441-02473 (Justice)

The overdose crisis is one of the most serious and unprecedented public health threats in Canada’s recent history, which is having devastating impacts on individuals, friends and families, and communities across the country. While there are a number of complex factors that contribute to the high rates of overdose that we are seeing today, a major driver is the increasingly toxic and unpredictable illegal drug supply, where fentanyl remains widespread and we have observed the rise or emergence of other substances, including stronger opioids, stimulants, and sedatives. Of all accidental apparent opioid toxicity deaths from January 2023 to December 2023, 8% involved opioids that were exclusively pharmaceutical and approximately four out of every five (82%) involved fentanyl.The cost of substance use-related harms is not limited to the loss of lives alone but, impacts more broadly health, social well-being, and public safety.

Our government takes this crisis very seriously and is committed to working together with all orders of government, Indigenous Peoples and communities, partners from law enforcement, criminal justice, health and social systems, and people with lived and living experience and other key stakeholders, to take urgent action and leverage every available tool to save lives and work towards an end to this national public health crisis.

The federal government is committed to continued action using the broad range of tools at its disposal and to take steps to end overdose deaths and substance-use related harms. The Government’s approach to addressing the overdose crisis and substance use related harms is comprehensive, equitable, collaborative, and compassionate, guided by our renewed federal drug strategy – the Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy (CDSS). The renewed CDSS outlines the Government of Canada’s updated plan to address the overdose crisis, and other substance use-related harms in Canada.

Through the renewed CDSS, the Government is taking a holistic approach to addressing substance use and related harms, centered on promoting public health and protecting public safety. This whole-of-government initiative includes timely access to a full range of strategies to help people access the prevention, harm reduction, treatment, or recovery services they need, when and where they need them and to support enforcement.

New investments include supporting a wide range of activities, such as: community-based supports; streamlining authorizations for supervised consumption sites (SCS) and drug checking services; vital data collection on substance-related harms and lab-based analysis of the illegal drug supply; an overdose monitoring platform for law enforcement and other first responders; and further action with our partners to disrupt illegal drug production and trafficking and stem the global flow of these devastating substances. By using a wide-range of tools, we have the best opportunity to end this crisis, protect communities and save lives.

Since 2017, the federal government has made commitments of more than $1 billion and has taken significant action to address the toxic drug and overdose crisis and substance use-related harms. This includes a Budget 2024 commitment of $150 million over three years, starting in 2024-25 for an Emergency Treatment Fund that would be open to municipalities and Indigenous communities to help provide a rapid response to emergent, critical needs related to the overdose crisis, in addition to a Budget 2023 commitment of $359.2 million over five years, starting in 2023-24, with $5.7 million ongoing, to support the CDSS, which will continue to guide the government’s work to save lives and protect the health and safety of Canadians by:

• supporting a full continuum of services including treatment, harm reduction and recovery, made available to Canadians who need them;
• working with stakeholders to reduce stigma directed at people who use drugs, which acts as a barrier to accessing critical health and social services and often leads to social isolation and further risk of harms;
• continuing to work with provinces and territories to improve access to evidence-based treatment options;
• continuing to address illegal production and trafficking, with a focus on organized drug crime; and,
• implementing additional surveillance and research activities that will further build the evidence base and allow us to pursue innovative solutions to this public health crisis.

These investments have made a difference in reducing overdose deaths and harms. For example, since 2017 through the Substance Use and Addictions Program (SUAP), Health Canada has provided close to $600 million to support almost 400 community-based projects focused on innovative treatment, harm reduction, prevention and stigma reduction activities.

Provinces and territories have also used federal investments provided through Budget 2018 for the Emergency Treatment Fund to expand existing treatment approaches such as services to support youth with substance use disorder, withdrawal management services appropriate for people who use methamphetamine, Rapid Access Addictions Medicine clinics, and access to opioid dependence treatments, and culturally-appropriate care for Indigenous communities. Funds have also been used to implement innovative approaches to treatment, including ‘wrap-around’ care and the development of telehealth infrastructure to connect clients in remote and rural settings.

We have also made a number of regulatory changes at the federal level to help improve access to medications used in drug treatment programs, including:

• issuing a class exemption (an exemption authorized to a group of people, such as pharmacists, to conduct specific activities with controlled substances) to make it easier for patients to access the medications they need;
• approving injectable hydromorphone as a treatment option for patients with severe opioid use disorder;
• approving injectable diacetylmorphine as a new treatment option for patients with severe opioid use disorder, as well as facilitating the prescribing and dispensing of methadone and diacetylmorphine; and,
• authorizing nurses who provide health care services at a community health facility to conduct certain activities with controlled substances.

Regarding prescribed alternatives, the government supports test piloting this initiative to address the toxicity of the drug supply and prevent harms for those not yet ready for treatment. All of them are required to report on the results of their initiative as part of their funding agreement. A number of these projects are also contributing data to an evaluation of prescribed alternatives programs funded through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and carried out by the Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Matters.

We will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to respond to this crisis and to keep communities safe. The government works closely with domestic and international partners to address the toxic illegal drug supply that is driving overdose harms and deaths. We continue to equip border agents with the tools necessary to intercept controlled substances. For example, we have made it harder to access chemicals used to make fentanyl by scheduling them under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) and have also amended legislation to allow border officers to open mail of any weight, in order to stop drugs like fentanyl and carfentanil from entering Canada illegally through the mail system. The government also works with private sector partners to address money laundering of the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking in an effort to dismantle the organized crime groups involved in the supply of these toxic illegal drugs.

