Sisters Alicia and Christie Duncan say they tried desperately to stop their mother, Donna, from being euthanised under Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) programme in October 2021, arguing she was mentally unwell rather than terminally ill. The case has become a focal point for critics who say Canada's assisted-dying laws lack sufficient safeguards, potentially allowing vulnerable people with treatable conditions to be approved for death rather than given adequate support.

Donna, a 61-year-old retired psychiatric nurse, had been approved for the fast-tracked "Track 1" pathway despite her daughters insisting she was suffering a mental health crisis, triggered by a car accident and worsened by pandemic isolation, marked by paranoia and delusional beliefs. Her daughters secured a judge's arrest warrant under the Mental Health Act to have her admitted to a psychiatric ward, but she was discharged without their knowledge and died by lethal injection on 29 October 2021, with practitioners citing a "foreseeable trajectory" towards death from malnutrition. Alicia, now campaigning for stricter MAiD safeguards, says the legislation's loopholes have allowed approvals for non-terminal conditions such as hearing loss and diabetes, and describes lasting trauma from the experience, including discovering the IV mark on her mother's wrist at the crematorium.