Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.
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 sidewalk on a downtown corner in Sudbury, Ont., is littered with markers bearing the names of people lost to the opioid overdose crisis.
Too many more are dying.
What began four years ago as a memorial to the son of a local woman has grown so much in size and public awareness that the city has promised to find a place for a permanent installation.
It is not the only municipality with such plans in Ontario, where opioid toxicity contributes to an estimated seven deaths a day, or about 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 shows rates have been significantly higher since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, from an average of 130 deaths per month in 2019 to a peak of 238 per month in 2021 .Four in five deaths are related to fentanyl.
Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre says his municipality has been struggling to keep up over the past few years, despite “a lot of outreach going on.”
“We’re trying to tackle it, but it’s getting harder and harder,” he said in an interview. “We’ve never seen that in our lifetime.”
Between January and August, 90 people died of suspected drug overdoses in the Sudbury and Manitoulin areas, Sudbury & Districts Public Health reports – about 15 percent more than in the same period last year. Another 245 people visited emergency departments for confirmed opioid overdoses.
During 2023, the region saw the highest rate of toxic drug deaths per capita.
Lefebvre said he is working with the founder of the downtown memorial, called Crosses for Change, to find an appropriate place in the city where residents can come to mourn.
“We need to remember what these people, our friends and family members, have gone through, and their tragic death in this crisis we all face,” he said.
A similar effort is underway in Guelph, Ont. Although opioid-related death rates in her region are consistently among the lowest in the state, community members are far from immune to this particular form of grief.
People closely affected by the use of toxic drugs worked with Wellington Guelph’s Drug Strategy and other community partners to design a “reflective space” that will be built in a city park, said Jean Hopkins, manager of the strategy.
The Pathways to Remember Memorial is imagined as a stone podium surrounded by tall grasses, meant to symbolize lost loved ones.
A spokesperson for the City of Guelph confirmed that the city is looking at options for a site, will fund bench purchases and lead the implementation of the project. Other costs are being covered by a fundraising effort that Hopkins said began in 2022 and has raised about a third of the $50,000 goal so far.
“It is so important to have reflective spaces in our community to call attention to this issue, and make sure we honor those we have lost to a preventable cause,” Hopkins said in an email. “We hope the memorial will also address the stigma associated with substance use and drug poisoning.”
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on September 18, 2024.
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
source link https://canadanewsmedia.ca/toronto-police-investigate-shooting-that-left-two-men-dead/
