MAID expansion has been delayed again. This father — whose son had severe mental illness — questions why
CBC
WARNING: This story includes details about suicide.
Windsor, Ont., resident Graham Clayton knows that his son would have preferred medical assistance in dying, rather than taking his own life. But it wasn't an option for the 27-year-old who battled severe mental illness — and several years later, Clayton's not surprised that it still isn't one.
"That's what he hoped for," Clayton told CBC News on Tuesday.
"He [said], 'If I could die, in my home, with my family and friends, that would be wonderful.'"
Instead, Clayton says his son Adam Maier-Clayton died by himself in a Windsor hotel room in April 2017. Following the federal government's decision to pause expanding medical assistance in dying (MAID) last week, Clayton spoke with CBC News and reflected on the issue, as well as his son's MAID advocacy work.
"It would have been easier for Adam [had he received MAID]," said Clayton.
"He would have been able to say goodbye, kisses and hugs and so on. He would have really liked to have had that. And it would have been better, still very, very sad, but better."
Adam, a business school graduate, spoke with CBC News in 2016. At the time, he was pushing for MAID to be granted to people with mental illness.
He said he battled anxiety, mood disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder since he was a child.
Adam had told CBC News that his debilitating pain felt like parts of his body were being burned by acid. Despite a host of treatments, some of them experimental, he said that his agony only worsened.
Clayton says Adam used to tell him that when the pain gets to be too much, he will make the decision to end his own life.
"And that's exactly what he did," Clayton said.
The government has delayed expanding MAID eligibility for people suffering solely from mental illness until 2027.
New legislation passed in 2021 delayed by two years the extension of MAID to include those who suffer from mental illness. That deadline was later pushed back to March 17 of this year.
While his party has made a cause célèbre out of its battle with the Speaker, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has periodically waxed poetic about the House of Commons — suggesting that its green upholstery is meant to symbolize the fields of the English countryside where commoners met centuries ago before the signing of the Magna Carta.