Thank you all for being here today.
By the end of the year, 800 British Columbians are expected to die from opioid overdoses. That's one by noon today, and one by midnight. Dr. Perry Kendall, the provincial health officer for British Columbia, has declared a public health emergency in British Columbia. Hundreds more will die in Alberta, and about the same number are expected to die in Ontario as in British Columbia by the end of this year. Across our country this year, 2,000 Canadians are expected to die from overdoses. That's a Canadian dying about every four hours.
The RCMP reports that the fentanyl market is expected to grow in the next 18 months, which means that even more Canadians will die. Two grains of fentanyl the size of a salt crystal, or one grain in the case of carfentanil, are capable of killing drug users, including young people who don't even know they're ingesting it. This puts our first responders and our police at risk. These are our neighbours, our friends, our families dying; as Ms. Geller said, no one is immune.
Ms. Geller, my question for you is this: Is the national opioid overdose crisis a national public health emergency?