After an 11-month wait for psilocybin therapy was denied by Health Canada, terminally ill Sarnia resident Pete Pearson was approved for MAID in less than a month, highlighting a systemic failure that is now pushing his family toward underground options.
Pete Pearson does not want to die. But the Sarnia resident, known locally as "Pistol," needed to know he could.
Pearson, 75, has terminal idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease that will eventually suffocate him. For six years, he has lived with the terrifying knowledge that his death will likely feel like drowning.
To manage the crushing existential anxiety of this diagnosis, he and his doctor applied to Health Canada’s Special Access Program (SAP) for psilocybin-assisted therapy. They hoped the treatment, which uses the active ingredient in magic mushrooms under medical supervision, would offer him peace in his final days.
He waited 11 months for an answer. In July 2025, the government said no.
The rejection letter was 15 pages long. In it, Health Canada officials argued that while Pearson’s illness is irreversible and fatal, he did not meet their specific bureaucratic definition of "end of life" or "medical emergency."
"It was gutting," Pearson said. "It felt like they were saying, 'We know you're dying—just come back when it's worse.'"
The denial pushed Pearson into a dark place of fear and distress. Needing an exit strategy if the suffering became unbearable, he applied for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID).
Three weeks later, he was approved.
"What shocked me wasn't the approval itself—it was how fast it happened," Pearson said. "After nearly a year of waiting for psilocybin, a therapy meant to help me live better, I was approved in weeks for something designed to help me die."
He calls MAID his "back pocket" option, a safety net he hopes never to use. But the irony that the government agrees he is eligible to die, but not eligible to try a therapy to help him live, has become the centre of a national advocacy battle.
Pearson’s son is Dr. Blake Pearson, a Sarnia physician who has been fighting alongside his father. He says the system has trapped palliative patients in a cruel catch-22.
Health Canada suggests that patients denied by the SAP should essentially build their own one-person clinical trial (OLIP) to access the drug. Dr. Pearson calls this suggestion "inhumane" for a family already navigating a terminal illness.
"The idea that families should build a clinical trial from scratch just to access a well-studied natural medicine is absurd," Dr. Pearson said. "My dad is a palliative patient. He doesn't have months to navigate ethics boards and bureaucratic red tape."
The family had asked Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Marjorie Michel to intervene and grant a Section 56(1) exemption by Christmas. That deadline has now passed without the exemption.
With the legal routes exhausted or stalled, the family is now facing a difficult reality. While mushrooms are easily purchased from illegal dispensaries, Dr. Pearson insists that "street" mushrooms are not a safe solution for a medically complex patient like his father.
"My dad is medically complex, so he should not be taking an unregulated substance without knowing the exact dose or composition," Dr. Pearson said.
However, the continued government inaction is forcing their hand. Dr. Pearson admits they are now being pushed toward options that exist outside the law.
"This is the heartbreaking reality we're being pushed toward—the underground," Dr. Pearson said. "After months of delays and denials, it's becoming clear that we may have no other option."
For Pete Pearson, the days are measured in breath, not bureaucracy. He wakes up every morning struggling for air, wondering if chest pains signal the next decline. He can no longer walk to the end of his driveway.
He is still waiting for peace.
"I don't want to die," Pearson said. "I want to live whatever time I have left with peace, with dignity, and without this constant panic hanging over me."
