Ontario is putting an additional $222 million over three years toward fighting an opioid crisis in the province.
Health Minister Eric Hoskins says the funding will help add more harm reduction workers, expand the supply of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, as well as expand addiction clinics and harm reduction services.
Data released today shows that 865 people died in 2016 due to opioids _ a 19 per cent increase from the previous year.
More than 700 doctors, nurses, harm reduction workers and academics called on the province this week to declare opioid deaths and overdoses a public health emergency, as British Columbia did last year.
They say limited resources and poor data are preventing them from responding properly to a disturbing and sustained increase in overdoses.
But Premier Kathleen Wynne says an emergency declaration is a time-limited process that usually involves a situation with a foreseeable end, such as a flood or fire.
She says the situation with opioids has no foreseeable end, and no matter what it's called, it is a serious public health crisis.