Euthanized while white

Why are Canadian seniors more often euthanized if they're white?

At the deathbed, 1895. Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Kode Museum

Whites made up 96% of euthanized Canadians in 2024. Yes, euthanasia mostly involves seniors, and older Canadians are whiter. But the 65+ age bracket was only 86% white at the last census in 2021 and is less so today (Statistics Canada, 2025).

I found the relevant paragraph in the latest report on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID):

A total of 15,927 of the 16,499 people who received MAID in 2024 responded to this question, the vast majority of whom (95.6%) identified as Caucasian (White). For context on how this compares to the overall population of Canada, approximately 70% of people in Canada identified as Caucasian in the most recent Census. (Health Canada, 2025, p. 32)

Why are Euro-Canadians “over-euthanized”? Let me answer by examining the approval process, the medical justifications, the place of death, and the numbers by province.

Who, whom?

Who is making whiteness a risk factor? Let’s begin with those whom the system euthanizes. Euro-Canadians may be over-represented in MAID deaths because they often live on their own after retirement with neither a spouse nor children to help. They may thus be less motivated to go on living, regardless of their medical condition.

What about those who approve requests for euthanasia? Two medical professionals must approve a MAID request, and no one else reviews their approval. Without review, their decisions are less constrained by personal biases that may or may not target Euro-Canadians. A physician may, for instance, be more willing to sit down with a requester of the same culture and religion to discuss alternatives to MAID. Otherwise, the request will be rubber-stamped — not out of animosity but because the physician feels less able to talk the requester out of it.

Talking the requester out of it also depends on the time available. The physician must choose between spending more time with the current patient or moving on to the next one. Primary care physicians see about a hundred patients a week and are always under pressure to keep their caseload manageable. Keep in mind that a wrongly euthanized person cannot lodge a complaint — the complaint must come from a friend or relative. This is where the individualism of Euro-Canadians works against them. If a physician has a heavy caseload, who is easier to “unload”? Someone with ties to many friends and relatives or someone with none?

When natural death is near versus when it isn’t

At what point in old age does whiteness become a risk factor? We can answer by examining the two tracks that a MAID request must follow. Track 1 is for recipients whose death is “reasonably foreseeable.” Track 2 is for those whose death is not “reasonably foreseeable.”

In 2024, whites were 94.8% of Track 1 deaths and 97.4% of Track 2 deaths (Health Canada, 2025, p. 32, fn. 39). Track 2 deaths also had a lower median age, 75.9, even though younger seniors are proportionately less white.

Euro-Canadians are thus over-euthanized for reasons that run counter to the natural processes of aging and illness. Whiteness matters less in a decision to hasten natural death and more in a decision to hasten death independently of medical justification.

MAID at home versus MAID in an institution

In what sort of environment does whiteness become a risk factor? A private home or an institution? We can answer with indirect evidence.

The latest MAID report provides a breakdown by ethnicity and province (Health Canada, 2025, Table C.5, p. 80). We previously saw a national total of 15,226 deaths among “Caucasians” (Health Canada, 2025, p. 32). The provincial and territorial subtotals add up to 14,215 deaths. The second total is 6.6% lower.

In death statistics, it isn’t unusual for a national total to exceed the total of all the regions. The discrepancy arises because the form filler is unsure what to write for the deceased’s address and leaves the field blank. Yes, the province of death can be inferred from other fields, and even from the form itself, but such inference requires manual intervention when the forms are processed.¹

The address is almost always filled out for deaths at home (private residence or retirement home) but is often left blank for deaths at institutions (hospice, hospital, palliative care facility, residential care facility, correctional facility, or shelter). In an institution, it is harder to get information about the deceased, particularly the home address. A study of death certificates in Vermont concluded: “Certificates for deaths in hospitals were more likely to have major errors than certificates for deaths in a private residence … Certificates indicating deaths in a nonhospital facility were also more likely to have major errors than certificates indicating deaths in a private residence” (McGivern et al., 2017; see also Hahn et al., 2002).

