At least 2614 people were killed by euthanasia in the ten months between 1 January and 31 October 2018, data released by Health Canada has shown.  This equates to about one person dying by lethal injection every three hours, and – alarmingly – does not include statistics for the whole country.

Three of the Canadian territories, (Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut), did not share any data for this reporting period due to, in part, “concerns for the privacy of the patients and the providers involved.”

Additionally, Quebec did not provide any data for the period between 1 April 2018 and 31 October 2018.  The data would likely have seen a dramatic increase in the numbers, given that in the nine months prior to 1 April 2018, 845 people were euthanised in Quebec alone.

 According to Health Canada, this lack of data “will result in an under-reporting of numbers at the national level. 

Even with the numbers being so drastically underreported, the rapid uptake of euthanasia use should be a cause for concern.  As Michael Cook writes in MercatorNet:

“What should alarm all Canadians – and their neighbours to the south where assisted dying is a hot topic -- is that in a mere two years, euthanasia has become so widespread. And already a government-appointed committee is hard at work studying whether the criteria for euthanasia should be expanded to include children and teenagers, people with mental illness and advance directives.”

Instead of looking for a reason at the accelerated uptake of euthanasia in the country, euthanasia advocates seem to be looking for a way to make its use even more widespread.

Euthanasia became law in Canada on 17 June 2016.  Almost three years later, to the day, it will become legal in Victoria.  If this is what happened in just three years in Canada, can we expect the same for Victoria, come June 2022?