Family Blasts Canada's 'Cult of Death': 26-Year-Old Euthanized Over Depression—Not Terminal Illness

Conservatives warned this was the path euthanasia would take when Canada made it pretty easy for 'terminally ill' people to end their own lives. Very quickly, seriously terminally ill was expanded to mean a whole lot of things. In the case of this young man who recently chose to take his own life, it was blindness in one eye and seasonal depression. I have to believe that's not what most people think of when they hear 'terminally ill'. He was also a very young man and it appears treatment had worked for him, at times.

Distraught family blasts Canada for euthanizing son, 26, who suffered from 'seasonal depression' https://t.co/QHy6JQvZ45
— Daily Mail US (@Daily_MailUS) February 17, 2026

A family has accused Canada's laws of 'killing the disabled and vulnerable' months after their son, who suffered from seasonal depression, died by assisted suicide.
Kiano Vafaeian, a 26-year-old blind man with Type 1 diabetes, died in December using Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program, which allows patients with 'grievous and irremediable' medical conditions to request a lethal drug.
Eligibility was expanded in 2021 to include people with chronic illnesses, disabilities and, pending parliamentary review, potentially individuals with certain mental health conditions.
Vafaeian faced mental health struggles stemming from a car accident at 17, and according to his mother, his depression often flared during the winter months.
For years, the family had successfully prevented their son from using the program. Last year, however, Dr Ellen Wiebe, a MAID provider in British Columbia, approved Vafaeian's death - news the family only learned about days later.
Vafaeian's mother, Margaret Marsilla of Ontario, alleged that Wiebe was 'coaching' her son on how to qualify as a Track 2 patient - those whose natural deaths aren't deemed 'reasonably imminent,' according to Fox News Digital.
'We believe that she was coaching him on how to deteriorate his body and what she can possibly approve him for and what she can get away with approving him for,' Marsilla told the outlet.
Marsilla has since been battling fiercely to undo the Track 2 modification and to support Bill C-218, a legislative effort intended to restrict MAID for those whose only condition is a mental illness.

His family fought desperately to keep this from happening. The doctors who allowed this have absolutely no respect for life or the grieving family left behind. The family even believes the Doctor coached their son on what to say in order to gain approval for his own death.

The priest at St Patrick’s in NYC was railing against Canada for perpetuating this cult of death. This was the inevitable trajectory of opening the door to euthanasia: a young adult with his whole life ahead of him opts to die when he could have just moved to a sunnier location https://t.co/PcDAhYJuqa
— Caroline Downey (@carolinedowney_) February 17, 2026

I'm a Floridian. Even though we get very few days of winter here, I can quickly slip into a funk. I need sun. I tried to live up North for a bit many years ago and I realized it was not good for my mental health. I am a person who needs sun. I understand seasonal depression. It isn't a reason to end your life. Neither is blindness in one eye.

The man was 26 and had depression.

This isn't "euthanasia," it's just murder. https://t.co/IFeUJ4bDng
— Lauren Chen (@TheLaurenChen) February 17, 2026

I have a son who will turn 26 in May. This makes me physically sick to think about. I'm so grateful my son didn't have this option during desperate times in his life. He would never have considered it, but why even allow this to be a option for young men who don't have fully formed frontal cortexes until they are 25.