Ontario paramedics respond to more opioid overdose calls despite fewer deaths
Sedatives in street drugs are causing unconsciousness without respiratory depression. Thunder Bay continues to have the highest death rate in the province.
The day's top stories, food & events — every morning at 7. Unsubscribe anytime.
Ontario's emergency medical services are responding to more overdose calls even as opioid-related death rates drop—a puzzling reversal that researchers say reflects changes in street drug composition.
In Thunder Bay alone, calls for suspected opioid poisoning increased by 20 per cent in the first five months of 2026 compared to the same period last year. Yet the city, which continues to have the highest opioid-related death rate in Ontario at more than five times the average, shows declining fatalities province-wide.
Gillian Kolla, an assistant professor in the faculty of medicine at Memorial University, explained the disconnect. Sedatives increasingly found in street supplies cause deep unconsciousness, making it difficult to wake people up—but they don't produce the same respiratory depression as fentanyl. "This is why we can have fewer deaths happening—because the fentanyl potency does seem to have decreased in Ontario over the last year and a half—while we still actually have more calls to EMS," she said.
Data analysis shows that while provincial and national opioid death rates have dropped, paramedics in Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, and Thunder Bay received increased overdose calls. Thunder Bay has issued 11 drug alerts since spring about highly toxic substances. The latest alert, issued Wednesday by NorWest Community Health Centres, warned that more than 80 per cent of recent fentanyl samples contained either medetomidine (a veterinary tranquilizer) or benzodiazepine.
Shane Muir, chief of Superior North EMS in Thunder Bay, said paramedics respond to overdose calls daily. While more people are administering naloxone—used to reverse opioid effects—it isn't always effective against other substances. "I don't know if we have a true depiction of what's really happening on the streets," he said.
Muir wants more active street patrols and accessible, low-barrier addiction recovery options. He emphasized that paramedics are still reversing overdoses and saving lives daily.
