False Claim: The French government is offering seniors MAiD instead of air conditioning

Trudeau Lemmens recently reposted a claim on X stating that "The French government is offering older people euthanasia rather than air conditioning."

Like many viral social media posts, it's a catchy line. It is also deeply misleading.

The claim relies on a familiar logical fallacy known as a false dilemma. It presents two options as though they are mutually exclusive: governments are deciding between providing air conditioning or allow access to assisted dying, and they are choosing assisted dying. But that simply isn't how healthcare or public policy works.

People are not denied air conditioning and then "offered euthanasia instead." A person who requests MAiD is assessed against legal eligibility criteria. They are not told they cannot have long-term care, home care, air conditioning, palliative care, disability supports, or any other public service, but can have MAiD instead. 

This framing is remarkably common tactic among opponents of MAiD.

Sometimes the claim is that governments are offering MAiD instead of palliative care. Other times it is MAiD instead of disability supports, mental health care, housing, poverty reduction, or improved long-term care. Now the latest version is MAiD instead of air conditioning. The argument changes, but the underlying tactic remains the same: it falsely presents MAiD and social supports as though they are competing alternatives. They are not. And this is not honest engagement in discussions about deficiencies in government supports or MAiD. 

A government can improve long-term care, install air conditioning in care homes, expand disability supports, invest in palliative care, increase mental health funding, and continue to respect the right of eligible adults to choose MAiD. None of these policies excludes the others.

If every French nursing home received air conditioning tomorrow, this argument would not disappear. The same people would simply replace "air conditioning" with another issue they believe deserves greater funding. The point is not really about air conditioning—it is about creating the misleading impression that MAiD is replacing healthcare and social supports.

As we've written many times, this is not supported by the evidence. Most Canadians who receive MAiD have already received palliative care. Many continue receiving palliative care until the day they die. Likewise, many MAiD patients receive home care, specialist care, disability supports, counselling, and other services. Receiving those supports does not prevent everyone from eventually deciding that their suffering remains intolerable.

Public discussion about improving healthcare is important. So is holding governments accountable for deficiencies in care. But those conversations should be based on reality—not on the false claim that people are being offered MAiD instead of the care they need.