Ontario’s cities need backup in the fight against opioids

The streets of Canada’s cities have become the front lines in this country’s battle against opioids.

In Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, people are dying by the scores after overdosing on these powerful, painkilling drugs — and especially the most powerful and deadly of all, fentanyl.

But the scourge has long since spread to mid-sized and smaller cities, places such as Hamilton, Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo, Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Peterborough.

Drug users are literally dying on city streets and in city parks. With justification, residents complain about the danger to children posed by syringes carelessly discarded in public places or how uncontrolled drug use can eat like a rot into urban cores.

While the final figures aren’t yet in for 2017, health officials predicted there would be more than 4,000 opioid-related deaths in Canada by the end of last year, up from 2,861 in 2016.

That’s a staggering statistic — far greater than the number of people who die in motor vehicle accidents each year in Canada. But since the numbers are spread out in cities across Canada, most of us have not grasped how dire the situation has become.

Cambridge Mayor Doug Craig has, and he raised the eyebrows of his political colleagues this week when he called on Waterloo Region to declare a state of emergency over the opioid crisis, which claimed 71 local lives through overdoses last year.

It could be legally impossible for the region to meet this request.

But whether we label what’s happening an official emergency, catastrophe or epidemic, Canada is dealing with a health crisis the likes of which it has never seen.

The words we use don’t matter as much as the actions we take. And those actions, to date, are inadequate.

It should be obvious that Canadian cities, with their police, firefighters, paramedics and public health officials, are shouldering a disproportionately heavy share of the burden in coping with opioid abuse.

These municipalities deserve and need more help from the federal and provincial governments than they are getting.

That help must not be limited to enhanced funding, though more money is always welcome.

We need a more co-ordinated and integrated panCanadian response to opioid abuse to replace the current patchwork of activities. Cities need more resources, including more counselling for drug addicts as well as expanded drug treatments for them.

This is not to accuse the higher levels of government of ignoring the crisis.

The federal government wisely allowed provinces to request an exemption from federal law so they can open safe, supervised injection sites. Last fall, Ontario announced it was equipping the province’s police and firefighters with naloxone, a medication that can save the lives of those who overdose on opioids.

But Dr. Eric Hoskins, Ontario’s health minister at that time, has left the provincial government to take a federal job. The sense of urgency and the momentum he brought to this issue are not as evident in the health ministry without him.

Every day our cities go without more federal and provincial support will be another day where opioids maim and claim more Canadian lives.

More action, please.

Whether we label what’s happening an emergency, catastrophe or epidemic, Canada is dealing with a health crisis the likes of which it has never seen.