The federal government has spent nearly $5.5 million training medical assistance in dying (MAID) providers, including targeted funding to prepare for the expansion of euthanasia to those suffering from mental illness alone, a move Alberta is actively resisting.

According to a March 23, 2026 response to Order Paper Question Q-834, Health Canada provided $4,973,196 between 2021/22 and 2025/26 to the Canadian Association of Medical Assistance in Dying Assessors and Providers to develop and deliver the national MAID training curriculum.

That funding has now been extended through 2026/27, with an additional $550,000 allocated to broaden access beyond clinicians and build a centralized “National MAID Professionals Knowledge Base.”

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On top of that, Ottawa is directing $498,000 to the Canadian Psychiatric Association over two years to develop clinical guidance specifically for MAID where mental illness is the sole underlying condition.

The documents also reveal the scale of the training push already underway.

As of January 31, 2025, 1,966 clinicians had registered for the federally funded MAID curriculum, with 1,555 completing at least one training module. Among them were 269 psychiatrists, a key group for assessing mental illness cases.

However, the federal government acknowledged it does not track key data tied to the looming expansion.

Ottawa says provinces — not the federal government — are responsible for determining whether practitioners are adequately trained to assess MAID requests for mental illness. It also does not track how many psychiatrists are willing to take part in such assessments.

Only 258 individuals had completed any training related to MAID and mental disorders, and even that training was not specific to evaluating cases where mental illness is the sole qualifying condition.

Meanwhile, Alberta is drawing a hard line.

The province has made clear it will not expand MAID beyond Track 1 — cases where a patient’s natural death is reasonably foreseeable — effectively rejecting the federal push toward broader eligibility, including for mental illness.

Alberta’s approach prioritizes end-of-life care while pushing back against what critics say is a rapid normalization of euthanasia for non-terminal conditions.

The funding disclosures come as Ottawa continues laying the groundwork for expansion, even as provinces like Alberta signal they are not on board, setting up a growing jurisdictional and ethical clash over the future of MAID in Canada.