Trade unions join forces with health-care advocates to fight opioid crisis [Video]

A group of trade unions, health-care advocates and non-profits is calling on the province to take action against the opioid crisis, and they say construction workers continue to be especially vulnerable.

One Step Forward: An Alliance for Advancing Recovery has put together a list of recommendations for the Ontario government to help combat the opioid crisis, including improving access to more treatment methods.

Jeremy Baker, with Local 27 Carpenters Union, said he was only 16 years old — on his first job — when he saw the effects of opioid addiction in the trades.

“The journeyman that was training me was heavily addicted to opiates, and I watched him go from being a functioning member of society to eventually passing away,” Baker told CBC Toronto in an interview.

“It scared me … And ever since then, it’s been one person a year who has passed away in similar situations.”

According to a 2022 report by the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network, …