One really has to wonder just how good life is in Canada, which gets the reputation from our media of being a grand utopia with chilly winters.

The last time I touched on the subject of our nation’s northern neighbor, I noted that it had reversed its plans to allow people suffering strictly from mental illness to seek participation in its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program.

It turns out there are too few doctors to address the needs of all the mentally ill in Canada.

Canada offers medically assisted death to terminally and chronically ill people, but the plan to extend the program to people with mental illnesses has divided Canadians, the New York Times reported.

Some critics attribute the problem to a lack of adequate psychiatric care in the country.

However, that didn’t stop a judge in Calgary from approving the medically assisted suicide of a 27-year-old woman who suffers from autism and other mental health issues. The ruling came despite the father’s pleas to the court.

A Calgary judge has issued a ruling that clears the way for a 27-year-old woman to receive medical assistance in dying (MAID) despite her father’s attempts through the courts to prevent that from happening.

A publication ban protects the identities of the parties and the medical professionals. CBC News will identify the daughter as M.V. and the father as W.V.

While Justice Colin Feasby acknowledged the “profound grief” that W.V. would suffer with the death of his child, he ruled the loss of M.V.’s autonomy was more important.

“M.V.’s dignity and right to self-determination outweighs the important matters raised by W.V. and the harm that he will suffer in losing M.V.,” wrote Feasby in his 34-page written decision issued Monday.

Sarah Miller, the father’s lawyer, had urged a court to block MV’s planned assisted suicide on February 1, noting the conditions used to warrant inclusion in the MAID program that three medical doctors in Canada’s “free” system persuaded the daughter to take this course.

Miller said in a legal brief that the woman ‘suffers from autism and possibly other undiagnosed maladies that do not satisfy the eligibility criteria for MAiD,’ according to the Calgary Herald.

The daughter also suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to the father, who says euthanasia is not the answer to her problems.

The daughter’s request for assisted suicide, made last year, has been approved by three medical professionals.

Miller says there are ‘genuine concerns with respect to impartiality,’ and that MV has been swayed into making her life-ending decision.

While these are troubling developments, there is even more reason to pay attention to what is occurring in Canada. The mental health “experts” in the country are asserting that climate change is leading to mental health issues — namely “eco-anxiety.”

Ecological worrying is when people are aware of climate change and may be concerned about it, but are able to respond in productive ways, like preparing for an emergency or taking part in climate action events. Climate anxiety, on the other hand, is when this worrying turns into despair that can be paralyzing.

The consensus within the Canadian Psychological Association is that the prevalence of climate anxiety will worsen in the next few years, according to a spokesperson for the organization, and there are not enough mental health professionals available to meet this growing need.

“[There is] an ongoing need to work on mental health, because climate change is certainly a mental health problem as well,” McCunn said.

These experts even have a fancy Latin term for ec0-anxiety (solastalgia) and statistics to try and demonstrate it is a real condition.

Although solastalgia is not considered a psychiatric pathology, it has multiple symptoms, such as stress, insomnia, anxiety, or panic attacks. They can be associated with a loss of confidence in the ability to address climate change, or with feelings of helplessness, guilt, sadness, and even anger over the inaction of economic and political decision-makers.

Eco-anxiety is in fact an expression of a growing societal suffering, since 74 percent of Canadians express concern about global warming, while many are pessimistic about the future of the planet. Data also shows that young people tend to be more affected and concerned about environmental issues than previous generations: in April 2021, more than four in five of them considered climate change a serious threat.

I have other statistics to consider. A Health Canada report says the number of medically assisted deaths in 2022 was more than 30 percent higher than the year prior.

Medically assisted deaths constituted 4.1 per cent of all deaths in Canada last year, said the report, which was published on Tuesday.

Experts and advocates who spoke with CBC News questioned whether the MAID growth rate and the percentage of deaths should be causes for concern. Some cited perceived gaps in the data.

The report says 13,241 people received medically assisted deaths in 2022 — a 31.2 per cent jump over 2021.

It says 44,958 people have received medically assisted deaths since the introduction of federal legislation in 2016.

A year ago, a Belgian father tragically committed suicide following conversations about climate change with an artificial intelligence chatbot that was said to have encouraged him to sacrifice himself to save the planet.

Soon, Canadians may not need AI intervention — they have climate “experts” promoting pseudoscience to generate eco-anxiety, and may soon use mental health “experts” to persuade people to utilize medically assisted suicide as the solution.

Can self-sacrifice in the name of climate be far behind?

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