TORONTO — Province-wide the rate of opioid toxicity deaths dropped from 17.5 deaths per 100,000 people in 2023 to 14.3 in 2024.
The Thunder Bay and Northwestern health units were two of only a small handful of public health zones in Ontario that saw increases in the rate of per capita overdose deaths from 2023 to 2024. Ontario’s chief coroner says he doesn't have an explanation for that.
“It's so difficult to know the exact reasons for so many people passing, and there's a number of different thoughts,” Dirk Huyer told Newswatch in an interview on Thursday.
“They range from the drugs that are in the unregulated supply — so, whether there's differences between the substances that are available for people who use drugs in the different areas because there may be different suppliers and they may provide different types of substances,” Huyer continued.
“There's also differences in services that are available and provided, (and) differences in individual use across different areas. So, it's difficult to provide anything specific from our provincial perspective.”
Huyer said the province-wide numbers still represent “a substantial number of people that passed.”
In the Northwestern Health Unit’s area, which covers the area roughly from Atikokan west to the Manitoba border, medical officer of health Kit Young Hoon said, like in Thunder Bay and across the province, fentanyl continues to be the main culprit.
“In general, numbers do tend to go up and down a little bit, so the risk is ongoing and fluctuates,” Young Hoon said. “There's this ongoing, baseline risk that exists for all people who use drugs that could be contaminated … and potentially lead to overdoses.”
“Fentanyl is found in a lot of illicit drugs, so therefore individuals are still using it.”
Like in Thunder Bay, Young Hoon said having access to, and knowledge of how to use, Naloxone is key, as is using the Lifeguard app. Young Hoon also said people can stay up to date on whether a specific drug alert has been issued through the health unit’s website.
She said the health unit continues to prioritize harm reduction and educational programming, attempting to divert young people away from using, not only opioids, but other harmful substances like alcohol and commercial tobacco. One such program aimed at pre-teens is called PreVenture, which uses specialized workshops to learn adaptive coping skills and how to set long-term goals.
“It's that broad lens you need when you want to talk about substance use in general, and no matter what the substance (is), you're thinking about prevention,” Young Hoon said.
While Northwestern Ontario’s two health units saw slight increases in opioid overdose deaths over the past two years, on the other end of the spectrum, the North Bay-Parry Sound District Health Unit had a significant drop — from 50 in 2023 down to 30 in 2024. The city of North Bay alone saw its number cut in half.
Natalie Dupuis-Blanchfield, the health unit’s enhanced harm reduction community health promoter, said she believes it’s part of a wider trend back to more normal numbers since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, where she said overdose rates were generally higher. She added that their health unit has been heavily pushing Naloxone campaigns over the past several years.
“I feel that we've done a good job at getting that important Naloxone message out into the community,” she said.
Of the deaths that did occur in 2024, she said fentanyl was, again, the most prevalent drug, prompting a community drug alert in March.
“I’m glad our numbers are decreasing but very aware that we still have a lot of work to do to address this very complex issue,” Dupuis-Blanchfield said.
Fentanyl and its analogues, or altered forms, showed up in 83 per cent of cases province-wide where a person died from an opioid overdose in 2024, said Huyer.
“It's consistent with what we've seen, which is the changing of the unregulated drug supply over time,” Huyer said.
“It's a view into what people have available to them or they're taking or using.”
He also said stimulants like methamphetamine and cocaine are showing up more frequently, as are benzodiazepines; common ones include Valium and Xanax.
For Huyer, he said continuing to investigate these trends is important. Most deaths, he said, happened to people in the 30 to 59 age range.
“It's one of the more challenging things that we do in the office because we continue to see such a significant number of deaths of relatively young people,” he said.
“It's challenging to see, and my heart and my thoughts go to the family members, the relatives, the friends and communities who have lost so many.”
