by Andrew Rosindell, The Critic
Their examples show the dangers of legalisation
As the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Australia and New Zealand, and Vice-President of the Conservative Friends of CANZUK (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom), there are few matters I’m more passionate about than our relationships with these great countries. I am a staunch advocate of strengthening our ties with our Commonwealth cousins and have also supported proposals for a CANZUK alliance of nations to boost trade and cooperation.
I am of the view that, as four countries, we should learn from each other. More often than not, that will involve the transference of best practice between our countries. Certainly, I have long felt there is much we Brits can learn from our Commonwealth cousins. However, sometimes, we also need to learn from each other’s mistakes. The UK has made many such mistakes over the years, and frankly, over the past two decades or so, there are perhaps too many to list. Right now though, it is these three Commonwealth nations who have made a serious mistake by making assisted suicide and euthanasia legal. We Brits need to learn from these mistakes and not proceed down the same path.
There has been much coverage in the UK of Canada’s experience with such laws. Canada was the first of the CANZUK countries to introduce these laws, and they have by far the most experience with them. When Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) — the Canadian euphemism for assisted suicide and euthanasia — was introduced in 2016, it seems the intention was for it to apply to a reasonably narrow group of people with a terminal diagnosis. However, since the introduction of these laws, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people opting for MAID every year, and the eligibility criteria have been widened.
The latest figures, published in the Fifth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada 2023, showed that nearly one in twenty deaths in Canada now come about as a result of MAID.