This discrepancy reveals another. Whites are 95.6% of the national total but only 86.2% of the combined provincial/territorial total. The gap of 9.4 points is almost equal to the 9.6 points that separate the white share of MAID deaths from the white share of Canada’s senior population. Euro-Canadians are over-euthanized almost entirely in those cases where the address field is left blank — most likely in institutional cases. This is consistent with the higher percentage of white deaths in Track 2, as already noted. Track 2 also has a higher percentage of institutional deaths, with private residences accounting for only 81.2% of Track 2 deaths versus 88.4% of Track 1 deaths (Health Canada, 2025, p. 55).

For now, let’s use the provincial totals while remembering that they exclude most of the white over-representation in MAID deaths. This underreporting should, if anything, reduce the differences between provinces in white over-representation, making them seem smaller than they really are.

Whiter provinces versus less white ones

In which provinces does whiteness become a risk factor? Those where Euro-Canadians are proportionately fewer?

Canada’s population was about 97% of European descent in 1961, but this percentage has fallen with the rise of global immigration since the 1960s, particularly in British Columbia and Ontario — where most non-European immigrants have settled. Quebec and the Atlantic provinces have received less immigration and are now the whitest regions of Canada.

To answer the above question, we can compare the white percentage of MAID deaths in each province with the white percentage of the senior population:

The white percentages of the 65+ bracket were calculated from 2021 census data, using the formula: White percentage = 100% − (Visible minority % + Indigenous identity %).

Sources: Health Canada, 2025; Statistics Canada, 2026a; Statistics Canada, 2026b

In Ontario and British Columbia, Euro-Canadians are euthanized at a much higher rate than their share of the senior population. In Alberta, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces, they are euthanized at the same rate or perhaps a lower one. (Note: white over-representation should be adjusted upwards due to the approximately one thousand white MAID deaths missing from the provincial totals).

The Atlantic provinces are poorer, less attractive to immigrants, and whiter. Their inhabitants are also more religious and more traditional. They prefer to stay in one place because they value support from relatives, longtime friends, the local church and the community. This support may explain why fewer of them choose euthanasia.

But what about Alberta? Its demographics are like Ontario’s: 66.5% white versus 62.9% white in 2021. It is also one of the provinces with the fewest locally born residents — only 52%. Yet it is also the province where whites are least likely to be euthanized compared to other groups. It isn’t because they are more religious. Self-identified Christians are less common in Alberta than in Canada as a whole, and other measures rank the province as average in religiosity (Cornelissen, 2021).

And what about Quebec? It is the province where whites are second-least likely to be euthanized compared to other groups. It is also the least religious province by any measure, with the lowest proportion of people attending religious activities at least once a month (Cornelissen, 2021).²

Alberta and Quebec may simply be less “woke.” They have not gone as far as other provinces in normalizing anti-white thinking, discourse, and behavior.

Takeaways

The more freedom the physician has to approve MAID requests, the whiter are the resulting deaths. This happens:

• when approval isn’t reviewed (all requests)

• when no medical justification is needed (Track 2)

• when the requester lives in an institution

• when the requester and the physician are not bound by the same culture and religion

• when the ideological environment permits anti-white bias

It would be politically easier to say that Euro-Canadians are over-euthanized because they want to be. They are less traditional than other groups, more solitary, and thus more open to euthanasia when old age creeps up on them. Yet this explanation doesn’t fit the data.

First, people most often prefer to be euthanized at home and as a means to hasten natural death. We see the opposite, however, with white over-representation in MAID deaths.

Second, MAID deaths are disproportionately white in institutional settings — so much so, that this one factor may explain most of the white over-representation. The “home turf” of a private residence or a retirement home seems to offer seniors more freedom to make up their mind — and not have it made for them.

