Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) and Your Estate Plan in Canada

A retired engineer in Victoria with metastatic pancreatic cancer scheduled MAID for a Friday three weeks ahead. In the two-week window between assessment approval and the procedure date, he and his wife sat down with a notepad and worked through what needed to be done. He signed a new will updating an executor change. He completed the Life Discovery Kit so his wife would know which bank had which account. He wrote three letters — one to each of his children — for them to open afterward. He pre-arranged the cremation with a local funeral home and pre-paid it. On the morning of the procedure, the only undone thing on his list was a phone call to his oldest brother, which he made from the bed.

That kind of preparation is unusual for most Canadian deaths, where the timing is unknown. It is increasingly the norm for MAID deaths, where the timing is set in advance. This guide walks the legal framework and the estate-planning work that fits inside the planning window.

For the upstream documents, see our pillar on estate planning in Canada and the companion pieces on advance care directives in Canada and funeral pre-planning.

What MAID is, legally #

Medical Assistance in Dying is a carve-out from the Criminal Code's general prohibition on assisting suicide. The original framework was created by Bill C-14 in 2016, following the Supreme Court of Canada's 2015 decision in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General). The framework was substantially amended by Bill C-7 in March 2021.^[2]

Two procedural tracks now exist. Track 1 applies where the patient's natural death is reasonably foreseeable. Track 2 applies where the patient has a serious and incurable illness, disease, or disability and is in an advanced state of irreversible decline, but natural death is not reasonably foreseeable. Track 2 has additional procedural safeguards including a 90-day assessment period.^[3]

Mental illness as the sole underlying medical condition is currently excluded from MAID eligibility, with the exclusion most recently extended through March 17, 2027, pending further legislative review.^[3]

Eligibility requires the applicant to be at least 18, eligible for publicly funded health services in Canada, capable of making decisions about their health, have made a voluntary request not made under external pressure, and have given informed consent.

What MAID is not #

MAID is a current-consent medical procedure. The patient's capable consent at or near the time of the procedure is the foundation of the legal authority. This has direct implications for estate planning.

A will does not authorise MAID. The will operates after death. By the time it is opened, the question of MAID has already been answered one way or the other.

A power of attorney for personal care does not authorise MAID. Substitute decision-makers cannot request MAID on behalf of an incapable patient. The capable patient is the only person who can make the request, with the limited exceptions noted below.

An advance directive or living will does not authorise MAID in most circumstances. Advance directives in Canada are widely respected for refusing or accepting treatment but they do not extend to requesting MAID at a future point of incapacity. A handful of provinces are exploring more permissive frameworks; as of 2026, this remains contested federal terrain.

The two narrow advance-consent exceptions #

Bill C-7 created two limited exceptions to the contemporaneous-consent rule.^[2]

The final consent waiver. A person whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable, who has been assessed and approved for MAID, may sign a written waiver of final consent. If the person loses capacity before the procedure date, MAID can still be administered without their immediate consent at that moment, on the basis of the prior approved request and the signed waiver. The waiver does not apply to Track 2.

Advance consent for failed self-administration. In the rare case where a patient self-administers MAID and the procedure fails to cause death, the practitioner can administer a subsequent dose without obtaining new consent if the patient has previously consented to that arrangement. Self-administered MAID is uncommon in Canada (most procedures are practitioner-administered).

Neither exception extends to the broader concept of an "advance request" — that is, instructions written years before, while capable, to receive MAID at a future point if specified conditions are met. The federal expert review process has examined advance requests and the law continues to evolve, but as of 2026 the broader advance-request model is not permitted.

The estate-planning window before a scheduled MAID death #

Most MAID deaths follow a planning window of one to several weeks between assessment approval and the procedure date. This window is, in practical terms, the most estate-planning-friendly time most Canadians ever have.

The high-value tasks that typically fit in the window include the following.

