There's a name you need to know: Normand Meunier.

He was 66 years old. A quadriplegic. And he didn't die from his disability or a terminal illness — he died because the Canadian health care system abandoned him.

In March 2024, Normand was hospitalized in Quebec for a respiratory virus. He was left on a stretcher in an ER hallway for four days without the proper mattress needed for someone in his condition. He developed horrific bedsores. He pleaded to be transferred to a long-term care facility equipped to handle his needs.

He never got that transfer.

As his partner, Sylvie Brosseau, told the coroner's inquiry, "It was horrifying. The last two weeks of his life were unbearable."

Unable to live in pain and filth any longer, Normand turned to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). He wasn't terminal. He wasn't dying. He was simply too neglected to go on living.

And in Carney's Canada, that's now a valid reason to be euthanized.

MAiD Is Now a Leading Cause of Death

This is not a tragic exception — it's a systemic trend.

According to the federal government's 2023 annual report, 15,343 Canadians received MAiD last year. That's nearly 5% of all deaths in the country.

Let that sink in: MAiD is now tied with strokes as the fifth leading cause of death in Canada.

This isn't compassion — it's institutional failure in a lab coat.

And the scope of who's eligible for MAiD is expanding. Over 4% of last year's cases were patients whose deaths were not reasonably foreseeable. In other words, they weren't terminal — they were just hopeless, neglected, or out of options.

Fast-Tracked Death, Slow-Tracked Care

MAiD is the only thing in Canada's crumbling health care system where things move quickly.

You can wait months — even years — for cancer treatment, for surgery, for long-term care. But if you're poor, disabled, or mentally ill, the state will rush you to the front of the line for death.

What does that say about our values?

The answer is grim. In a country where palliative care is underfunded, where hospitals are overcrowded, where pain management and housing are hard to come by, MAiD is becoming the state's go-to exit strategy for the inconvenient and the costly.

It's not about dignity. It's about dollars.

A Bureaucratic Bullet

If Canada really cared about dignity, we'd be addressing the reasons people want to die, not offering them a lethal injection when they fall through the cracks.

Normand Meunier didn't choose death freely. He was cornered into it by a health care system that left him to rot, then offered a way out that was quicker than fixing the problem.

This isn't "medical assistance in dying." It's a bureaucratic bullet for people who've been failed by every other part of the system.

And it's only getting worse.