Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to bring awareness to an issue that has caused more than 1,000 deaths in Canada. Opiate overdoses will kill 800 people in B.C. this year, if the death toll continues at its current rate. In the first four months, 256 people have been killed, and a public health emergency has been declared in B.C.
On Saturday, a 23-year-old from my community ended up on life support, and a 22-year-old from Kamloops lost his life. Last year, in Alberta, there were 274 deaths associated with fentanyl. It is 40 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Drug dealers are importing an inexpensive powdered fentanyl, mostly from Mexico and China, but it does not end there. A new drug on the street, W-18, and other W-series opiates, are 100 to 1,000 times more toxic than fentanyl.
As Dr. Virani, an Edmonton public health doctor, commented on a recent drug bust of four kilos of powder—