The Economics and Statistics Division maintains archives of previous publications for accountability purposes, but makes no updates to keep these documents current with the latest data revisions from Statistics Canada. As a result, information in older documents may not be accurate. Please exercise caution when referring to older documents. For the latest information and historical data, please contact the individual listed to the right.
<--- Return to Archive
For additional information relating to this article, please contact:
July 13, 2023DEATH COUNTS AND EXCESS MORTALITY, APRIL 2023 Statistics Canada has provided provisional information on deaths in Canada up to May 6, 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 May 6; only Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia have reported to this date. Information is not complete for recent months in:
Newfoundland and Labrador (to April 22, 2023)
Prince Edward Island (to April 15, 2023)
Nova Scotia (to April 1, 2023)
New Brunswick (to March 11, 2023)
Ontario (to December 31, 2022)
Manitoba (to June 18, 2022)
Saskatchewan (to April 1, 2023)
With limited information from several provinces, national estimates are available up to March 4, 2023.
Previous provisional data have been revised. New data are provisional.
Nova Scotia reported significant excess mortality above the upper bound of expected deaths intermittently over several weeks through the fall and winter. Similar episodes of mortality periodically rising above the upper bound for expected deaths were observed in the other Atlantic provinces over this period as well.
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 Ontario, Québec, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, there was excess mortality beyond the upper bound of expected deaths consistently through the fall and periodically through the winter months.
Data from Manitoba are lagged by several months.
Notes:
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."
Further, Statistics Canada notes that: "There are also several challenges that come with measuring excess mortality, most importantly properly estimating the number of expected deaths that would occur in a non-COVID-19 context as a basis for comparison with current death counts. Significant variations may be observed from year to year in the annual death counts, especially in the least-populated provinces and the territories. Moreover, yearly death counts may be affected by changes in the composition of the population, particularly regarding age and changes in mortality rates (e.g., reduced mortality). In the Canadian context, with an aging and growing population, the number of deaths has been increasing steadily in recent years, so a higher number of deaths in 2021 and 2022 would be expected, regardless of COVID-19."
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
<--- Return to Archive
