Death Rate in Canada 2026
Canada is one of the world’s most developed nations, and its death rate statistics reflect both the strengths and ongoing challenges of its healthcare system. As of the latest data released by Statistics Canada on January 13, 2026, there were 326,779 deaths in Canada in 2024 — a slight decrease of 0.2% compared to 327,546 deaths in 2023. The crude death rate in Canada stood at approximately 8.1 deaths per 1,000 population, a figure that situates Canada favourably among high-income countries but still reveals critical areas of concern, particularly in chronic disease burden, an aging population, and the ongoing opioid crisis that continues to claim thousands of lives each year.
Understanding Canada’s mortality statistics is essential not only for public health planning and policy but for every Canadian who wants to make sense of the health landscape around them. From cancer and heart disease dominating the top causes of death, to the sharp rise of dementia as a hidden killer, to the still-devastating opioid overdose death rate in Canada, and to the growing role of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) which now accounts for over 5% of all deaths in Canada, the picture is complex and evolving. This article brings together the most current, government-verified data from Statistics Canada, Health Canada, and the Public Health Agency of Canada to give you a complete, data-driven view of Canada’s death rate in 2026.
Interesting Facts: Canada Death Rate 2026
Before diving into section-by-section statistics, here are the most striking, verified facts about mortality in Canada as of the latest available data.
CANADA DEATH RATE — KEY FACTS AT A GLANCE (2024 Data, Released Jan 2026)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total Deaths (2024) ██████████████████████ 326,779
Total Deaths (2023) ██████████████████████ 327,546
MAID Deaths (2024) █████ 16,499
Opioid Overdose Deaths (2024) ████ 7,146
Cancer Deaths (2024) █████████ ~85,600
Heart Disease Deaths (2024) ██████ ~57,840
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
| Fact | Data Point |
|---|---|
| Total deaths in Canada in 2024 | 326,779 |
| Total deaths in Canada in 2023 | 327,546 |
| Year-over-year change in deaths (2023–2024) | −0.2% (slight decrease) |
| Crude death rate (per 1,000 population) | ~8.1 per 1,000 |
| Life expectancy at birth, Canada (2024) | 82.16 years |
| Life expectancy, males (2024) | 80.03 years |
| Life expectancy, females (2024) | 84.29 years |
| #1 cause of death in Canada (2024) | Cancer (malignant neoplasms) — 26.2% of all deaths |
| #2 cause of death in Canada (2024) | Diseases of the heart — 17.7% of all deaths |
| Dementia deaths (2024) | 27,825 (up 4.8% from 2023) |
| MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) deaths (2024) | 16,499 — representing 5.1% of all deaths |
| Opioid overdose deaths (2024) | 7,146 (down 17% from 2023) |
| Average opioid deaths per day in Canada (2024) | ~20 per day |
| Province with most deaths (2023–2024) | Ontario — 130,556 deaths |
| Cancer has been the #1 cause of death since | Early 1990s |
| COVID-19 deaths (2024) | 5,056 (down 36.6% from 2023) |
| Dementia — if rankable, would place | 3rd (behind cancer and heart disease) |
| Influenza & pneumonia deaths (2024) | 7,658 (up 20.0% from 2023) |
| % of dementia deaths among those aged 85+ | 70.8% |
| % of COVID-19 deaths among those aged 85+ (2024) | 54.1% |
| Pre-pandemic life expectancy (2019) | 82.22 years (now nearly recovered) |
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Released January 13, 2026); Health Canada Sixth Annual MAID Report, 2024; Public Health Agency of Canada, Opioid- and Stimulant-related Harms in Canada, March 2026
These numbers tell a story of gradual recovery from pandemic-era peaks, a stubbornly aging population, and persistent public health crises that demand continued attention. Cancer and heart disease alone accounted for close to 44% of all deaths in Canada — a proportion that has remained remarkably consistent over the past several years. Meanwhile, MAID now touches more than 1 in every 20 deaths in the country, a threshold that has sparked national debate about the direction and safeguards of end-of-life policy.
