Earlier in April, Saskatchewan’s Health Ministry issued an “overdose alert” for Saskatoon due to a spike in suspected overdose cases reported by the fire department and Prairie Harm Reduction, the city’s harm reduction non-profit.
Prairie Harm Reduction, which runs Saskatoon’s only supervised consumption site, also closed for two months in March to relieve the strain on stressed employees.
On the first day of April, emergency crews received 21 calls for help with suspected overdoses, after receiving an average of 10 per day at the end of March. According to a statement released by Prairie Harm Reduction, it tested an orange-coloured substance that contained fentanyl. “We encourage people to use harm reduction strategies, such as drug checking and carrying naloxone, to reduce the risks associated with substance use,” read the statement.
Data released by Saskatoon’s fire department shows it responded to 837 calls for suspected overdoses from Jan. 1 to March 31, compared to 324 calls over the same period last year. Moreover, in March, there were 509 calls, compared to 115 calls received in March 2024.
“We suspect that we’ve actually got an underestimate of the number of calls that the fire department has responded to,” said Pamela Goulden-McLeod, the director of the city’s emergency management organization, in her interview with CBC News. “You need to make data-driven decisions to come up with the best way to mitigate this issue,” she said. “And the struggle is, until we have that data-driven information, [deciding] what are our next steps is hard.”
According to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, nine people died of a suspected overdose in Saskatoon during the first four weeks of March. Moreover, several of the city’s public libraries temporarily closed in March due to drug use and safety concerns, including the two branches of the Saskatoon Public Library, the Frances Morrison Central Library in the downtown and the Dr. Freda Ahenakew Library.
In 2024, the City of Saskatoon received $41.3 million in federal funding through the federal Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) to create affordable housing. However, critics have voiced concerns that this approach does not provide enough support to people struggling with addiction. “Do some of those folks who are in affordable housing require additional supports and health care and mental health and addiction supports? Absolutely, many of them will, but the housing is foundational to the first step in recovery,” said Sgt. Chris Harris of Saskatoon police in his interview with CBC News. “You could build three city blocks worth of housing but if a person is so unstable because of either drug addiction or mental health issues that as soon as you put them in that house bad things are going to happen, then you obviously can’t do that,” he added.
