Renewed criticism has emerged over Canada's infanticide law, which allows mothers who kill their children before their first birthday to receive a maximum sentence of just five years, following the mistrial in the case of Lindsay Clancy in Massachusetts. The comparison has drawn attention because Clancy, who faced a possible life sentence in the US for killing her three children, might have faced a far more lenient outcome had the case occurred in Canada, at least for her youngest child. The disparity highlights significant differences in how various jurisdictions treat mothers accused of killing their children while suffering from postpartum mental illness.

Canada's infanticide provision, in place since 1948 under Section 233 of the Criminal Code, applies specifically to mothers who kill infants under one year old while experiencing a disturbed mind linked to childbirth or lactation, carrying a maximum five-year sentence, far less than penalties for other crimes such as robbery or kidnapping. Clancy, 36, admitted to strangling her children Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan in January 2023, but her trial ended in a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict following 38 hours of deliberation. Legal academic Isabel Grant of the University of British Columbia argued the Canadian approach is more appropriate for genuine postpartum illness cases, though she acknowledged its limitation, as the infanticide defence would only have applied to the youngest child, not the two older ones.