Ya’ara Saks, Canada’s new minister of mental health and addictions, inherits a complex portfolio and an opioid crisis that has only gotten worse in almost every year since 2016.
Advocates and addictions experts say they would like to see the new minister take a holistic approach to the crisis and act swiftly to champion and expand harm reduction policies.
More than 36,000 people in Canada died of opioid overdoses between 2016 and 2022 — roughly 20 people per day in 2022 alone.
Saks is a relatively new MP — she was elected in a 2020 by-election. She’s taking over a relatively new file that was created in 2021. This is her first ministerial
