CBC headline on assisted suicide expansion is fake

"No matter how many times you read this headline, it doesn't become any less crazy than the first time you read it," says a July 21, 2024 post from an X account called "Raw Egg Nationalist," which has previously spread conspiracy theories.

The image supposedly depicts a screenshot of a CBC article about mental health experts advocating for the expansion of MAID in Canada as a solution to mounting political extremism.

The same image spread across X, Facebook and Reddit. Some posts claim the supposed push to open up MAID could become a way to silence political dissent.

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Screenshot of an X post taken July 30, 2024

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Screenshot of a Facebook post taken July 30, 2024

MAID has been legal in Canada since 2016 and is a frequent subject of misinformation, including claims that children were granted access to euthanasia.

While Canada's MAID law requires patients to be at least 18 years old to request the procedure (archived here), some groups advocate for expanding access to minors (archived here and here).

However, CBC spokeswoman Kerry Kelly said an article about experts recommending MAID for politically disaffected young men never appeared on the network.

"We can confirm that this is not a CBC story," Kelly said in a July 29, 2024 email.

A reverse image search revealed the image shared online has been altered.

The same lead photo and byline appear in a CBC article published December 17, 2023 (archived here). The original headline says: "Community leaders worry about increased radicalization risk after arrest of youth in Ottawa."

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Screenshot of a Reddit post taken July 31, 2024

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Screenshot of a CBC article taken July 31, 2024

The article does not mention assisted suicide, instead covering reactions to a terrorism-related arrest in Ottawa and an upward trend of online radicalization.

MAID requirements

When Canada's assisted suicide law was originally introduced in 2016, patients had to prove they were experiencing "enduring and intolerable suffering" and that their natural death was reasonably foreseeable to receive the procedure (archived here).

Updates in 2021 opened up requests to people whose death was not reasonably foreseeable (archived here).

The eligibility requirements were slated to expand this year to include people who were suffering solely from mental illness, but in February 2024 that change was postponed to at least 2027 (archived here).

According to the most recent annual report, 13,241 people used MAID to end their lives in 2022 (archived here). Some criticize the level of accessibility to the procedure, arguing it could be too easily viewed as an alternative to living with a disability or poverty. 

Read more of AFP's reporting on misinformation in Canada here.