09/04/2026
Ottawa marks International Overdose Awareness Day in a city without a single safe consumption and treatment site.
Every August 31 since 2001, International Overdose Awareness Day has brought people together to grieve and demand better. Our shelter was proud to stand with those who use substances and organizations such as ours who support them.
This year's theme, "25 Years On. Still Needed," landed with particular weight in Ottawa, a city that spent this year's commemoration without its last safe consumption and treatment site.
Between 2020 and 2025 alone, Ottawa’s safe consumption sites managed over 475,000 visits, served more than 53,000 unique individuals, and intervened in 7,667 overdose emergencies. With 85% of overdoses previously stabilized on-site without requiring 911, defunding this survival infrastructure leaves our community without its frontline shield, driving preventable deaths and shifting the burden directly onto already overstretched paramedics and shelter staff.
Grief must be met with accountability. True community safety and meaningful addiction recovery cannot begin if we refuse to keep our neighbours alive today so they have the chance to choose treatment tomorrow. We continue to call on Queen’s Park to follow public health evidence, restore funding for low-barrier harm reduction services, and build an integrated continuum of care that treats human dignity and survival as non-negotiable.
