Ottawa (AFP)

Luc Laplante, a 37-year-old homeless drug addict, has lost three of his friends in recent months: they have all died from an opioid overdose, a phenomenon that has been on the rise in Canada since the coronavirus crisis.

Isolation, less access to help services for drug addicts and "shooting rooms", health priority given to Covid-19 ... This increase in overdoses since the start of the pandemic has many reasons.

Luc Laplante puts forward another reason: the lack of supervision of the Canadian emergency benefit, paid by the government of Justin Trudeau to ensure a monthly income of 2,000 Canadian dollars (1,300 euros) for workers who find themselves without income because of the coronavirus .

According to him, the government has allocated this bonus without too strict controls, at the risk of seeing fraud multiply.

"People sought government funding for Covid-19 and then spent it on drugs," he said, hours after surviving an overdose of fentanyl, a potent opiate.

The Ontario "coroner", the public officer responsible for investigating violent and suspicious deaths, estimates that the number of fatal overdoses has increased by 25% in the past three months.

In British Columbia (west), the number of overdose deaths has jumped 40% from the same period last year.

"Dramatically, other jurisdictions across the country are reporting similar trends," said the chief administrator of the Public Health Agency of Canada, Theresa Tam, last month.

- Double health crisis -

Dr. Tam has reported "clusters of overdoses due to unknown or unusual mixtures of illicit toxic substances" in several cities, including Toronto and Calgary.

British Columbia chief physician Bonnie Henry held back tears at recent press conference after announcing that 170 overdose deaths in May were greater than the number of coronavirus deaths in the province .

"Covid-19 is not our only health crisis," she said.

In Ottawa, three "shooting rooms" in the Lower Town district, in the center of the capital, have halved the number of places reserved for drug addicts, in order to comply with the new rules of distancing.

Luc Laplante explains that he was alone in a parking lot when he injected himself with a dose on Monday evening, in order to relieve knee pain.

It was a "stronger batch of drugs" than what he used to take, insists Mr. Laplante, after being revived by paramedics, warned by a passerby.

"We already had a lot to deal with the opioid crisis, but we were making progress. Then the pandemic struck, deplores Anne Marie Hopkins, of the community organization Ottawa Inner City Health, which manages a supervised injection center.

Hopkins says some of the people she helped received the government subsidy, then used it to pay for a hotel room where they died of an overdose, alone.

According to a University of British Columbia study released Thursday, 59% of Canadians with mental health issues, who may be homeless and addicted, experienced a decline in well-being during the pandemic.

For Ms. Hopkins, "this is a scary time for many people who are already suffering from trauma."

© 2020 AFP