Opioid deaths dropped 23% in 2025 — bringing ‘cautious optimism’ from Canada’s top doctor

Opioid overdose deaths across Canada dropped by nearly a quarter last year compared to 2024, with health officials hailing the data as a sign that the federal government’s drug policy is working.

Nationwide, 5,630 opioid overdose deaths were recorded in 2025, 23 per cent fewer than a year before, according to the newly published figures. That decline builds on a 17 per cent decrease in overdose deaths in 2024. 

“Those declines are real progress,” Health Minister Marjorie Michel told a news conference held to highlight the data.

“Today’s data offers cautious optimism,” said Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Joss Reimer. “It shows that when we act on evidence we can make a real difference … we can build on this progress and save more lives.”

Officials attributed the decline to a range of factors, including to changes in the illegal drug supply and broader access and use of naloxone, a medication to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

Overdose deaths remain ‘unacceptably high’ despite 2025 decrease, Canada’s top doctor says

But with opioid overdoses still far more common than before the pandemic, much work remains to be done, Reimer said: “While these decreases show we are moving in the right direction … these numbers remain unacceptably high and well above pre-2020 levels.”

For example, while hospitalizations and emergency department visits for suspected opioid overdoses declined in 2025 — by 12 and five per cent respectively — emergency medical services responses to suspected overdoses increased by nine per cent. 

This may be partly attributable to an increase in fentanyl analogues and the mixing of other drugs such as benzodiazepines in fentanyl supplies, Reimer said, explaining that “poly-substance overdoses often require more complex interventions.”

The impacts of the opioid crisis are also unequally distributed, officials highlighted. Three provinces — British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario — recorded 78 per cent of opioid deaths. 

Indigenous Canadians meanwhile represented 10 per cent of opioid deaths while making up only 2.6 per cent of the population, which Minister of Indigenous Services Mandy Gull-Masty said was “truly a sobering reminder of the inequities that continue to affect Indigenous communities.”

The federal officials would not be drawn on whether the closures of supervised consumption sites in Ontario and Alberta this year could cause an increase in opioid deaths. 

“If a province doesn’t want to move forward with a safe consumption site I can’t force them,” said Michel. “There is no one size fits all. Because yes they save lives … but at the same time I’m not the one delivering the services.” 

The causes of overdose deaths are too complex to offer simple predictions, Reimer said.

“I don’t know what we’ll see in terms of changes in communities that have closed safe consumption sites,” she said.

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In 2025, the Canada Border Services Agency seized 2.8 kilograms of fentanyl, a 43 per cent drop from the 4.9 kilograms seized in 2024.

That quantity represents a relatively minor disruption to the opioid crisis, which is largely driven by the importation of precursor chemicals which are then manufactured into illegal drugs in Canada, according to Canada’s fentanyl czar, Kevin Brosseau.

“From my perspective, the drug trade in this country is largely domestic production for domestic consumption,” Brosseau said. 

Brosseau’s position was created in February 2025 in response to U.S. President Donald Trump complaining of a flood of fentanyl entering the United States, despite less than one per cent of interceptions by U.S. agents occurring at the Canadian border. 

The RCMP veteran said he would travel to Washington, D.C., later on Monday to update the Trump administration on Canada’s latest figures.

“Canada’s resolve in dealing with this crisis is non-abating,” Brosseau said. “The rollout of significant public health measures are having an impact.”

Brosseau said he would do his best to describe the efforts the federal government is making and said that the messages he has been conveying “have been received positively” in Washington.