For roughly a year, whenever Alberta’s minister for addictions or his spokesperson commented on the tragedy of Albertans killed by opioid overdoses, they consistently did so in a sentence’s subordinate clause — bracketed by a “while,” before veering into positive messaging.
“While every loss of life is tragic, we are cautiously optimistic after seeing fatalities decrease in Alberta in March,” then-Associate Minister Mike Ellis said in a news release early last year, acknowledging the deaths of 120 people.
“While every life lost to addiction is one too many, the steady decline in opioid deaths in Alberta is a positive sign and we
