Thunder Bay, Ont., city council pushes province to decriminalize drugs, distribute more resources

The numbers are only getting worse, and for people like Holly Gauvin and her team on the frontline of the opioid crisis, those numbers are people who are overdosing right in front of them every week.

Gauvin is the executive director of Elevate NWO, a harm reduction agency in Thunder Bay, Ont. She said her staff members saved two lives in one day last week by reversing overdoses, one of which occurred in their office's washroom.

"That used to be a big deal for our organizations when we would have an overdose, and now it isn't," she said, speaking to how common these incidents have become.

Thunder Bay district's overdose rate was 78.8 per 100,000 people in 2021. That's four times the provincial rate of 19.2 per 100,000 people and the highest per capita in Ontario, according to the Thunder Bay District Health Unit.

There has been a seven-fold increase in opioid-related calls to the Superior North EMS from 2017 to 2021, exploding from 96 calls a year to 729 within that time frame.

Front-line workers are seeing an increasingly toxic drug supply in the community, and overdoses on these substances, like fentanyl and benzodiazepines, often require multiple doses of naloxone to reverse.

That's why Thunder Bay city council is calling on the provincial government for more help.

During Monday night's council meeting, councillors unanimously passed a motion to endorse four recommendations to the province coming from the Drug Strategy Network of Ontario, which comprises 41 members including the Thunder Bay Drug Strategy. The network's four-pillar model is outlined in a document called "Solutions to End the Drug Poisoning Crisis in Ontario: Choosing a New Direction."

The recommendations include:

Gauvin said she was "pleasantly surprised" about council's unanimous vote in favour of the recommendations. She hopes the city continues to support organizations that provide harm reduction services and assist the city's most vulnerable — like Path 525 and People Advocating for Change through Empowerment (PACE) — and that councillors listen to those with lived experience who can lead the way with solutions.

"Our city is in a crisis right now. This is an emergency and we need the support — and that is something that the province needs to be held accountable to.

"I'm really hoping this council is up to that challenge because it's no small ask," she said.

Part of the Drug Strategy Network of Ontario's recommendations is eliminating structural stigma against those who use drugs. That's where decriminalization comes in.

"We know that stigma kills people very quickly…the more we destigmatize through actions like decriminalizing certain drugs, the more apt people are to reach out for care when they're struggling with those things," Gauvin said.