Good morning. The opioid epidemic has claimed tens of thousands of lives in Canada and has been recognized as a public health crisis. But it’s also an economic one, having disproportionately impacted workers in key sectors such as construction and the trades. The challenge in Canada is measuring that fallout. That’s in focus today, along with a look at cellular dead zones.
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In the news
Trade: Across the vast sweep of corporate America, numerous industries have joined to petition the Trump administration to uphold North American free trade
Mining: Activist mining veteran Mick McMullen is throwing his hat into the ring as a candidate to be the next chief executive officer of Barrick Mining
Agriculture: Supply chain and industry advocates say Nutrien’s U.S. investment is Prime Minister Mark Carney’s critical failure on trade diversification
Michael Fairchild's welding helmet, work boots, and gloves photographed in studio. Fairchild died earlier this year from suspected fentanyl poisoning in Ottawa.Alexa Mazzarello/The Globe and Mail
In focus
The opioid crisis has a grip on the construction industry
Hi, I’m Jason Kirby, a reporter with The Globe’s economics team.
In August, Michael Fairchild, an Ottawa-area welder who worked on projects across Canada over his 30-year career, died of a suspected fentanyl poisoning. He became one of thousands of Canadians who’ve lost their lives in the opioid epidemic.
Beyond the unquantifiable emotional impact, no industry has experienced loss more than the trades – a sector dominated by men, who account for three-quarters of all opioid deaths in the country.
With the help of his family and best friend, I tell Michael’s story as part of an examination of how the economic losses from the crisis compound the personal despair.
Michael Fairchild and his son Liam hold a turtle that they rescued from being run over on the highway during nesting season near Merrickville, Ont., on June 22, 2014.Fairchild family/Courtesy of family
Measuring the pain
In researching the story, it quickly became apparent a lot of gaps exist in the collection and analysis of opioid deaths in Canada and their effect on the labour market, at least compared to the U.S.
Around 2015, research began to come out of the U.S. showing how opioid use had led to falling labour participation rates, particularly among men, since the turn of the millennium.
Other U.S. research at the time examined the connection between local unemployment rates and opioid deaths, as well as the national economic costs of the epidemic in that country.
Closing the gap
A number of researchers in Canada have helped fill some of those gaps and continue to do so.
In 2019, Alexander Cheung, then a grad student at the University of Alberta, embarked on a research project to quantify the sheer scale of the loss from opioids. Drawing on evidence that two-thirds of overdose victims were employed in the five years before they died, he measured the forfeited labour productivity from pre-mature deaths for a study released in 2023.
The grim sum: at least $8.8-billion for those who died between 2016 and 2019.
Years earlier, as a volunteer at a food program for marginalized communities where nurses were handing out naloxone kits, he’d seen first-hand the effects opioids were having. “I was able to see something perhaps that if you were sitting at a desk or in government in the early days, the data wasn’t there yet,” he told me.
The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction has also tallied the economic burden of substance use and addiction. I relied heavily on their 2023 Canadian Substance Uses and Harms tool, which includes estimates of the lost productivity costs of the opioid crisis from 2007 to 2020.
By combining Health Canada’s count of more recent opioid deaths (a staggering 32,600 between 2021 and the first quarter of 2025) with their research, we can calculate the total cost over the last 18 years at more than $60-billion in 2020-adjusted dollars.
Others researchers continue to piece together the economic fallout.
Studies in Ontario have shown that one-third of those people who were employed when they died of opioid toxicity worked in construction.
Meanwhile, last year, researchers at the Institute for Work & Health revealed additional evidence showing the crisis’s disproportionate impact on workers in the trades. “A lot of the research on the role of occupations in the opioid crisis has essentially come from the States,” the institute’s Dr. Nancy Carnide told me. “We’re just starting that work in Canada.”
A necessary count
It can seem dehumanizing to dwell on economic costs when we’re talking about victims who’ve been torn from the families. But money talks when prompting action from politicians and policy makers, and now more than ever the scale of the crisis needs to be understood.
This country is embarking on a generational push to build big things, and that could require an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 new workers to join the industry by 2030.
The Fairchild family shared his story and the horrible toll of his illness in the hopes it will help others facing the same plight. And they issued a plea to others who work in the trades: “Find professional help for your physical and mental pain.”
Understanding why the sector has been so hard hit in the past could save an untold number of lives going forward.
Charted
Cell phone ‘dead zones’ persist
Cellular dead zones on major roads snake through remote and northern regions, but gaps also exist on well-travelled corridors, including the Trans-Canada Highway and tourist routes. These coverage gaps affect countless individuals every day. Jill Mahoney and Irene Galea investigate why this public safety risk persists.
Quoted
Dignity? Appropriateness? Trump is in effect turning the People’s House into a monster home.
— Architecture Critic Alex Bozikovic
In ripping down and remaking “the People’s House,” the U.S. President is broadcasting a clear message: The rules don’t apply to him.
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What else we’re following
Oily: B.C. Premier David Eby says that his counterparts in Alberta and Saskatchewan are jeopardizing major economic development by engaging in what he called “secret” talks with Ottawa on oil pipelines through his province.
Healthy: Patients in Canada may have to wait longer to access generic versions of Ozempic because of continuing delays at Health Canada to process new drug submissions.
Wealthy: One of Europe’s largest asset managers is looking to invest more in Canadian digital and energy infrastructure after Carney’s pitch on a visit with Sweden’s Royal Family.
Watching: We’re keeping an eye out for Canada’s new housing price index and retail sales for October.
Morning update
Global markets sank as the highly anticipated U.S. jobs report failed to provide clarity on the near-term path for interest rates, with investors dumping risk assets even after Nvidia’s earnings dazzled.
Wall Street futures were mixed after major North American markets closed sharply lower yesterday, while TSX futures were steady.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.7 per cent in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 slid 0.26 per cent, Germany’s DAX dropped 0.65 per cent and France’s CAC 40 gave back 0.14 per cent.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed 2.4 per cent lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2.38 per cent.
The Canadian dollar traded at 70.95 U.S. cents.