Case reference: MAID-AB-2022-8F6S · Medicine Hat, Alberta · MAID request denied · Recorded by the register as a MAID victim
Who he is
Les Landry lives in Medicine Hat, Alberta. He used to be a truck driver earning $85,000 a year. He married and had children. In 2009, a routine hernia operation went badly wrong: he had a reaction to anesthesia so severe that, as The New Atlantis put it, it would have been fatal for most patients. He survived, but was left with chronic medical problems.
He calls himself a fighter. In photos he shared, he sits in his mobility scooter beside his service dog.
What happened
For years, Landry lived on Alberta’s disability program, about $1,820 a month. “I was regularly comfortable,” he said. Just as important, the program covered a specialized diet, his service dog, prescriptions and travel to medical appointments. He says he was told it was for life. When he turned 65, his pension started and those disability benefits ended, leaving him with a significant net loss of income and without the supports he relied on.
Photo: Bridge City News (video still) (source)
He applied for MAID. His email to a MAID team read: “I turned 65 [and] lost all m[y] disabilities benefits and now a senior in poverty. I am not going to live my life like this.” On 2 December 2022, he received his first approval. A local outlet, Bridge City News, reported on 19 September 2026 that his latest application had been denied. That report has not been independently verified.
Why they were pushed toward MAID
Landry has said openly that poverty and the loss of disability support, not his medical condition, drove his application. “I cannot afford to live,” he told The New Atlantis. “What do I do?” He described cutting back: he could move into his van or skip meals, and he had already stopped taking some prescriptions. “MAID is the only choice I can see for a way out.”
“He feels forgotten; he feels pushed to end his life,” the magazine wrote. These are his own words and the reporter’s summary of them.
In their own words
“Even at 65, I don’t want to die,” Landry said, again and again. “I really don’t want to die. I just can’t afford to live.”
He added: “I have enough medication already to kill a horse. The only thing that MAID does is to make my suicide socially acceptable.”
What this case shows
Les Landry did not become sicker at 65. He became poorer. His case shows how a birthday and a change in benefits can push a disabled senior toward MAID, and how the system approved him once even though he kept saying he wanted to live.
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