BBC
By Fergus Walsh & Camilla Horrox
April 3rd, 2025
April Hubbard is not terminally ill, but the 39-year-old performance and burlesque artist has been approved for assisted dying under Canada’s increasingly liberal laws.
She is speaking to BBC News from the Bus Stop Theatre, an intimate auditorium with a little under 100 seats, in the eastern city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Illuminated by a single spotlight on a stage she has performed on many times before, she tells me she plans to die here “within months” of her imminent 40th birthday. She’ll be joined by a small group of her family and friends.
I want to be surrounded by the people I love and just have everybody hold me in a giant cuddle puddle and get to take my last breath, surrounded by love and support.
April Hubbard
April was born with spina bifida and was later diagnosed with tumours at the base of her spine which she says have left her in constant, debilitating pain. She’s been taking strong opioid painkillers for more than 20 years and applied for Medical Assistance in Dying (Maid) in March 2023. While she could yet live for decades with her condition, she qualified to end her life early seven months after applying.
For those who are terminally ill it is possible to get approval within 24 hours.
Critics say Canada is an example of the “slippery slope”, meaning that once you pass an assisted dying law it will inevitably widen its scope and have fewer safeguards. Canada now has one of the most liberal systems of assisted dying in the world, similar to that operating in the Netherlands and Belgium. It introduced Maid in 2016, initially for terminally ill adults with a serious and incurable physical illness, which causes intolerable suffering. In 2021, the need to be terminally ill was removed, and in two years’ time, the Canadian government plans to open Maid to adults solely with a mental illness and no physical ailment. Opponents of Maid tell us that death is coming to be seen as a standard treatment option for those with disabilities and complex medical problems.
