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Status and scope

• Bill C-41 was introduced at first reading on October 27, 2026. It would amend the Criminal Code and other federal Acts concerning medical assistance in dying (MAID).
• Its main changes concern mental illness and advance requests for MAID. The bill is organized by subject rather than Parts.

Criminal Code

Mental illness

• The bill would specify that a person cannot meet the listed medical criteria for MAID on the basis of a mental illness. It would also prohibit making an advance request in respect of a mental illness.
• Amendments to the 2021 MAID legislation would keep the mental-illness exclusion in force. Coordinating provisions address the timing of that legislation and this bill.

Advance requests

• A medical or nurse practitioner could administer MAID to a person who has irreversibly lost capacity to consent, based on an eligible advance request. The bill would extend exemptions from culpable homicide and administering a noxious thing to practitioners and people assisting them when MAID is provided in accordance with the new rules.
• Before signing a request, the person would have to be at least 18, capable of making MAID decisions, acting voluntarily and eligible, subject to specified waiting-period exceptions, for government-funded health services.
• The person would need a diagnosis of a serious and incurable illness or disease reasonably expected to cause irreversible loss of capacity. They would prepare the request with a practitioner’s assistance, receive specified information from a practitioner with relevant expertise, and describe the observable clinical manifestations that would lead them to want MAID.
• At the time of provision, the person would have to have irreversibly lost capacity because of that illness, repeatedly exhibit the described manifestations, be in an advanced state of irreversible decline, and experience enduring, intolerable suffering that cannot be relieved through reasonable means.
• A second, independent medical or nurse practitioner would have to give a written opinion confirming eligibility. The assessment of suffering could not rely solely on the recurring manifestations described in the request.
• The request would have to be stored in a repository identified by a provincial legislative regime. The province where MAID is provided would need rules covering requests, storage, access, withdrawal, amendment or replacement, timely updates and protection against unauthorized changes.
• A practitioner could not administer MAID if the person demonstrates refusal or resistance through words, sounds or gestures; that request could no longer be used. If the practitioner is in doubt about whether such conduct is refusal or resistance, administration must wait at least 30 clear days. Involuntary responses to contact do not count as refusal or resistance.
• Advance-request MAID would have to be administered by a practitioner, who must inform the pharmacist of the substance’s purpose before it is dispensed. The bill does not compel anyone to provide or assist in it.

Offences and reporting

• A practitioner who knowingly fails to comply with specified advance-request safeguards or the pharmacist-notification requirement would face an indictable offence carrying up to five years’ imprisonment, or a summary-conviction offence.
• Reporting requirements would cover assessments for advance-request MAID, and regulations could provide for collecting information from repository managers. A professional could have another person submit required information on their behalf but would remain responsible for its accuracy.

Related amendments

• The Pension Act and Veterans Well-being Act changes would extend specified MAID-related rules on improper conduct, self-injury and the deemed cause of death to the advance-request framework and add references to another existing MAID safeguard.
• The Corrections and Conditional Release Act amendment would add advance-request MAID to an existing provision concerning inmate deaths.

Coming into force

• Four specified reporting-related subsections would come into force on a day fixed by order of the Governor in Council. The supplied text does not specify a date for them or identify costs.