TORONTO — There is less and less space on the lawn for the dozens upon dozens of bright white crosses. The grass between the fire station and the sidewalks on a downtown corner in Sudbury, Ont., is crowded with markers bearing the names of people lost to the opioid overdose crisis.
Too many more are dying. What started four years ago as a memorial to a local woman's son has grown so much in size and in the public consciousness that the city has pledged to find space for a permanent installation. It's not the only municipality with such plans in Ontario, where opioid toxicity contributes to an estimated seven deaths a day, or some 1,249 people in the first five months of the year, according to preliminary estimates.
Across the province, data from the Office of the Chief Coroner show rates have been significantly higher since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, from an average of 130 deaths per month in 2019 to a peak of 238 a month in 2021. Four in five deaths involve fentanyl. Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre says his municipality has been struggling to keep up over the past few years, despite "lots of outreach going on.
" "We're trying to address it, but it's getting tougher and tougher," he said in an interview. "We've never seen that in our lifetime." From January through August, 90 people died from a suspected drug overdose in the Sudbury and Manitoulin districts, Public Health Sudbury & Districts reports – about 15 per cent more than in the same period last year.
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