In September 2021, Rosina Kamis, a 41-year-old woman from Malaysia, was euthanised through Canada’s newly expanded medical assistance in dying regime. Rosina told doctors that she was seeking euthanasia to put an end to the suffering caused by her fibromyalgia, which she had developed in her 20s. Yet in conversations with her friends and in dozens of videos, emails, and phone calls, she made it clear that she was actually seeking death as an escape from the poverty and isolation she faced in her day-to-day life.

In just a few months, the country will expand eligibility for euthanasia once again – this time for people whose sole underlying condition is mental illness, like Mitchell Tremblay, a 41-year-old man from Guelph, Ontario who plans to apply as soon as he becomes eligible.