Third, in whiter provinces, Euro-Canadian seniors are euthanized at the same rate as other seniors or even at a lower one. This might reflect a more conservative attitude toward euthanasia by traditional Euro-Canadians. But how does this explanation apply to Alberta and Quebec?

Alberta is the province where whites are least over-represented in MAID deaths and may even be underrepresented. Yet it is not much whiter than Ontario, and almost half its residents are born elsewhere. Nor is it very traditional, at least if we use religion as a metric.

Quebec is the province where whites are second-least over-represented in MAID deaths, and yet institutional resistance to euthanasia is almost absent there. In addition to having more unique MAID practitioners than all other provinces combined, it has the lowest percentage of hospitals that report no MAID deaths on their premises. Nor is there much resistance from organized religion.

However, Alberta and Quebec are similar in one respect: their estrangement from Canadian political culture. For different reasons, neither province feels wholly part of Canada, and neither feels bound by the country’s current political culture, including the belief that anti-white bias is normal and justified.

Is wokeness a factor?

We’re thus left with woke ideology: the more prevalent it is, the more euthanasia becomes disproportionately white. Wokeness has spread less easily into French Canada — due to the language barrier, the existence of separate institutions, and a general mistrust of Canadian political culture. A similar mistrust exists in Alberta.

Meanwhile, wokeness has spread into the rest of Canada much more easily — due to the shared language with the U.S., as well as shared institutions and a naïve acceptance of American mass culture.

Yet this is not the whole story. According to a recent report from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Canadians aren’t more woke than Americans; in fact, public opinion on cancel culture, critical race/history, and transgender issues is almost the same in Canada, the UK, and the US. But the same report does reveal two differences:

• Although younger people are considerably more woke in Canada than older people, the generation gap is smaller than in the UK or the US;

• Canadians have three times more trust in journalists than do people in the UK and over 50% more than do Americans (Kaufmann, 2024).

Both findings indicate a higher level of group conformity. In general, Canadians are less confrontational and more deferential, especially toward representatives of authority, such as government officials, university professors, church leaders, and journalists (Lipset, 1986). Once these authority figures have been ideologically captured, everyone else falls into line (Kaufmann, 2024, pp. 61-63). Canadians may feel unhappy about the woke revolution, but they generally keep their unhappiness to themselves.

There is also the fear of job loss and reputation loss: “55 percent of Canadians say they feel less free than they did 5 years ago to express their views on immigration; 61 percent say that the political climate prevents them from expressing their views as it might offend others; and 78 percent say political correctness has gone too far” (Kaufmann, 2024, pp. 38-39).

Finally, Canada’s elite is smaller, more centralized, and more interconnected (Brodie, 2001; Clement, 1975; Savoie, 1999). Because Americans have a larger, less centralized, and less interconnected elite, on top of being less deferential and more confrontational, they have had less trouble pushing back and building anti-woke institutions.

French Canadians and Albertans seem to be just as deferential and non-confrontational as other Canadians, but they have less trust in the federal government (Léger, 2025). They are thus more likely to challenge wokeness, which has become identified with federal policies. French Canadians also diverge from other Canadians on certain issues. While they lean further left on economic and foreign policy, in addition to being more republican and anticlerical, they are less woke than English Canadians on gender and racial diversity. In particular, they are more opposed to measures for racial or gender diversity at university (by 14 to 16 percentage points) and to transgender rights and flying the pride flag on public buildings (by 10 to 20 percentage points). In sum, French Canadians are generally further to the left, but their leftism is much more pre-woke (Kaufmann, 2024, pp. 36, 49).

To what extent does wokeness, in relation to other factors, explain white over-representation in MAID deaths? The question is difficult to answer because the different factors interact.

Take the fact that whites are not over-euthanized in Quebec. Is the main reason the lower prevalence of wokeness? Or is it the language barrier, the existence of separate institutions, or the lower percentage of foreign-educated physicians? There is no easy answer because all of these factors are entangled with each other. The French language has hindered the inflow of woke ideology while leading to the creation of separate institutions and a political culture that favors the training of local physicians, rather than the licensing of foreign ones.

