Good day, everyone.
Thank you to all the witnesses for appearing and for the learning.
I want to echo Ms. Goodridge's congratulation on the virtual care program. I think there's a lot for the whole country to learn from the successes there, Dr. Day.
I'm going to focus on other areas.
A new paper just out yesterday or today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows that in 2021, one in 13 deaths among people under 85 in Alberta was opioid-related. I'm sure you're familiar with the paper. For Albertans aged 20 to 39, incredibly, opioids accounted for one in every two deaths. In some of the graphs in the article, the differences between Alberta and the other provinces is, frankly, quite alarming.
Towards the end, the article says, “...the burden of premature death from accidental opioid toxicities in Canada dramatically increased, especially in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.” This suggests that Alberta is outpacing the rest of Canada when it comes to opioid-related premature mortality. From what I've seen, the 2023 data do not look any more reassuring.
At the same time, that contrasts with, I would say, quite a positive note struck recently by your premier, who said that, over time, “far fewer” Albertans have lost their lives to addiction in our province and that “many drugs have their lowest mortality on record”. I know that she's referring to the decrease in other areas apart from illicit opioids, but the death rate from toxic illicit opioids by far eclipses all other causes and continues to rise.
All this is to say that when we have six Albertans dying per day and when aspects of the full spectrum of approaches are being pulled back at the same time, perhaps you could summarize and maybe justify the approach Alberta has taken.
How is the Alberta experiment going so far?