Quebec is heading towards its second consecutive year of more than 600 drug overdose deaths, and those working on the front lines say the province is not doing nearly enough to stop it.

The Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) recorded a historic 645 confirmed or suspected drug overdose deaths in Quebec in 2024, the highest annual total the province has ever seen. Between January and September 2025, that figure already reached 453, putting the full year on course for roughly 604 deaths. The direction is clear, and it is not improving.

Drug Overdose Deaths in Quebec Expose a System Under Pressure

Anthony Berger is clinical supervisor at Dunham House in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. He says the statistics reflect a daily reality his team struggles to manage. Applications to the English-language residential treatment facility for substance use and mental health grew by around 16 per cent in both 2024 and 2025. Yet the centre has just 38 beds.

“We cannot accommodate everybody with the sheer number. So where do these people go?” Berger said.

That is a pointed question with no easy answer. The province cut funding to treatment centres rather than increasing it. That made it harder to attract qualified professionals. The MUHC’s Addiction Psychiatry Programme in Montreal shut its doors in 2024, leaving a notable gap in English-language addiction services. Berger now describes Dunham House as one of the last affordable inpatient options for Anglophone residents in Quebec seeking addiction or mental health support.

“Some people will continue not to be treated and will continue to treat their mental health struggles through substance use, which continues that vicious cycle,” he said.

His message to the provincial government is straightforward. Without meaningful investment in prevention and treatment infrastructure, the numbers will not improve.

Why the Quebec Overdose Crisis Is Moving in the Wrong Direction

British Columbia recorded over 2,000 deaths from toxic drugs in 2024. Against that backdrop, Quebec’s numbers may seem modest. But experts are not reassured. Quebec’s figures are climbing while other provinces begin to plateau or decline, and that contrast matters.

Patricia Conrod is professor of psychiatry and addiction at the Université de Montréal and Canada Research Chair in preventive mental health and addiction. She explains that provinces like B.C. saw some reduction in overdose deaths partly because the active user population had been so drastically cut down by fatalities. It is, as she puts it, a very sad state of affairs.

“There were just far fewer people who were users left to affect in that way,” Conrod said.

Quebec has not reached that point. Conrod believes that creates both urgency and a genuine window to act before drug overdose deaths in Quebec reach the scale other provinces have experienced.

“I think it’s all hands on deck in Quebec right now, and in New Brunswick, where you’re seeing similar increases in this unfortunate trend,” she said.

Public Perception and Political Pressure

The Quebec overdose crisis does not exist in isolation. Social attitudes and political decisions directly shape service availability, and front-line workers say the link between the two is impossible to ignore.

Jade Lalumière works as a social worker at the Maison Benoît-Labre shelter and supervised drug consumption site in Montreal’s Sud-Ouest borough. She has watched the situation worsen each year. Parents and residents near the site, which sits beside an elementary school, have raised complaints about open drug use and disruptive behaviour. That public pressure has had consequences.

“Every year that passes by, it’s getting worse,” Lalumière said.

A provincial law passed in late 2024 now bars drug consumption centres from operating within 150 metres of a school or daycare. The Maison Benoît-Labre site may be forced to relocate as a result. Critics of such restrictions argue that restricting access to supervised consumption does not eliminate drug use. It simply pushes it somewhere more dangerous.

A January 2025 study by McGill University researchers analysed data from nine supervised drug consumption sites in Toronto. Researchers found no link between those facilities and long-term increases in local crime, directly challenging one of the most frequently cited objections to safe consumption services.

Lalumière worries that public pressure shapes votes, and votes shape policy in ways that remove lifelines from people who urgently need them.

“To have that judgement about us and about our users, we’re just trying our best to make them survive,” she said.

Prevention Remains Central to Tackling Drug Overdose Deaths in Quebec

Every conversation about the Quebec overdose crisis eventually circles back to the same point: prevention. Early intervention, accessible mental health support, and stable housing are not side issues. They sit at the heart of any meaningful effort to reduce demand and break the cycle of addiction.

Berger is emphatic that Quebec has been aware of this problem for years. “The numbers don’t lie,” he said. What has shifted is the scale. The consequences of inaction now show up in the data every single quarter.

The provincial Ministry of Health and Social Services said in a statement that opioid and drug-related deaths are “concerning and being followed closely.” The ministry added that the illicit drug market is changing fast. Contamination now extends beyond opioids to other substances, complicating both harm reduction efforts and treatment pathways.

Quebec is on course for another record year. Whether that record finally prompts a real shift in funding and political will is the question experts, social workers, and families across the province are waiting to have answered.

Source: cbc