A Lambton County standing committee is supporting a call from Sarnia's mayor to have the province declare an opioid-fentanyl crisis.
Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley said all communities are struggling.
"There's not a city or town in this province, or across this country that doesn't have this as an issue," said Bradley.
He said declaring a crisis is not an unusual step.
"Alberta and British Columbia have done that in the last couple of years to devote more resources, to show that this is beyond just a normal health issue that will come along from time to time. This is an epidemic. It is taking nine to 11 lives per day across Canada and the province of Ontario needs to look at a stronger focus on dealing with this issue, beyond what's happened, as we do locally," he said.
Mayor Bradley said it would clearly show it's a priority issue for the province.
"In the past, the former government and the existing government have been resistant in doing that. I think it's because they know they would have to put resources into dealing with the health issues, the policing issues, the housing issues, the homeless issues because this is all linked together," he said.
Bradley said calling on the province to declare a crisis also keeps the pressure on the government to approve funding for Sarnia-Lambton's long-planned withdrawal management facility.
"They've unfrozen spending on a number of other areas since they've examined the deficit and this is a critical one," he said.
Bradley's motion has been forwarded to Lambton County council for consideration.
