Canada to Hold a Federal Summit to Address the Opioid Crisis

September 27, 2016, 2:29pm

VICE has learned that the Canadian government will be holding a summit on November 18 and 19 to address the country’s growing opioid crisis. Eric Hoskins, Ontario’s minister of health, will be co-hosting the event, which is set to take place in Ottawa.

The summit has yet to be announced officially, but the federal Ministry of Health has confirmed that it will be taking place. It is currently unclear what the scope of the summit will be, as well as who exactly will be invited to attend. The event comes at the tail-end of a year in which the opioid crisis in Canada has reached emergency levels in the country. Numbers of opioid overdose deaths are outdated in some provinces, such as Ontario, but in those that have been releasing recent data, the numbers are troubling.

British Columbia declared a public health emergency—the first of its kind—in April due to overdose deaths. In BC, OD deaths are up over 61 percent from the previous year so far: As of August 31, 488 have died due to drug overdoses. Neighbouring Alberta also continues to have a massive issue with opioids despite its refusal to declare an official public health emergency; in that province, 153 died due to fentanyl-related overdoses from January to June of this year.

With files from Rachel Browne.

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