1. Check the Sources
A common tactic in MAiD information is to make a claim and assume the reader will not check to see if the claim is true. When said confidently, these claims can sound and feel convincing. At MAiD in Canada we use the “don’t trust, verify” approach. We look at a claim and ask if it is backed up by a reputable source. Someone confident in their claims will provider a reference that confirms what they say.
Unfortunately, some people use references that don’t support the claim being made. This might be because the person making the claim never checked their reference, misunderstood it, or in extreme cases deliberately misstated the reference knowing people are not likely to check for themselves. This is why it is important to actually check the source.
We encountered this issues in a debate with the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC). In that debate, Gordon Friesen, the EPC President, claimed the Canadian Psychiatric Association made a statement that they did not. If we had not checked the source, we might not have learned how wrong Gordon’s claim was.
This was also demonstrated, again by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (this time by their Executive Director, Alex Schadenberg) in a press conference at Parliament in Ottawa on April 13, 2026, Here Schadenberg claimed that suicide rates have increased since MAiD was legalized. To support this he referenced the number of suicided in Canada in 2016 and compared them to 2025. There was an increase of about 20%. But what Schadenberg did not share or account for was the population increase was also close to 20% (17% to be accurate) which represents a much smaller increase than Schadenberg claimed. The only reason we know this claim is not true is because we checked his sources (and math).
Takeaway: Always check the sources yourself.
A Six-Week Exchange With the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - Week 4 - MAiD in Canada
Wineburg, S., & McGrew, S. (2017). Lateral reading and the nature of expertise.
Breakstone, J. et al. (2021). Teaching lateral reading improves students’ ability to evaluate online information. Nature Human Behaviour.