A Canadian Armed Forces veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan has come forward and revealed he was offered medical assistance in dying (MAID) by Veterans Affairs back in 2019, joining a growing number of Canadian veterans who say they were offered the procedure unprompted.
David Baltzer, who served with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, told the podcast Operation Tango Romeo that a Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) agent brought up MAID during a phone call on Dec. 23, 2019.
“He’s like, ‘You have a lot of problems. You’ve tried everything, you’ve done all this stuff ... Have you ever thought about medically assisted suicide?” Baltzer recalled during the April 8 podcast episode.
“As soon as he said that, I lost it. I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
Baltzer said the offer, which came after learning his Earnings Loss Benefit from VAC was being terminated, made him consider, “Is my life worth living?” He said the incident caused him to decide to “go hard and just do whatever I can and get ahead in life at that time.”
Baltzer said he has also heard “through the grapevine” about other Canadian veterans being offered MAID, but that he has not met anyone personally.
Canada’s medically assisted dying regime came under intense scrutiny in late 2022, when a military veteran revealed they were offered MAID during a call by a VAC agent. The veteran said they had been seeking treatment for a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Then, in October 2022, the House of Commons Veterans Affairs Committee heard from a witness that a VAC agent had told a veteran that they could receive MAID.
CAF veteran and former paralympian Christine Gauthier also revealed to the committee in December 2022 that she was offered the procedure when trying to get a new wheelchair ramp installed in her home. Gauthier, who is a paraplegic, said she was told, “If you were so desperate, madam, we can offer you medical assistance in dying.” Gauthier was the sixth known veteran to have been offered the procedure unsolicited at the time.
In March 2023, the VAC released a report that said an internal investigation found four incidents in which MAID was “inappropriately raised.” The report said all the incidents stemmed from one employee “who is no longer employed with the Department,” and concluded that “this is not a widespread, systemic issue.”
Canada’s MAID regime was set to be expanded to include people whose mental illness was their sole medical condition, but a month before that deadline, Ottawa introduced Bill C-39 to extend the date to March 17, 2024. Then, in January 2024, Ottawa announced it would again extend the deadline to give more preparation time for medical providers and provinces, but has not said what the new timeline would be.
The fifth annual report on MAID in Canada found that 15,343 people received the procedure in 2023, which was a 15.8 percent increase from 2022; 96 percent of MAID provisions were for individuals whose natural death was “reasonably foreseeable,” and the median age was 77.7 years.
