Opioid deaths are down. That does not mean Canada is fixing the crisis.

Canada’s opioid-related death numbers have fallen for a second year. On paper, that sounds like progress. In reality, it needs to be handled carefully.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, there were 5,608 opioid-related deaths in Canada in 2025. That works out to roughly 15 deaths every day. It is a decrease from the year before, and nobody should dismiss the fact that fewer people dying is better than more people dying.

But a lower death count is not the same thing as a fixed system. It does not mean people are safe. It does not mean Ontario is doing well. It does not mean the toxic drug crisis is under control. And it definitely does not mean governments, institutions, or communities should be taking a victory lap.

The danger right now is that people will look at the headline number and convince themselves that Canada is finally getting ahead of this crisis. We are not. The situation on the ground is still brutal, and in many communities the daily reality has not started to feel better in any meaningful way.

The crisis is changing shape

PHAC has been clear that drug-related deaths and harms remain higher than they were before COVID. The decline has also not happened evenly across the country. Some jurisdictions are still seeing increases, some are seeing little meaningful change, and in several provinces and territories, including Ontario, stimulant-related deaths now outnumber opioid-related deaths.

That should stop people from oversimplifying the story. If opioid deaths go down while stimulant deaths remain high, emergency responses continue, homelessness worsens, and people are still using a poisoned supply alone, then we are not looking at a solved problem. We are looking at a crisis that has shifted.

This is one of the problems with relying too heavily on death counts. Death is the worst outcome, but it is not the only outcome. A person can survive an overdose and still be in an extremely dangerous situation. They may still be homeless. They may still be using an unpredictable supply. They may still have no realistic path to timely treatment. They may still be isolated, traumatized, and disconnected from support.

A reversed overdose is not a policy success story by itself. It is a person who almost died and survived long enough for the next intervention to be possible. If that person wakes up and is sent back into the exact same conditions that nearly killed them, the system has not succeeded. It has bought time.

Fewer deaths does not mean fewer overdoses

One of the most important details in the national data is that EMS overdose responses increased in 2025, even while opioid-related deaths decreased. That is a major warning sign. It suggests that at least some people may be surviving overdoses that would have killed them in previous years, but it does not prove that fewer people are being harmed.

This distinction matters for communities like Northumberland County. The public often sees the crisis through visible homelessness, public drug use, discarded supplies, emergency calls, crisis behaviour, encampments, and people deteriorating in plain sight. None of that disappears because a national death statistic moves in the right direction.

If a person overdoses and survives, that person may not appear in a death headline. If someone is revived by naloxone and returns to sleeping outside, that survival may never be understood as part of the same crisis. If emergency services respond repeatedly to the same person, the death count alone will not show how badly the system is failing before the final outcome.

Counting deaths is necessary. It is not enough. If we only count the bodies, we miss the people still living inside the emergency.

There is no single magic explanation

The decline in opioid-related deaths does not belong to one political ideology, one program, one enforcement strategy, one treatment model, or one talking point. The evidence does not support that kind of simple answer.

PHAC’s review points to several likely factors happening at the same time. The unregulated drug supply appears to have changed in some places. Naloxone has become more available. The population at highest risk of overdose may also have declined.

That last point is the hardest one to say plainly. Part of the decline may reflect the fact that Canada has already lost so many people who were most exposed to the toxic drug supply. If years of death reduce the number of people left at highest risk, that is not progress in any humane sense. It is the aftermath of failure.

This is why the “things are getting better” narrative is so dangerous. Some of what looks like improvement may actually be the statistical shadow of people who are no longer alive to be counted in future years.

The drug supply is still toxic

One likely contributor to the decline is that the unregulated supply changed in ways that made some drug markets less deadly on average. Some especially dangerous combinations, including opioids mixed with benzodiazepines, appear to have become less dominant in certain places. Wider naloxone access also likely helped more people survive.

But none of that means the supply is safe. Fentanyl analogues remain a serious concern. Benzodiazepines are still heavily involved in deaths. Other substances are adding new complications for overdose response. People using the unregulated supply are still often using substances without any reliable way to know what is actually in them.

The most honest way to describe the situation is this: the supply may be less deadly in some ways than it was at the peak, but it is still unpredictable, contaminated, and extremely dangerous.

That is not fixed. That is still a public health emergency.

Ontario is not doing well

Ontario needs to be especially careful about how this gets discussed. A lower opioid death count does not mean Ontario has figured this out.

People are still dying. Stimulant-related deaths are a growing concern. Homelessness is worsening. Treatment is still too difficult to access quickly. People are still being discharged back to the street. Emergency services are still being used as the backstop for problems that should have been addressed much earlier.

For local communities, the national numbers can also hide the day-to-day reality. A person sleeping outside in crisis may not show up in a national opioid death statistic. A person using alone in a tent may not show up until it is too late. A person revived from an overdose may disappear back into the same conditions that almost killed them.

This is why IHARC is not comfortable with any framing that suggests Ontario or Canada is fixing the crisis. We are not. We may be seeing fewer recorded opioid-related deaths, but the broader emergency is still alive in our streets, shelters, hospitals, encampments, parks, families, and emergency response systems.

The wrong takeaway would be dangerous

The wrong takeaway is, “Deaths are down, so we can ease off.”

The better question is: if more people are surviving, what are we doing with the time that survival gives us?

Survival should lead somewhere. It should lead to faster treatment access, better outreach, safer housing options, stronger local overdose alerts, more naloxone in the community, and public systems that respond before someone is already dying.

Instead, too much of the current system still waits for crisis to become visible enough, severe enough, or disruptive enough before acting with urgency. By then, the person is often deeper into homelessness, addiction, trauma, illness, poverty, or isolation than they needed to be.

A system that responds quickly only after someone nearly dies is not a system worth bragging about.

IHARC’s position

IHARC is glad fewer people are dying. But we are not going to call this fixed.

Not while people are still overdosing. Not while people are still sleeping outside. Not while families are still losing people. Not while communities continue treating homelessness, addiction, mental health, poverty, and crisis as separate issues when they are often tangled together in the same person’s life.

A lower number of opioid deaths is better than a higher one. But the goal cannot be a slightly smaller tragedy.

The goal has to be fewer people abandoned to crisis in the first place.

Until that changes, Canada is not fixing the toxic drug crisis. We are just measuring the damage through a narrower lens.