The Addiction Crisis in Peterborough

Peterborough, Ontario is navigating a shifting overdose crisis. Drug poisoning deaths fell from 78 in 2023 to 60 in 2024 and 41 over 11 months in 2025, suggesting a downward trend. However, the city's harm reduction infrastructure has been systematically dismantled. The federally funded Mobile Support Overdose Resource Team (MSORT) — which helped roughly 160 people access treatment and housing — disbanded in early 2024 when federal funding expired. In March 2026, the Ontario government announced it would end funding for Peterborough's Supervised Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) site at 220 Simcoe Street, which had recorded over 15,000 visits and managed 104 drug poisonings without a single fatality since opening in June 2022. The site is winding down within 90 days of the March 2026 announcement. A $6.2 million HART Hub led by Fourcast is the provincial replacement, offering housing, mental health, and addiction treatment — but explicitly not supervised consumption, safer supply, or needle exchange. Peterborough's Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Thomas Piggott, warned that the CTS closure will drive more overdoses to the emergency department, citing Canadian Drug Policy Coalition research showing EMS calls rose 69.5% and ER visits rose 67% after Ontario closed its first nine CTS sites. The city's Peterborough Regional Health Centre already handles 80,000 emergency visits annually.

Canada recorded approximately 7,560 apparent opioid toxicity deaths in 2023 (PHAC), making it one of the deadliest years of the opioid crisis. Ontario accounted for roughly 2,639 of those deaths in 2023 — about 35% of the national total. While both national and provincial figures showed improvement in 2024, experts caution that the simultaneous closure of supervised consumption sites across Ontario risks reversing these gains. Fentanyl contamination of the drug supply and the emergence of benzodiazepine adulterants present new challenges for first responders using naloxone. The Canadian Drug Policy Coalition documented that closing supervised consumption sites correlates with significant increases in emergency service demand, not reductions in drug use.

01. What is happening in Peterborough

02. A crisis that did not start this month

Ontario recorded 2,639 opioid toxicity deaths in 2023 and 2,231 in 2024 — a 15% decline year-over-year, according to the Office of the Chief Coroner. The 2024 mortality rate of 14.3 deaths per 100,000 people is down from the pandemic peak of 19.4 per 100,000 in 2021, but remains well above pre-pandemic baselines. Fentanyl and its analogues were detected in more than 83% of opioid toxicity deaths in 2024. Prescription benzodiazepines appeared in 45% of 2024 deaths, a sharp rise from 33% in 2023, signalling increasing contamination of the drug supply with sedatives that reduce the reversal effect of naloxone. Nationally, approximately 7,560 people died of apparent opioid toxicity in 2023 (PHAC). Ontario accounted for roughly 35% of those deaths. The province has closed or defunded most of its supervised consumption sites under a "safer communities" policy launched in August 2024, replacing them with HART Hubs that do not offer harm reduction services.

03. Why is it getting worse?

Key drivers of Peterborough's overdose crisis include: (1) Fentanyl and analogues dominating the unregulated drug supply — present in 83%+ of Ontario opioid deaths in 2024. (2) Growing contamination of the drug supply with prescription benzodiazepines (45% of Ontario opioid deaths in 2024, up from 33% in 2023), which reduce the effectiveness of naloxone. (3) Poverty, homelessness, and housing instability concentrated in Peterborough's downtown core, with 896 individuals using the CTS site in December 2025 alone. (4) Dismantling of harm reduction infrastructure — MSORT disbanded in 2024, CTS closing in 2026 — without equivalent replacement services, pushing drug use to unsupervised and less safe settings. (5) Rural and semi-rural geography of the Peterborough region creating gaps in emergency response and services for people outside the downtown core. (6) Social determinants including trauma, mental health comorbidities, and lack of access to stable housing and primary care for the most marginalized populations.

04. Where hope still lives

Communities across Ontario are responding with naloxone distribution, harm reduction programs, and peer support networks. Every person trained in naloxone use is a potential life saved.

05. In the news

The reporting behind this page:

• Ontario government to end funding for Peterborough's supervised consumption and treatment services sitekawarthaNOW · 2026-03-16
• 'It's not a hypothetical': Medical officer of health says Peterborough CTS closure will drive more overdoses to ERkawarthaNOW · 2026-05-23
• Ontario government announces new Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hub in PeterboroughkawarthaNOW · 2025-01-28
• Overdose outreach team disbands as federal funding expiresPeterborough Currents · 2024-04-01
• Peterborough supervised consumption site to close as Ontario government ends fundingGlobal News · 2026-03-16
• More than 2,200 died of opioids in Ontario last year as numbers trend downwardCBC News · 2025-01-01