawsuit, the government has yet to respond to me or meet any of their deadlines. Due to their continued inaction, I was forced to go to court again in July. This time, I'm seeking an urgent exemption from the exclusion of people with the sole underlying condition of mental illness from accessing MAID. I am now awaiting a decision. AMAD's recommendation was simply the latest illustration of how little is thought of people like me.

For my lawsuit, I was assessed twice for MAID. It’s a long chain of command, with several checkpoints over months. Eight other countries that provide MAID do not discriminate against people with mental illness because it’s not medically necessary. Currently, Canada is not a country that can tout values of equality or bodily autonomy. There is a different set of standards for a certain kind of citizen, and I guess I’m one of them.

People have been writing to me for two years telling me they can’t hang on. Those messages surge whenever we are dismissed by the government. Last month, I received a suicide note. 

Now the government gets to decide how I die, but they don't even see me as a person.

To think that I’m scared I might offend them because my jokes are too mean.

Claire Elyse Brosseau is a 49-year-old Canadian actress, writer and stand-up comedian who lives in Toronto. In August 2024, Brosseau, Dr. Patricia Smith, and Dying With Dignity Canada filed a court challenge with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice arguing that the exclusion of individuals living with grievous and irremediable mental illness from medical assistance in dying (MAID) eligibility is discriminatory. 

The Hill Times