B.C. health authority wins in court against husband’s ‘death plan’ for sick wife

By Canadian Press on December 22, 2025.

NANAIMO — The B.C. Supreme Court has ordered the husband of a woman with Alzheimer’s disease removed as her representative over a “death plan” he decided to carry out if his wife became ineligible for medical assistance in dying.

The ruling says the Vancouver Island Health Authority took the man — who isn’t identified by name — to court to protect his vulnerable wife “against the likelihood of death at the hands of her husband.”

The ruling handed down last week says the man is a strong advocate for medical assistance in dying, and “overtly and repeatedly” told family, friends and authority staff that he would end his wife’s life, then his own, if she was deemed ineligible for the procedure.

The judge’s decision says the woman was assessed in 2020 and deemed eligible for MAID, but was found unable to consent a year later after a doctor found she “no longer had sufficient insight into her dementia.”

The ruling says the health authority intervened after a doctor reported that the woman was incapable of consenting to MAID and that her husband planned to carry out the “death plan, which he referred to as ‘dignicide.'”

Justice Bradford Smith’s ruling says the only “tenable solution” to protect the woman from death or grievous harm was to remove her husband as her personal representative, and give that authority to her daughter.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 22, 2025.

The Canadian Press

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