False Claim: Diabetes was the listed reason for MAiD in 13% of MAiD deaths in B.C.
This week in MAiD misinformation is dedicated to Tucker Carlson, who made a number of false claims about MAiD in Canada while interviewing a familiar Canadian purveyor of MAiD misinformation and conspiracy theories
At 1:11:04, Carlson asks:
“What are the kinds of ailments that would qualify someone for being killed?”
Sheren replies:
“Well, the new data, which is really fascinating, I believe it’s 13% of the people killed in the province of British Columbia where their listed reasoning was diabetes.”
We are unsure where she dug up this statistic, but if anyone finds it, please send it our way.
According to the Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada:
“A practitioner must report on the specific serious and incurable illness, disease, or disability or state of decline that is the cause of the individual’s suffering. However, individuals requesting MAID very often suffer from more than one serious medical condition that contributes to their suffering. For this reason, when filing their reports practitioners may—and often do—select more than one medical condition, and do not rank them in order of most significant impact on the individual’s health.”
For reporting purposes, the practitioner can choose from cancer, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular conditions, neurological conditions, organ failure, and “other” conditions.
“Other” conditions may include, but are not limited to, diabetes, frailty, bone or tissue disorders, chronic pain conditions, autoimmune disorders, and hearing or visual impairments.
Nowhere in any of the federal annual reports on MAiD will you find anything stating that 13% of people reported diabetes as the—or even a—condition underlying their request for MAiD.
But Sheren did say “British Columbia,” so let’s look there.
According to the British Columbia Medical Assistance in Dying Statistical Report 2025, of the 3,189 individuals who accessed MAiD in B.C. in 2025, 1,200 had a condition categorized as “other.” Of those 1,200 people, 15.3% were diagnosed with diabetes.
That means 184 people reported having diabetes—5.8% of all those who received MAiD, not 15.4% (and not 13% either).
To put that into perspective, almost 25% of Canadians over the age of 55 have been diagnosed with diabetes, and people over 55 account for approximately 96% of all MAiD cases. It should not be surprising, then, that 5% of MAiD recipients had diabetes as a diagnosis, particularly when the median age for track 1 MAiD recipients was 78 years.
As is the case with the sixth annual report, the BC report also cannot tell us how much each reported illness, disease, or disability contributed to the advanced state of decline and intolerable suffering that drove the MAiD request.
We suspect that this is the statistic behind Sheren’s claim. But, as usual, it is presented incorrectly and without context.
Importantly, that figure does not mean that 15.3% of MAiD recipients received MAiD solely because of diabetes. It does not even mean that the correct figure of 5.8% did. It means diabetes was recorded as one of their medical conditions or comorbidities.
The majority of those individuals were very likely to be living with cancer, heart disease, organ failure, neurological illness, or other serious conditions in addition to diabetes.
The claim also ignores the fact that diabetes can itself be a serious, life-limiting disease. It can shorten life expectancy by five to 15 years and cause complications including vision loss, kidney failure requiring dialysis, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and peripheral neuropathy.
According to Diabetes Canada, diabetes contributes to 30% of strokes, 40% of cardiac events, 50% of kidney failure, and 70% of non-traumatic leg and foot amputations.
Even the underlying premise of Sheren’s claim therefore misunderstands the severity of the suffering diabetes can cause and the fact that it can itself become a terminal illness.