Statistics Canada confirmed that its annual mortality datasets do not include medically-assisted deaths due to the lack of an official classification by the World Health Organization.
This exclusion occurs despite Health Canada’s report indicating significant MAID-related deaths last year.
Health Canada’s fourth annual report on medical assistance in dying (MAID) highlighted 13,241 MAID deaths in 2022, positioning it as the sixth-leading cause of death in the country. MAID accounted for 4.1% of all deaths in Canada in 2022. However, this figure remains conspicuously absent from Statistics Canada’s annual mortality data.
The agency’s recent report showed a 7.3% increase in overall deaths across Canada in 2022, alongside a decrease in life expectancy for the third consecutive year.
There were 334,081 total reported deaths in Canada for 2022. The leading causes of death, as per Statistics Canada’s report, were cancer (24.7%), heart disease (17.2%), COVID-19 (5.90%), accidents (unintentional injuries) (5.50%), cerebrovascular diseases (4.17%), and chronic lower respiratory diseases (3.73%).
“In the database, the underlying cause of death is defined as the disease or injury that initiated the train of morbid events leading directly to death. As such, MAID deaths are coded to the underlying condition for which MAID was requested,” said Statistics Canada in a clarifying post on social media.
