A national advisory on the opioid crisis in Canada has indicated that fewer overdose deaths and less harm is impacting Canadians who are addicted to opioids and other poisonous substances.
But at the same time, national authorities said the overall scale of opioid addiction in Canada is still a serious crisis. People are still dying.
The joint statement was issued Monday by Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, and Dr. Yves Léger, New Brunswick's Acting Chief Medical Officer of Health. They are the co-chairs of Canada's Special Advisory Committee on the Epidemic of Opioid Overdoses.
In their statement, Tam and Léger commented that during 2022, 7,328 drug deaths happened — an average of 20 people died each day of an opioid overdose across Canada.
This is less than the death count for 2021, which was a drop of nine per cent fewer deaths. In 2021, there was an average of 22 people dying each day from an overdose, said the report.
"While it is encouraging to see decreased rates of opioid and stimulant-related harms, the scale of these harms remains significant. We must not lose sight that behind these statistics are people whose lives were lost or threatened on account of the highly toxic and unpredictable drug supply," said the Tam-Leger joint statement.
The national opioid numbers do not reflect what has been happening in Sudbury and other parts of Northern Ontario.
This was apparent earlier this month, June 15, when there was a special presentation to the Sudbury Board of Health by Sandra Lacle, executive director, Public Health Sudbury & Districts (PHSD).
Lacie said overdose deaths were alarming and the situation in Sudbury was so urgent that it warranted the need for a community summit on the opioid crisis in Northern Ontario.
She said the crisis needed a collective all-hands-on-deck approach to find out why the numbers — the rates of death and the rates of addiction — are consistently high in Sudbury and other parts of Northeastern Ontario, when compared to the rest of the province.
She quoted statistics of toxicity rates going back to 2018, comparing the Sudbury health jurisdiction with the rest of Ontario.
"Our rates are increasing faster, worsening as compared to Ontario or Canada as a whole. These rates of drug toxicity deaths are intensifying despite the community's best efforts. We do not know why the rates of death are high and worsening in our area, or what puts our population at greater risk of death from opioid use."
Further to the national report from the Public Health Agency of Canada, new modelling projections were put forward on opioid-related deaths between now and December 2023. Under certain scenarios, between 1,430 and 2,320 people could lose their lives to opioid toxicity every three months through to the end of 2023, said the report.
The results indicate that while the number of opioid-related deaths may remain stable or decrease from now until the end of 2023, they may also remain higher than what was observed before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the average number of deaths per day was 10, which increased to a peak of 22 in 2021, said Health Canada.
