08/31/2026
On International Overdose Awareness Day, we come together to honour the lives and legacies of the people who have been lost to the toxic drug crisis. We hold close the families, friends, Elders, and communities who continue to carry these losses.
For Indigenous peoples, this mourning is held within a history of grief and disruption. Colonial government policies, the residential school system, the Sixties Scoop, child welfare, and ongoing inequities in health and housing have shaped the conditions in which many of our people experience substance use and barriers to care. We recognize that for Indigenous peoples, the overdose crisis cannot be separated from this painful history, but it also cannot be separated from our history of resilience and strength.
Today, we remember those who have gone before us. In protocol, we speak their names. We make space for ceremony, tears, silence, stories, and the teachings of our Elders and Knowledge Keepers. We recognize that every life lost leaves an empty place in a family and a community.
But mourning must also call us to action.
In British Columbia, Indigenous people continue to be disproportionately impacted by the toxic drug crisis. This demands responses grounded in dignity, cultural safety, self-determination, and Indigenous leadership. It means ensuring that people can access culturally relevant healing, harm reduction, mental wellness and substance-use services without stigma, racism, or judgment. It means strengthening connection to land, language, culture, family, community, and ceremony as important sources of wellness and belonging, and creating conditions where every person has the opportunity to live with dignity and connection.
We also honour the people who are still here - those living with substance use, those in recovery, those grieving, those who use drugs to survive difficult circumstances, and the families and communities walking alongside them. Their lives are worthy of care, respect, and hope.
We remember. We grieve. We stand together. And we act.
May we carry the memory of those we have lost not in grief, but in our commitment to protecting life, strengthening community, and building a future where fewer families have to experience this pain.
