Recent victims have included large corporations such as retailer London Drugs, as well as the City of Hamilton, Ont., and the government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
A First Nation on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island has declared a state of emergency over what its leadership describes as the "unrelating impact of drugs and alcohol" on its members, particularly children and youth.
Indigenous people, especially women, are dying from toxic drugs at disproportionately high rates in British Columbia as the overdose crisis continues "unabated," nearly seven years after the province first declared a public health emergency, said the top doctor for the First Nations Health Authority.
Doctors and front-line agencies say COVID-19 has underscored the value of culturally sensitive and community-based health-care services for Indigenous people and the need to continue them past the pandemic.
Klahoose Nation Chief Kevin Peacey said he was relieved when the small community’s promised second doses arrived, if a week later than originally planned.
Racist comments directed towards a British Columbia Indigenous community fighting a COVID-19 outbreak were denounced on Wednesday, January 13, 2021, by federal Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller.
B.C. First Nations people continue to be disproportionately impacted by the opioid overdose crisis during the pandemic. Though First Nations people comprise 3.3 per cent of the province's overall population, they represent 16 per cent of all overdose deaths as of May 2020.
Dr. Nadine Caron says she hears difficult stories every day from some of her Indigenous patients in rural British Columbia facing a diagnosis of cancer.
Indigenous drug users in British Columbia are 13 times more likely to die compared with other Canadians of the same age, says a decade-long study calling for cultural connections as a path to healing deep-rooted pain.