Update the will. Any changes triggered by the diagnosis or the decline — a new executor, a substitute beneficiary, a charitable bequest — should be made before the procedure. The will signed during this window is generally legally robust because capacity is being clinically assessed in parallel for the MAID approval itself; the contemporaneous medical record is strong evidence of testamentary capacity if the will is later challenged. See our guide on how to sign your will in Canada for the formalities.

Complete the Life Discovery Kit. The executor's job becomes radically easier when the deceased has documented where every account, every safety-deposit box, every recurring subscription, every important paper sits. Most families find this easier to do in conversation with the patient than to reconstruct afterward.

Pre-arrange the funeral. Pre-arrangement with a funeral home, including pre-payment if budget allows, removes a significant burden from the family. For a MAID death, the funeral home generally needs to be told that the death will be MAID and the timing — funeral homes will not pre-collect the body and the planning is otherwise normal.

Organise digital accounts. Password vaults, Apple Digital Legacy, Google Inactive Account Manager. See our piece on Apple Digital Legacy setup for Canadians.

Write personal letters. Letters to spouse, children, grandchildren, friends — anything the patient wants the survivors to read later. These are not legal documents but they are among the most-valued artefacts the family will retain.

Update beneficiary designations. RRSP, RRIF, TFSA, life insurance, pension — confirm the named beneficiaries are still the intended ones. These pass outside the will and are unaffected by anything the will says.

Tax implications #

A MAID death is treated for tax purposes exactly like any other death. The deceased's final tax return is filed by the executor and reports a deemed disposition of capital property at fair market value as of the date of death.^[6] Registered accounts (RRSP, RRIF) are deemed to be withdrawn at fair market value unless rolled over to a qualifying spouse or dependent. TFSAs continue to be tax-free.

There is no MAID-specific tax treatment, no MAID-specific exemption, and no MAID-specific reporting requirement on the deceased's final return. The medical certificate of death will note the immediate cause but the CRA does not treat MAID as a separate event for income-tax purposes.

Life insurance and MAID #

The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association issued industry guidance in 2016 confirming that MAID would not be treated as suicide for the purposes of standard policy exclusions, provided the procedure was lawfully performed under federal law.^[7] Most policies issued in Canada now incorporate that position directly.

Older policies — particularly those signed before 2016 — may have language that pre-dates this guidance and could theoretically trigger a suicide-clause review. The practical answer is that no Canadian insurer is known to have denied a claim on this ground for a lawfully performed MAID death, but a beneficiary of an older policy should not assume and should review the policy or contact the insurer.

The funeral and the family #

A MAID death is, for most procedural purposes, an ordinary death. The body is released to the funeral home in the normal way. The medical certificate of death is signed by the MAID practitioner. The funeral can be a traditional service with viewing, a cremation, a green burial, or any other lawful arrangement.

What is different is the planning window and the family experience. Families who have been through MAID often describe it as more peaceful than the death they had been anticipating from the underlying illness, partly because the goodbye is on a schedule and partly because the patient is generally awake, oriented, and able to participate in the moments before. The downside is the emotional weight of a known date, which different families and individuals process very differently.

The funeral pre-planning conversation tends to be easier in this context — the patient is generally able to express their wishes clearly, in their own voice, and the family is generally able to plan with the patient's input rather than guessing afterward.

What this means for your plan #

Two takeaways. First, MAID is a current-consent procedure that operates outside the estate-planning instruments — the will, the POA, the directive. The estate-planning work around a planned MAID death is logistical preparation, not legal authorisation. Second, the planning window before a scheduled procedure is an unusual estate-planning opportunity. Most of the documents and decisions that families struggle with after an unexpected death are answerable in advance for a MAID death.

When clients build their estate plan with It's Simple Will, the workflow accommodates a planning timeline as short as a single sitting. The Will Creator, the Life Discovery Kit, and the Funeral Pre-Planner are each completable in a few hours and can be done in any order. For the broader frame, our pillar on estate planning in Canada ties the documents together.