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Brosseau wants “a peaceful death,� an exit that “will not inflict the trauma on my friends and family of a death by suicide.� Unlike the more than 60,000 Canadians who have died since 2016 with Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), primarily because of cancer, cardiovascular and neurological illnesses, Brosseau isn’t eligible for an assisted death because the federal government has denied access, until March 2027, for patients suffering solely from severe and untreatable mental disorders or MI-SUMC.

Not all suffering is equal. Psychological pain isn’t visible, unlike the physical deterioration that comes with late-stage cancer, ALS or Parkinson’s. By arguing that Canadians aren’t “ready” to recognize that actuality, the government is failing to confront the ghastly reality of long-term mental disorders in a timely fashion. Even though the Supreme Court of Canada talked about suffering that is intolerable to the patient in its 2015 Carter ruling striking down the blanket prohibition against assisting a suicide, the federal government insisted on dying as the ultimate criteria in its .

Do people with physical disabilities, such as the late constitutional lawyer Joseph (Joe) Arvay, a paraplegic, who successfully used the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to argue the Carter Challenge before the Supreme Court a decade ago, not have agency over their own lives? Do they need to be protected from life and death decisions if they are cognizant to express their wishes? Of course not. And yet it has taken years of legal struggles to claw back a basic human right that was shuttered by federal legislation aimed at protecting the “vulnerable.�

When Parliament fails to act, the courts must, and that is why a long line of proactive citizens has sacrificed time, privacy and income to campaign publicly for their Charter right to determine when life is no longer viable for them. That list includes: Sue Rodriguez (ALS), who died in secret after narrowly losing her Supreme Court challenge in 1993; family members of Kay Carter (spinal stenosis), who were afraid they would be charged with breaking the law for accompanying her to Switzerland, the only country that allows foreigners to have an assisted death; Jean Truchon (progressive cerebral palsy) and Nicole Gladu (post-polio syndrome) who challenged the end of life requirement.

The minority federal government, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, supported the Quebec decision in 2021 by revising its original MAiD legislation. It introduced a two-tier system, including a waiver of final consent for imminently dying patients, expanded eligibility, with specific safeguards, to include individuals whose natural deaths were not reasonably foreseeable, but it first prohibited and then postponed access for patients whose sole underlying condition was a mental illness.

That’s when Brosseau went public. In a letter to the Senate in October 2022, she detailed her eating disorders, suicidality and escalating diagnoses beginning with manic depression when she was 14, and the hospitalizations and treatments she has undergone. “I’ve tried E.C.T., C.B.T., D.B.T., … general psychotherapy, 12-step programs, rehab, meditation, art, music, group, family-focused therapy [and] a hefty cocktail of psychotropic drugs,� she wrote. Nothing has cured her. She compared her mental illness to a terminal disease, one that is leaving her with two terrifying options: suicide or suffering until her body gives out. “Bipolar disorder has revoked my ability and privilege to live with dignity,� she concluded. “I am asking for the chance to die with some.�

Public uncertainty, the reluctance of many in the psychiatric profession to step up, political turmoil in the House of Commons with the Trudeau Liberals torpedoing in the polls and Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre threatening, if he became Prime Minister, to revoke any expansion of MAiD beyond physical suffering, all combined to push MI-SUMC off the agenda. The Liberal government transferred responsibility for the legislation from Justice to Health, enlisted the provinces, declared the country wasn’t ready, and passed Bill C-62 in February 2024, postponing MAiD access to people suffering from acute and prolonged mental suffering for an additional three years — until March 17, 2027.

Much has changed since then with the resignation of Mr. Trudeau, the re-election of the Liberals under new leader Prime Minister Mark Carney, the sidelining of Mr. Poilievre as he tries to reclaim a seat in the House of Commons after his defeat in the last general election, and the return of constitutional lawyer and former justice minister David Lametti in a new role as Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister. He was dropped from the Trudeau cabinet amidst his support for the Beaudoin ruling in Quebec and the (temporary) inclusion of MI-SUMC, and resigned his seat effective Feb. 1, 2024. What hasn’t changed, at least not yet, is the exclusion of MAiD for intractable psychological disorders, a ban that denies one group of adults the same constitutional rights as other Canadians.

Knowing you can have an assisted death if your suffering becomes intolerable can give a patient the confidence to keep on living. Nicole Gladu, for example, having won the right to have MAiD in 2019, died of natural causes three years later. Last December (2024) The Guardian newspaper in England ran a long feature about a young woman with severe depression who was scheduled to have euthanasia in Holland, but on the scheduled date, changed her mind and decided she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her existence, however painful it was.

The opposite can be true when the right to die is denied, as happened with Jane Hunter, 75, a participant in the 2024 CBC documentary, “No Way to Die.” Shaking her head and speaking in a quavering voice, she described decades of suffering. “I don’t want to live anymore,â€� she said. “I have no more resilience … I am too depleted.â€� She died by suicide on March 31, 2024. Afterwards, her family wrote in a death notice: “Jane ended her life on her own terms, while waiting for MAiD to be legal for many people like her with unbearable mental illnesses … She fought the good fight.â€�

That is the torch Brosseau has taken up. Last summer (August 19, 2024), she filed a challenge, organized by the human rights charity Dying with Dignity, in the Ontario Superior Court against the Attorney General of Canada. In her affidavit Brosseau asked for “the same rights as others with incurable illnesses to choose when and how I die.� She has been joined as a plaintiff by retired journalist John Scully (84, born 1941), who has profound Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following a storied career reporting from the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the refugee crisis in Bangladesh, and the aftermath of the Vietnam War, among other conflict zones. In his affidavit, he reported many failed psychiatric treatments and attested that “the delay in repealing the current prohibition on MAiD has been cruel and has only added to my suffering.�

On my next visit, Brosseau showed me her battered front door when the police broke into her apartment in response to a frantic call from a family member, terrified that she was going to overdose following a traumatic family funeral. Brosseau ended up in four-point restraints in a psychiatric facility for three days, a horrific ordeal she describes as akin to being held hostage and a torture that prevents her from willingly entering hospital for invasive treatment. Her demeanour and her voice change as she recounts the brutal confinement that has “ruined� her life. That pain, that outrage, are not things I will forget easily. How much worse must it be for her to relive that nightmare?

I know that the wheels of justice grind slowly, but the first anniversary of the legal challenge to the exclusion of mental disorders is next month and Brosseau doesn’t know how much longer she can wait for a court date. In June, she told me that she was going to apply for MAiD because of a chronic physical condition (extreme asthma) and forget about the court challenge. I reminded her of the conversations we have had about legacy and how she can possibly make a difference to so many others. Yes, she insists, she wants to fight for equal rights, but “every morning when I wake up and open my eyes, I say ‘there’s another prayer unanswered.’� She tries to keep busy, taking courses online, watching baseball on television, writing clever captions to New Yorker cartoons, and walking her dog, hiding behind sunglasses and earphones, but always there are thoughts of effecting the ultimate escape.

Of course, some scientific genius could invent a magic elixir tomorrow that could cure Brosseau, but that is not the reality in which she is existing, cocooned in her apartment, unable to earn a living, dependent on her family for her care and upkeep. Don’t misunderstand me: I believe the bar should be high for approving MAID for patients with mental disorders, but I don’t think it should be impossible.