They're coming for the kids: Bureaucrats study euthanizing autistic youth

Our government is inching toward a system where vulnerable children, like those with autism, could be offered death instead of support. This isn't compassion. This is abandonment, institutionalized.

We've obtained internal documents from Health Canada that expose the quiet but deeply disturbing conversations happening behind closed doors—conversations about whether children with severe autism should qualify for medical assistance in dying (MAID).

The access to information records, obtained by a third party and given to Rebel News, reveal that Health Canada is funding a $549,068 research project with Dalhousie University to study "youth views on end-of-life care, palliative care, and MAID." That funding spans four years. So while families across the country can't get basic autism services or timely mental health support for their kids, the federal government is bankrolling a four-year focus group to explore what children think about state-sanctioned suicide.

That's the first red flag.

But it's the emails dated January 2024, attached to that research effort, that really strip away the mask.

In one exchange, a Health Canada official—Heather Davids, writing on behalf of the Indigenous End-of-Life Care team—reaches out to two senior bureaucrats in the MAID Unit, Ian Gillies and Richard Martin. Her question? How should the department respond to public correspondence about whether severe autism meets the eligibility criteria for MAID?

Let that settle in for a moment. Someone—maybe a parent, maybe an advocate—wrote to Health Canada asking if children with profound autism could qualify for medical death. And instead of shutting that idea down, the bureaucracy paused to have a debate.

They actually considered how to respond to people supporting the idea of euthanizing autistic youth.

One draft reply included this line:

"Your position will be carefully considered as the government advances with MAID legislation."

That sentence was struck out in a later version. Not because they were horrified by the premise. Not because someone said, "We don't kill autistic kids in Canada." No. It was removed, likely because it sounded too approving. Too… politically risky.

This is how moral rot operates in government—cautiously, in committee threads, through redacted lines and hedged replies.

Please donate to support the making of our MAID documentary

Rebel News is crowdfunding a new documentary called 'MAID: The Dark Side of Canadian Compassion,' which will dive deep into the story of Trudeau's medical assistance in dying program that has struck vulnerable communities across Canada. We need your help to make it happen. Please choose your level of support and use this form to make your contribution.

Amount
$

To be clear, these documents don't show Health Canada formally endorsing euthanasia for autistic children—not yet. What they show is something just as chilling: an absence of outright refusal. A willingness to workshop language. A hesitation to say no. And a disturbing openness to "consideration" as policy evolves. That's what that study funding was all about.

That bureaucratic hesitancy is happening in tandem with a full-court press by euthanasia activists, particularly Dying With Dignity, who are pushing to expand MAID to what they call "mature minors." Their advocacy materials state plainly: they want minors with "capacity" to be able to access death-on-demand, even without parental consent. They're lobbying the feds, running PR campaigns, and—according to The Walrus—have influenced every phase of MAID's expansion to date.

And the academic groundwork is being laid, too. A 2018 Academic study also funded by the Canadian government, The State of Knowledge on Medical Assistance in Dying for Mature Minors, examines euthanasia for mature minors, drawing on Belgium and the Netherlands, countries where children as young as 9 have been legally euthanized. The authors frame it as "complex," but not unthinkable.

Meanwhile, Health Canada funds research into "youth perspectives" on euthanasia. Bureaucrats debate how to respond to emails about autistic children being eligible for death. And no one, anywhere in the chain, seems willing to say the one thing that matters:

No. We don't do this. Not to children. Not to the disabled. Not here.

But that moral clarity is missing. Replaced with email drafts. Research grants. Lobbyist pressure. And cautious, clinical silence.

So if you're waiting for the government to draw a line, don't. They aren't drawing one. They're erasing it.

We read the documents. We saw the emails. We followed the money.

And it's clear: they are inching toward a system where vulnerable children, like those with autism, could be offered death instead of support.

This isn't compassion. This is abandonment, institutionalized.

And we're going to expose it.

Sheila Gunn Reid

Chief Reporter

Sheila Gunn Reid is the Alberta Bureau Chief for Rebel News and host of the weekly The Gunn Show with Sheila Gunn Reid. She's a mother of three, conservative activist, and the author of best-selling books including Stop Notley.

COMMENTS

Showing 5 Comments

Please check your e-mail for a link to activate your account.
  • Fran g
    commented 2025-06-01 19:06:22 -0400
    When will this nightmare end. I keep on thinking as things keep on unfolding, that it couldnt get any worse and then it does. Is this AI making these horrific plans or could it be infiltration of sick phycopaths.
  • Nyssa Yeadon-macdonald
    commented 2025-05-28 19:13:11 -0400
    Wasn’t this something the nazis did?
  • Renaud Gagne
    commented 2025-05-27 20:29:01 -0400
    Another great article by Sheila that should be her Wednesday night show. But it won’t be. Instead we’ll get another boring interview show.
  • Bruce Atchison
    commented 2025-05-27 20:05:47 -0400
    This is how the Holocaust started. Parents refused to take a baby born blind and with only a left leg. Hitler approved the killing of this person. The movement to remove “useless eaters” and “life unworthy of life” snowballed to the point where lessons from the success of Hartheim castle were applied to the “Jewish question.” Go to YouTube and watch those videos about Hartheim Castle and you’ll be shocked at how similar their philosophy is to today’s euthanists.
  • Bernhard Jatzeck
    commented 2025-05-27 16:29:09 -0400
    Eugenics by any other name.