Extreme heat linked to nearly 700 excess deaths in Canada's major cities over 20 years - The Globe and Mail

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A man carries a case of water bottles between the high rises of St. James Town in Toronto, Wednesday, July 5, 2023. A new report from Statistics Canada says excess death rates in 12 major cities rose with extreme temperatures between 2000 and 2020, like those blanketing parts of Canada this week.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press

There were nearly 700 excess deaths linked to extreme heat events in Canada’s largest cities in the first two decades of this century, according to a new Statistics Canada report released as much of Central and Eastern Canada sweats through the first major heat wave of the year.

Researchers at the statistical agency analyzed deaths from non-accidental, cardiovascular and respiratory causes in a dozen major cities and concluded that the risk of dying rose on scorching days in most of them, particularly for senior citizens.

Montreal and Toronto experienced the worst impacts of extreme heat, possibly because they have high proportions of renters who may not have air conditioning.

The study also turned up some counterintuitive results. It found that the average longer-term impacts of extreme heat events on mortality were “considerably smaller than those previously estimated from analyses of single events.”

One possible explanation, the report noted, is that earlier studies focused on catastrophic heat waves that were known to be quite deadly, whereas the new analysis looked at all extreme heat days in a 21-year period, some of which caused little or no excess mortality.

The report was published Wednesday, when parts of Central and Eastern Canada sweltered beneath a heat dome that isn’t expected to lift until the end of the week. Environment Canada heat warnings are in effect for large swaths of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, with temperatures nearing 35 C. The soupy, humid air made it feel hotter than 40 C in some parts of the country.

Still, the current heat wave isn’t expected to be as damaging as the heat dome that descended on British Columbia in June, 2021. It killed 619 people.

The new Statistics Canada report does not capture deaths caused by that heat dome because it only covers the years 2000 to 2020.

The report examined death data from the 12 Canadian cities with populations greater than 500,000 in the 2021 census: Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Mississauga, Vancouver, Brampton, Hamilton, Surrey and Quebec City.

It concluded that, across all the cities, there were approximately 668 excess non-accidental deaths, including 115 excess cardiovascular deaths and 114 excess respiratory deaths that could be attributable to extreme heat.

“Montreal was the only city in which extreme heat events were associated with an unambiguous increase in excess deaths for all three outcomes,” the report said.

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2024-06-19 14:56:51Z
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