News

A powerful painkiller called fentanyl is being mixed with street drugs like heroin.

According to CTV News, officials warn that the number of deadly overdoses is soaring in Canada, with seven people dead in Montreal from fentanyl-related causes.

Fentanyl is up to 100 times stonger than morphine and 40 times stronger than heroin.

An antidote for fentanyl exists, called Naloxone, and can reverse the drug’s effects and is currently available in easy-to-use kits.

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LOCAL
by Saturn de Los Angeles

Quebec's slow implementation of a bill intended to work in favor of transgender people is leaving the community in limbo. 
 
In a report by CBC News, Bill 35 is supposed to allow transgender-identified people to legally change their gender marker on official documents without going through reassignment surgery. 

However, due to a delay with the legislation review at the National Assembly, Transgender advocate Caroline Trottier-Gascon says that the longer the wait, the more difficult the obstacles transgender Quebeckers will have to face, most notably with discrimination and transphobia. 

LOCAL
by Saturn de Los Angeles

A campaign to strengthen the provinces anti-smoking regulations is underway. 

According to CBC News, a group representing 174 municipalities across Quebec -including Montreal- passed a resolution on Sunday, urging the province to push the regulations on public smoking even further.

LOCAL
by Tom Matukala

Concordia and Mcgill are set to be the first university campuses to house the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy group, which lobbies for reforms at the federal, provincial and municipal levels.

In a report by the Montreal gazette, the group advocates for dealing with drug usage as a health issue rather than criminally.

The group is also supporting the legalization of marijuana, fighting against minimum sentences for drug related offences, and advocating for safe needle exchanges.

The group says they want to promote safety over everything.

NATIONAL
by Patricia Petit Liang

Residents in the South Shore town of St-Remi may have to wait until December before they can use their tap water again. 

In a report by CBC News, a boil-water advisory has been place for six months after fecal bacteria was discovered inside a newly dug well.