Yukon father opens up about losing daughter to opioid overdose
CBC
Gary Bailie knew his daughter Stacity struggled with alcohol addiction, and he also knew she had lost some friends to opioid overdoses. He often worried about her and would sometimes try to talk to her about risks she was taking.
"It's an illness that some people have. Some people get cancer, some don't. Some get diabetes, some don't. Some get addiction, and some don't," Gary said.
The last time he saw Stacity was on the night of Oct. 22, when he gave her a lift to go meet some friends in Whitehorse. She said goodbye and hopped out of the vehicle.
"A few hours later, she was gone," Gary recalled.
Stacity Bailie died that night of a fentanyl overdose, a month shy of her 28th birthday.
"I never gave up on her, right to the end. That's why it was such a hard blow to me," Gary said.
"She just really got caught up in it all. And then it's like, accidents happen."
Gary is well-known throughout Yukon for his work as founder and organizer of the annual Blue Feather Music Festival, and also his work with the Kwanlin Coyotes, a ski program for youth. In 2018, he was given a Governor General's Meritorious Service award for his work on the festival.
He's typically a loqacious person with a positive spirit and an evangelical belief in healthy living. Talking about Stacity, though, he'll sometimes fall silent for a few moments. His grief is still raw and he's still coming to grips with what happened.
But he wants to talk.
He wants people to know about Stacity, her caring nature, her dreams to go to culinary school. He wants people to know that she's not just a statistic. He wants to help put a face on Yukon's opioid crisis and he believes Stacity would want that too because she cared deeply about other people.
"If I can utilize my daughter's life as a catalyst for some positive change, then I'm going to. So I'm just stepping up," Gary said.
"Behind every one of these numbers is a beautiful human being, you know, that really needed help and maybe didn't know where to go for it."
Last month, Yukon chief coroner reported that Yukon now has the highest rate of deaths due to opioids in the country, at 48.4 deaths per 100,000 people. Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 26 this year, there were 21 opioid-related deaths in Yukon.
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WARNING: This story contains references to missing and murdered Indigenous people. Resources can be found at the bottom of this story.
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