Ontario Doctors Said No. A B.C. Doctor Said Yes. Canada Euthanized Kiano Vafaeian at 26.

Kiano Vafaeian was 26 years old when Canada ended his life. He had Type 1 diabetes, had lost the sight in one eye and struggled with depression, but he was not terminally ill. His family says multiple doctors in his home province of Ontario turned down his request for medical assistance in dying before he found one in British Columbia who said yes. He died on Dec. 30, 2025. His parents say they were never notified that he had been approved.

His mother, Margaret Marsilla, has spent the months since demanding that Canada change the law that made it possible.

A young man, not a dying one

According to Fox News Digital, which interviewed his parents in February 2026, Vafaeian was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 4. His mental health problems began after a car accident at 17, and he lost vision in one eye in 2022. His mother told Fox his depression was often seasonal.

The Telegraph reported that Marsilla believed his mental health had been improving. He had agreed to accept financial support from her, was saving for travel and was doing personal training. On Dec. 15, he flew to a resort in Mexico. Two nights later, he checked out and flew to Vancouver. On Dec. 29, he texted his family that he was scheduled to die the next day, the Telegraph reported. That text was how his mother learned of the appointment. The parents told Fox they were not notified of the approval and learned of his death only days after it happened.

Stepfather Joseph Caprara told Fox: “This whole process came to us as a shock.”

The first time, his mother stopped it

This was not the family’s first fight. In September 2022, when Vafaeian was 23, Marsilla discovered he had been scheduled for an assisted death by a doctor in Toronto. She went public, and after the campaign drew attention, the doctor backed out, according to both Fox and the Telegraph. Vafaeian, the Telegraph reported, said at the time that his mother had violated his right to choose how and when he died.

That episode matters, because it shows that at least one physician, facing public scrutiny, decided not to proceed. The family says that after 2022, multiple Ontario doctors rejected his request. He then turned to Dr. Ellen Wiebe, a prominent MAID provider in British Columbia, who approved him.

Track 2 and the “coaching” allegation

Because his natural death was not reasonably foreseeable, Vafaeian was approved under what Canada calls Track 2, the pathway for people who are not dying. Marsilla told Fox she believes Wiebe coached her son on what to say to qualify. “We believe that she was coaching him… on how to deteriorate his body,” she said. She also said her son “kept on emphasizing about how he could get approved,” and that “We never thought there would be a chance that any doctor would approve a 22- or 23-year-old at that time for MAID because of diabetes or blindness.”

Those are the family’s allegations. Wiebe, asked by Fox News Digital about the case, said every patient she approves for Track 2 has “unbearable suffering from a grievous and irremediable medical condition (not psychiatric).”

The family disputes what that condition was. According to the Telegraph, his death certificate listed blindness, severe peripheral neuropathy and diabetes as antecedent causes. His parents told Fox that his medical records did not support the “severe peripheral neuropathy” listed as a qualifying condition. Marsilla told the Telegraph she believes the doctor “approved his death based on mental illness.”

Marsilla called the situation “disgusting on every level,” and wrote on Facebook that “No parent should ever have to bury their child because a system—and a doctor—chose death over care, help, or love.”

What the family is asking for

The parents are not only grieving. They have a list. According to Fox, they want Parliament to repeal the Track 2 provision of Canada’s assisted-death law, pass Bill C-218, which would restrict MAID for patients whose underlying issue is solely mental illness, and add basic safeguards such as contacting family members and offering a range of treatment options before approval. Caprara urged other states and countries to pause before adopting similar laws.

The scale of the program makes those demands more than personal. Health Canada’s annual report found that 16,499 people received MAID in 2024, 5.1 percent of all deaths in the country. Of those, 732 were Track 2 cases, people whose deaths were not reasonably foreseeable.

The question Canada won’t answer

Supporters of MAID describe it as a matter of autonomy, and Vafaeian, by his own account in 2022, wanted that choice. But the system is supposed to include safeguards precisely because a person in a depressive spiral can sincerely want something that a year later he would not. In this case, by his family’s account, the safeguard worked in Ontario. Doctor after doctor said no. Then he went to another province and found the one who said yes.

A system that lets a struggling 26-year-old keep asking until somebody agrees is not protecting the vulnerable. It is processing them. And a family that had already saved their son once got no chance to try again.

When doctor after doctor says no and the state still finds one willing to end a young man’s life, that is not compassion, it is a loophole with a body count.

Editor’s note: This article covers the December 2025 death of Kiano Vafaeian, first reported in early 2026, which drew renewed attention in October 2026.

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