26-year-old man with seasonal depression EUTHANIZED by Canadian government, family says

Kiano Vafaeian died on Dec. 30, 2025, through Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program. His family says he had long struggled with mental health challenges and should not have qualified under the law.

MAID was legalized nationwide in 2016, allowing patients with “grievous and irremediable” medical conditions to request a physician-administered or self-administered lethal drug. In 2021, eligibility expanded to include so-called “Track 2” applicants whose natural deaths are not reasonably foreseeable.

Vafaeian had Type 1 diabetes since age four. His mother, Margaret Marsilla, said his depression intensified after a car accident at 17 and worsened again in 2022 after he lost vision in one eye. That’s when, she said, he became fixated on MAID.

“He kept on emphasizing about how he could get approved,” Marsilla said. “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.”

In 2022, a Toronto physician initially approved his request. After the family launched a public campaign opposing it, the doctor reversed course. Marsilla said her son later showed improvement and moved back in with family in 2024.

“He tried his best when he was in one of those good highs of life,” she said. “Then winter, fall started coming around, he started changing and then everything that we had worked for from spring and summertime just disappeared… he would start talking about MAID again.”

After being rejected by several Ontario doctors, Vafaeian sought out Dr. Ellen Wiebe in British Columbia. Marsilla alleges the physician “coached” her son on how to meet Track 2 criteria.

“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 said.

Dr. Wiebe said in a statement, “Like my colleagues, every patient I approve for Track 2 has unbearable suffering from a grievous and irremediable medical condition (not psychiatric) with an advanced state of decline in capability and consents to MAID fully informed about treatments to reduce the suffering.”

Vafaeian’s parents say they were not notified of his final approval and only learned of his death days later. They also question the listing of “severe peripheral neuropathy” on his death certificate.

“This whole process came to us as a shock,” said his stepfather, Joseph Caprara.