‘In memory of Dr Donald Low’ by Canadian Partnership Against Cancer

Donald Low was a Canadian physician and microbiologist widely known in Canada for his work in the 2003 SARS epidemic in Ontario. In his YouTube video, he describes being diagnosed with a brain tumor and coming to terms with the terminal nature of his diagnosis. He outlines how he believes that it is unfortunate that Canada does not permit individuals in situations like his own to seek medical assistance in dying and explains what the procedure looks like in countries that allow the assistance.

Donald Low’s video was released in 2013, before Section 241.2 was added to the Criminal Code in 2016, permitting medical assisted death in certain cases. At the time of his video, conversation on the topic of medical aid in dying was frequent in Canada, and his story was widely circulated and referenced in multiple legal contexts, including by a parliamentarian on the physician-assisted dying parliamentary committee who stated that when his wife, a physician, heard about his committee work, she immediately forwarded him the video. The video would later go on to be referenced by the Ontario Health Minister in a Senate committee, and by Senator Donna Dasko in the third reading of the bill to amend the Canadian Criminal Code to permit medical aid in dying.