Suppose that a series of reports from Ontario’s Office of the Chief Coroner on deaths in the province’s long-term care facilities raises serious questions about whether the regulations governing those institutions are being followed.
The organizations running those long-term care facilities complain the scrutiny is unwarranted. The coroner’s office, unhappy with what it calls sensationalized media coverage, decides it will shrink the size of the death-review committee for long-term care and meet less frequently. A call for new members is issued as the existing committee’s term ends.
The most prominent critical voices on the committee say they are being shut out by the new framework. In that scenario, would there be any doubt that alarm bells would, and should, ring loudly?
Of course, none of that has happened for the Ontario coroner’s death-review committee for long-term care – but it has for the committee for medical assistance in death, or MAID. As reported in The Globe and Mail this week, the Ontario coroner is changing the size and parameters of its committee for reviewing complex cases of medically assisted death.
The 16-person committee will shrink by at least half, to between six and eight members. It will meet less often, and the goal for the number of cases to be reviewed each year will fall (although the actual number reviewed might rise, given that the committee has not met the existing goal).
New MAID oversight committee will be diverse and transparent, Ontario Solicitor-General contends
More worrying is a shift in emphasis from oversight to providing guidance to MAID practitioners (although both roles are mentioned in the call for new members issued earlier this month). That emphasis on guidance shows up in the list of qualifications for new members, which include experience in MAID provision or related specialties.
The reason for the changes is not hard to fathom: MAID practitioners do not like the spotlight on problematic cases.
The committee has provided badly needed scrutiny on the functioning of medically assisted death in Ontario. Its reports have highlighted disturbing (if rare) instances of potential problems, including a woman in her 50s, suffering from chemical sensitivity, depression and suicidal ideation, who was given a medically assisted death after she could not obtain appropriate housing.
Those reports, quite rightly, generated media interest. But the resulting publicity led to pushback from MAID practitioners. In an email obtained by The Globe, the chief coroner’s office told committee members last November about “ongoing concerns from the broader MAID practice community on the perception and function of the [committee]. While the feedback highlighted important issues, it also prompted recognition of the need for solution-oriented dialogue.”
Translation: it’s time to stop rocking the boat. Dr. Trudo Lemmens, who was part of the original 16-member group, says he has been told that he is not needed on the new committee. He believes that the new committee could become a Potemkin village of regulation, providing only an illusion of scrutiny. In response, the coroner’s office said its criteria do not “exclude individuals from membership.”
Ontario Solicitor-General Michael Kerzner (left), pictured alongside Premier Doug Ford in 2025, should tell the coroner's office to reverse course, the editorial board writes.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Luckily, the coroner has an incontrovertible way to prove that Dr. Lemmens is incorrect: appoint him to the new committee. His is an experienced voice; he has testified repeatedly on MAID before Parliament and has an arm’s-length resume in law, ethics and health policy.
True, he is skeptical of Track 2 MAID, in which a reasonably foreseeable death is not required. But he is not ideologically opposed to MAID. Reappointing him should be the most obvious of decisions, if the goal is to ensure vigorous debate and full scrutiny of MAID providers. Failure to do so will send the opposite message.
So far, the Ontario government isn’t intervening, with Solicitor-General Michael Kerzner telling reporters on Wednesday that he has “full confidence” in the coroner. Such political fog-making ignores the concerns raised by Dr. Lemmens and others. The Minister can, and should, tell the coroner’s office to scrap its plans.
Eleven years ago, the Supreme Court opened the door to medically assisted death in its landmark Carter decision. There are risks, the court acknowledged, but those dangers can be limited “through a carefully designed and monitored system of safeguards.”
Ensuring there is vigilant scrutiny of those safeguards is the proper – and critical – role for the coroner’s office and its committee, not a misguided move toward “solution-oriented dialogue.”