Paralympian Veteran Waited 5 Years for a Wheelchair Lift. She Says Canada Offered Her Assisted Death.

Christine Gauthier, a retired Canadian Army corporal and paraplegic Paralympian, told members of Parliament that a Veterans Affairs Canada case manager suggested medical assistance in dying to her while she was fighting the department for a wheelchair lift for her home. Her testimony, given to the House of Commons veterans affairs committee on December 1, 2022, is drawing renewed attention online this month, and it remains one of the starkest examples of what Canada’s assisted-death regime looks like from the receiving end.

She did not ask to die. She asked for equipment so she could get in and out of her own house. By her account, the system that kept stalling on the equipment moved a lot faster when the subject was death.

Five years waiting for a lift

Gauthier served in the heavy artillery section of the Canadian Army and suffered permanent damage to her knees and spine in a training accident, according to CTV News and Catholic News Agency reporting. She went on to compete in para sport, including at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

When Bloc Québécois MP Luc Desilets asked her at the hearing how long she had been waiting for a platform lift at her home, her answer was blunt: “It’s been five years.” She explained that it was a renewal, her third lift, and described what life looked like in the meantime: “Right now, I have to crawl up and down the stairs to get in and out of my home.”

According to the official committee transcript, the project was approved in December 2020, but a subcontractor sent by the department chose a spot she said was unsuitable. After she objected, she testified, a Veterans Affairs occupational therapist started the project over again.

“I was told that if I was that desperate”

Later in the hearing, Gauthier asked to speak about assisted dying. Her words, from the committee transcript:

“I have in my files a letter that I wrote after medical assistance in dying was suggested to me. I was told that if I was that desperate, they could give me medical assistance in dying now. I surmised that Veterans Affairs Canada was going to provide me with medical assistance in dying faster than they were going to provide me with the equipment I needed to live.”

Asked to explain how the offer was framed, she said: “I was told that, if I was finding it too hard to live, they could help me access medical assistance in dying.” Asked whether it came from a case manager, she answered, “Yes.”

She told the committee she then wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay, saying that if they “wanted to help me die before they would provide me with the disability equipment I needed to live, they were going to have to look me in the eye and give me the injection themselves.” She agreed to give the committee a copy of the letter. Speaking to Global News afterward, she said the conversation took place in 2019 and added: “It was really shocking to hear that kind of comment.”

Not the first veteran

Gauthier came forward in the middle of a scandal that was already public. In November 2022, Veterans Affairs had confirmed that a single service agent raised assisted dying with veterans and referred those cases to the RCMP. Global News reported that the department confirmed four cases dating back to 2019, all involving the same employee, who was first suspended and, by December 20, 2022, was “no longer employed at Veterans Affairs Canada,” according to the minister’s press secretary. The department did not publicly name the employee, and as of late December 2022 the RCMP had not confirmed whether it opened a formal investigation.

At the hearing, Gauthier referred to that count directly: “According to the minister, Mr. MacAulay, it was an isolated case, but it happened to four other people. I am the fifth, and if the story came out, I think more people would probably come forward.”

Trudeau responded to the uproar in early December 2022: “I have said repeatedly that this is absolutely unacceptable, and as soon as we heard about this we took action. We are following up with investigations and we are changing protocols…”

The department’s denial

Readers deserve the department’s side, too. MacAulay and Deputy Minister Paul Ledwell told MPs that a review of Gauthier’s file did not support her account, and Global News reported that her case was not among the four the department had confirmed. Global also reported that her July 9, 2021, letter to Trudeau and MacAulay described the process as “cruel” but did not explicitly mention assisted dying. In the excerpt published by Catholic News Agency, the letter told the government that “if you do not want to allow me to live with autonomy and dignity, put an end to my suffering and my days.”

In March 2023, the department’s final report confirmed the four inappropriate cases tied to one employee and called the remaining allegations “unfounded,” CTV News reported.

So the department says it has no record of the conversation she describes. What it cannot deny is the rest: a disabled veteran told Parliament that she had spent five years waiting for a lift and was crawling up her own stairs, while the same department admitted one of its own staff had raised assisted death with veterans in cases dating back to 2019. That is the backdrop against which her story has to be weighed.

Why it still matters

Canada built an assisted-death system that is free and fast, and a disability-support system that, by its own veterans’ testimony, is slow, paper-bound and indifferent. Put those two systems in front of a desperate person and the outcome is predictable. Bruce Moncur, another retired corporal who testified on the same panel, put it in four words: “Dead veterans cost no money.”

Gauthier’s point was simpler. She wanted a lift. She was willing to fight for it for years. The insult was not just the delay; it was the suggestion that ending her life was the more reasonable request.

A soldier who gave her body to Canada asked for a way into her own home, and her country’s answer, by her account, was a faster way out of life.

Editor’s note: This article covers testimony given to the House of Commons veterans affairs committee in December 2022 that drew renewed attention in October 2026.

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