Saskatchewan Living Will: Health Care Directive Rules and How to Create One

Saskatchewan doesn't use the term "living will" in its legislation. The official document is called a Health Care Directive, governed by The Health Care Directives and Substitute Health Care Decision Makers Act, 2015. If you search for living will templates online and use one drafted for another province, Saskatchewan hospitals and care teams have no legal obligation to follow it.

That distinction matters more than you'd think. Here's what you actually need to know to create one that holds up.

Who Can Make a Health Care Directive in Saskatchewan

Anyone aged 16 or older who has mental capacity — meaning they can understand the information relevant to a healthcare decision, appreciate the foreseeable consequences, and communicate their choice. Saskatchewan is one of the few Canadian provinces that sets the bar at 16 rather than 18.

Capacity is assessed at the time of signing. If someone later challenges whether the maker had capacity, the document still stands unless a court rules otherwise. If capacity is genuinely in dispute, The Adult Guardianship and Co-decision-making Act requires two independent clinical assessments before a personal guardian can be appointed.

What a Health Care Directive Can and Cannot Do

A directive lets you do two things: document specific treatment wishes (accept or refuse particular medical interventions) and appoint a Proxy to make healthcare decisions on your behalf if you lose capacity.

What it cannot do:

• Compel clinically inappropriate treatment. Doctors are protected from liability when following a directive in good faith, but they are not required to perform treatments that are futile or contrary to professional standards.
• Pre-authorize Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Federal law requires a conscious, voluntary request and a capacity assessment at the time MAID is administered. A proxy cannot request it on your behalf, and a directive cannot trigger it.

Signing Rules — Simpler Than You'd Expect

A self-signed Health Care Directive does not require witnesses. You write it (handwritten or typed), sign it, date it, and it's legally valid. No lawyer, no notary, no witnesses needed.

The exception: if the maker is physically unable to sign, another person can sign on their behalf in the maker's presence. In that case, one independent witness is required — and neither the proxy nor the proxy's spouse can serve as the witness or the person signing.

This is a stark contrast to an Enduring Power of Attorney, which always requires either a lawyer with a Form D certificate or two independent adult witnesses with a Form E certificate. Many families confuse the two sets of rules and over-complicate their health care directive, or worse, under-comply on their POA.

Appointing a Proxy

You can name one or multiple proxies. If you appoint joint proxies and they disagree on a treatment decision, the majority rules. If there's no majority, the proxy listed first in the directive makes the final call — a default rule that surprises most families.

Your proxy must be someone you trust to interpret your wishes under pressure. They don't need to be a family member, and there's no residency requirement. But they cannot be a minor, and they should understand what the role involves: speaking with medical teams, interpreting your written wishes in situations your directive didn't anticipate, and potentially making decisions about life support.

Digital Registration Through MySaskHealthRecord

Saskatchewan offers something most provinces don't: a way to make your directive instantly accessible to emergency medical teams across the province. Upload a PDF of your signed directive to the MySaskHealthRecord portal, then enable sharing with the provincial eHR Viewer. Once shared, attending physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and ER staff can view your directive the moment you're admitted to any Saskatchewan hospital.

Registration is free and requires a valid Saskatchewan Health Card and SGI driver's licence. The catch: if you upload the document but forget to select the "shared with eHR Viewer" setting, it sits in your personal portal and no one else can see it.

The Yellow Sleeve — Your Physical Backup

Digital access doesn't help EMS crews responding to a home emergency. That's what the Saskatchewan Health Authority's Yellow Sleeve program addresses. You print your directive, place it inside a high-visibility yellow plastic sleeve, and attach it to your refrigerator. Paramedics are trained to check the fridge for the sleeve during a home call.

Between the digital upload and the physical Yellow Sleeve, Saskatchewan provides a dual-layer system that most provinces lack. But both layers only work if you actually set them up — the directive itself, no matter how carefully written, is useless if no one can find it during a crisis.

What Happens If You Don't Have a Directive

Without a directive, healthcare providers consult the statutory hierarchy of nearest relatives: spouse or common-law partner first, then adult children, parents, adult siblings, grandparents, adult grandchildren, adult aunts and uncles, and adult nieces and nephews. If multiple relatives in the same category disagree, the eldest's decision takes precedence. Relatives of the whole blood are preferred over half-blood relatives.

That hierarchy might not reflect your actual wishes. If you'd rather have a trusted friend make decisions over a distant sibling, a directive is the only way to make that legally binding.

Getting Started

The process is straightforward: decide what treatments you want or don't want, choose your proxy, write the directive, sign it, upload it to MySaskHealthRecord, and put a copy in the Yellow Sleeve. You can get the complete Saskatchewan Advance Directive & Living Will Kit for step-by-step templates, proxy nomination forms, and conversation guides that walk you through each decision.

See more Saskatchewan guides →