On a final note, whatever is causing white over-representation in MAID deaths — woke ideology, contemporary Anglo culture, white individualism, lack of rapport between physician and requester — we may be seeing only the tip of the iceberg. Anti-white bias is probably just as present whenever a Canadian physician makes a life-or-death decision.

References

Brodie, I. (2001). Interest group litigation and the embedded state: Canada's court challenges program. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, 34(2), 357-376. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423901777931

Clement, W. (1975). The Canadian Corporate Elite. McGill-Queen’s University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qf2rw

Cornelissen, L. (2021). Religiosity in Canada and its evolution from 1985 to 2019. Insights on Canadian Society, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2021001/article/00010-eng.htm

Hahn, R. A., Wetterhall, S. F., Gay, G. A., Harshbarger, D. S., Burnett, C. A., Parrish, R. G., & Orend, R. J. (2002). The recording of demographic information on death certificates: a national survey of funeral directors. Public Health Reports, 117(1), 37. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4598716

Health Canada. (2025). Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-system-services/annual-report-medical-assistance-dying-2024.html

Kaufmann, E. (2024). The Politics of the Culture Wars in Contemporary Canada. Macdonald-Laurier Institute, February. https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/20240129_Culture-wars-Kaufmann_PAPER-B-v2-FINAL.pdf

Léger (2025). Trust in Government and Views on Provincial Sovereignty, May 12. https://leger360.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Special-report-May-20th.pdf

Lipset, S. M. (1986). Historical traditions and national characteristics: A comparative analysis of Canada and the United States. Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, 113-155. https://doi.org/10.2307/3340795

McGivern, L., Shulman, L., Carney, J. K., Shapiro, S., & Bundock, E. (2017). Death certification errors and the effect on mortality statistics. Public Health Reports, 132(6), 669-675. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033354917736514

Savoie, D. J. (1999). Governing from the Centre: The Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics. University of Toronto Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/9781442675445

Statistics Canada. (2025). Sources of income of racialized individuals 65 years and over in Canada, 2020. Dorcas Hindir (author). Ethnicity, Language and Immigration Thematic Series, 89-657-X2025003. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-657-x/89-657-x2025003-eng.htm

Statistics Canada (2026a). Indigenous identity population by gender and age: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomeration. Table: 98-10-0292-01. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810029301

Statistics Canada (2026b). Visible minority by gender and age: Canada, provinces and territories. Table: 98-10-0351-01. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810035101

1. The report states that “There were 298 cases where the postal code was incomplete or incorrect” (Health Canada, 2025, p. 70). This does not explain the discrepancy of 1,011 cases between the Euro-Canadian total of 15,226 on page 32 and the Euro-Canadian total of 14,215 on page 80. The use of the word “incomplete” instead of “absent” may indicate that this file had already been purged of cases with blank address fields.

I asked Health Canada about this discrepancy and was told: “We are looking into the discrepancy you have pointed out and will follow up as soon as possible.” Despite a reminder email, I have received no further communication from Health Canada.

2. Another factor may be the difficulty in getting access to euthanasia. Alberta has the second-highest rate of MAID recipient transfers to another hospital (73.6%), a practice usually due to the original hospital refusing to be a party to medically assisted death. Hospital staff may thus do more to talk requesters out of euthanasia (Health Canada, 2025, p. 64).

On the other hand, Manitoba has an even higher rate of MAID recipient transfers (77.3%) and yet its whites are fourth-most likely to be euthanized compared to other groups. And how do we explain Quebec? It has the lowest rate of MAID recipient transfers (4.2%) and more unique MAID practitioners than all other provinces combined. In 2023, the provincial government legislated to ensure that “palliative care hospices may not exclude medical aid in dying from the care they offer” (Health Canada, 2025, p. 84). Yet it is the province where whites are the second-least likely to be euthanized compared to other groups.