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April 20, 2023DEATH COUNTS AND EXCESS MORTALITY, JANUARY 2023 Statistics Canada has provided provisional information on deaths in Canada up to February 4, 2023. This includes deaths attributable to all causes; fluctuations from one week to the next may be attributable to many different causes of death. The data does not include all deaths that occurred during the reference period.
Most provinces have not reported their results up to February 4; only Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia have reported to this date. Information is not complete for recent months in:
Newfoundland and Labrador (to January 21, 2023)
Prince Edward Island (to January 21, 2023)
Nova Scotia (to December 24, 2022)
New Brunswick (to December 3, 2022)
Ontario (to October 29, 2022)
Manitoba (to March 12, 2022)
Saskatchewan (to December 24, 2022)
With limited information from several provinces, national estimates are available up to December 3, 2022.
Statistics Canada cautions that "...even without a pandemic, there is always some year-to-year variation in the number of deaths in a given week. As such, the number of expected deaths should fall within a certain range of values. There is evidence of excess mortality when weekly deaths are consistently higher than the expected number, but especially when they exceed the range of what is expected over several consecutive weeks."
Nova Scotia reported significant excess mortality above the upper bound of expected deaths throughout much of November and December, following intermittent weeks of adjusted deaths in excess of the upper bounds for expected mortality.
Nationally, there were several consecutive weeks of adjusted deaths above the upper bound of expected deaths through the summer and early fall. However, in recent data, adjusted deaths in Canada have fallen below the upper bound of expected deaths.
In the latter parts of 2022 there have been extended periods of significant excess mortality (adjusted deaths in excess of the upper bound for estimated mortality) in Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. There have been more recent episodes of excess mortality above the upper bound for estimated mortality in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. However in 2023, deaths have returned to within the upper bound for estimated mortality in Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia (and close to the upper bound in Alberta).
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 13-10-0768-01 Weekly death counts, by age group and sex; Table 13-10-0784-01 Adjusted number of deaths, expected number of deaths and estimates of excess mortality, by week
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