The Government of Canada continues to lead efforts to facilitate opportunities for collaboration between jurisdictions, health providers, researchers, people with lived and living experience, community-based organizations, and other partners and stakeholders, to reduce the harms associated with substance use and support efforts to provide a full range of culturally appropriate, evidence-based, and trauma-informed health and social services and supports to meet the diverse needs of people who use drugs.

The Government of Canada is also working closely with provinces and territories to change the way the healthcare system delivers mental health and substance use services to Canadians. On February 7, 2023, the Government of Canada announced it will increase health funding to provinces and territories by nearly $200 billion over 10 years, in order to improve Canada’s health care system. This investment includes $25 billion for shared health priorities, including increasing access to mental health and substance use services and supports. So far, provinces and territories have allocated more than a third of the funding earmarked for shared priorities to mental health and substance use services. These commitments are in addition to existing bilateral agreements with provinces and territories for health priorities, including mental health and substance use, that were put in place in 2017. These investments will set the foundation for long-term, integrated and sustained health care system change that builds on existing, targeted actions to address mental health and substance use challenges. Note that while the federal government does provide funding to support the delivery of some substance use services across Canada, the delivery of healthcare services is, with a few exceptions, primarily the responsibility of provinces and territories.

We have also established federal, provincial and territorial (FPT) governance tables, including the Special Advisory Committee on the Epidemic of Opioid Overdoses, the FPT Committee on Substance Use (formerly Problematic Substance Use & Harms), and the FPT Assistant Deputy Minister Committee on Mental Health and Substance Use, to facilitate ongoing collaboration and consultation with provincial and territorial partners. In addition, discussions are held with provinces and territories at the Deputy Minister and Ministerial level through meetings of the Conference of Deputy Ministers of Health and the Federal, Provincial, Territorial Health Minister’s Meetings.

To inform the federal approach, the government also regularly consults with stakeholders and has convened several expert advisory groups, including people directly impacted by substance use. Health Canada established the People with Lived and Living Experience Council, the Expert Advisory Group on Safer Supply and the Expert Task Force on Substance Use as part of this engagement strategy. We recognize that social determinants of health, such as poverty, discrimination, and trauma, can place individuals at an increased risk of substance use harms and that the approaches to reduce these harms require sustained efforts and supports from diverse systems. We continue to work closely across federal departments so that federal actions on mental health and addictions, homelessness and housing, poverty, and reconciliation are coordinated and synergistic. We are also committed to engaging collaboratively with provinces and territories, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities, and other stakeholders to advance whole-of-society approaches to these issues.

Our government is committed to working to divert people who use drugs away from the criminal justice system and toward supportive and trusted relationships in health services and social supports, when needed. For example, the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act was passed into law in May 2017, providing some legal protection from personal drug possession charges as well as from breach of some conditions related to personal possession, for individuals who seek emergency help during an overdose. Furthermore, in November 2022, the CDSA was amended to, among other things, require police and prosecutors to consider alternative measures – including diverting individuals to treatment programs – instead of laying a criminal charge or prosecuting individuals for personal drug possession. These amendments also repealed mandatory minimum penalties for certain offences in the CDSA to reflect the Government’s public-health focused approach to substance use. These measures are consistent with the August 2020 Guidelines issued by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, directing prosecutors to consider alternatives to prosecution for the personal possession of drugs, except in the most serious cases where public safety concerns arise.

In May 2022, at the request of the province of British Columbia, a time-limited exemption was granted under the CDSA so that adults 18 years of age and older in the province would not be subject to criminal charges for the personal possession of small amounts of certain illegal drugs. The exemption is one part of the province’s comprehensive response to the overdose crisis As the first exemption of its kind in Canada, it has been rigorously monitored and there was always an understanding that adjustments may need to be made.

Implementation of the exemption to date has demonstrated the importance of a comprehensive approach to substance use and strengthening complimentary initiatives to address the social determinants of health, which are set out in a Letter of Requirements the federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions sent to BC along with the exemption. BC is reporting on the exemption and these complimentary initiatives in their Quarterly Report to Health Canada and the provincial Mental Health and Substance Use Data Snapshot. These complimentary initiatives are essential to effective implementation and include improving the health and social systems so that substance use services are available when and where they are needed, ensuring clear pathways are available to access these services, ongoing consultation, engagement and public education to ensure public understanding of the rules and to address relevant concerns as they arise, as well as law enforcement training and support to divert people to available services where appropriate and to maintain public safety.

Canada recognizes that stigma of criminalization can prevent people who use substances from accessing the health and social services that they need and contributes to negative health outcomes. To help reduce stigma in police interactions with people who use drugs and to avoid causing more harm, Public Safety Canada launched an online training module specifically designed for law enforcement members in September 2020. The training raises awareness of the harms associated with substance use stigma and provides law enforcement members with practical tools to support their interactions with people who use drugs.

The items above are some examples of concrete actions taken by the federal government to address the overdose crisis. Please visit the following website for a comprehensive list of all the actions taken to date.

The Government of Canada will continue working with our partners and stakeholders to implement the renewed CDSS and will continue to support provinces, territories and Indigenous communities to improve access to a full range of evidence-based treatment and harm reduction services, in addition to leading efforts to reduce stigma and advancing work on the development of standards for mental health and substance use health services. The Government of Canada believes that substance use is a health issue and is committed to examining all options and evidence to respond to the tragic increase in overdoses and to help save lives, while also ensuring the safety of communities across the country.