The opioid death figures, while improved, remain at 2.5 times the daily rate recorded in 2016 — the year British Columbia first declared a public health emergency over drug overdoses. The data make clear that while individual sections of Canada’s mortality picture are improving, no single cause of death can be dismissed as resolved.
Total Deaths and Crude Death Rate in Canada 2026
TOTAL DEATHS IN CANADA — ANNUAL TREND
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Year | Deaths | Bar
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2019 | ~284,000 | ████████████████████████
2020 | ~296,000 | █████████████████████████
2021 | ~312,000 | ██████████████████████████
2022 | ~325,000 | ████████████████████████████
2023 | 327,546 | ████████████████████████████▌
2024 | 326,779 | ████████████████████████████
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Source: Statistics Canada, Table 13-10-0708-01 (Released Jan 13, 2026)
| Year | Total Deaths | Crude Death Rate (per 1,000) | Year-over-Year Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | ~284,000 | ~7.5 | — |
| 2020 | ~296,000 | ~7.8 | +4.2% |
| 2021 | ~312,000 | ~8.1 | +5.4% |
| 2022 | ~325,000 | ~8.4 | +4.2% |
| 2023 | 327,546 | ~8.4 | +0.8% |
| 2024 | 326,779 | ~8.1 | −0.2% |
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Table 13-10-0708-01), Released January 13, 2026
The total number of deaths in Canada in 2024 was 326,779, representing a marginal decline of 0.2% compared to the 327,546 deaths recorded in 2023. This is the second consecutive year of improvement following the pandemic peaks of 2021 and 2022, when mortality rates reached their highest levels in decades. The crude death rate now sits at approximately 8.1 deaths per 1,000 population, which aligns with global averages for high-income countries and reflects the compounding effects of an older, larger population rather than any single epidemic event.
What the raw numbers don’t immediately show is the shifting demographic pressure beneath the surface. Canada’s population has grown substantially — now exceeding 41.4 million people — and the proportion of Canadians aged 65 and over has been climbing steadily. This aging dynamic means even a flat or slightly declining death rate still translates into high absolute volumes of deaths year over year. Statistics Canada’s data confirm that mortality rates decreased for all age groups in 2024, a genuinely positive public health signal, but the overall death count remains elevated compared to the pre-pandemic baseline, underlining the lasting demographic and health legacy of COVID-19 on Canada’s mortality statistics.
Leading Causes of Death in Canada 2026
TOP 10 CAUSES OF DEATH IN CANADA — 2024 (% of All Deaths)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Cancer |████████████████████████████ 26.2%
Heart Disease |█████████████████ 17.7%
Accidents |██████ 6.2%
Stroke |████ 4.2%
Resp. Disease |████ 4.0%
Flu & Pneumonia |██ 2.3%
Diabetes |██ 2.1%
Alzheimer's |█ 1.6%
COVID-19 |█ 1.5%
Liver Disease |█ 1.4%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Jan 13, 2026)
| Rank | Cause of Death | % of All Deaths (2024) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cancer (Malignant Neoplasms) | 26.2% | Leading cause since early 1990s |
| 2 | Diseases of the Heart | 17.7% | Second-largest cause |
| 3 | Accidents (Unintentional Injuries) | 6.2% | Includes drug overdose deaths |
| 4 | Stroke (Cerebrovascular Diseases) | 4.2% | — |
| 5 | Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease | 4.0% | — |
| 6 | Influenza and Pneumonia | 2.3% | Up 20% from 2023; moved from rank 8 |
| 7 | Diabetes Mellitus | 2.1% | — |
| 8 | Alzheimer’s Disease | 1.6% | — |
| 9 | COVID-19 | 1.5% | Down from rank 6 in 2023 |
| 10 | Chronic Liver Disease and Cirrhosis | 1.4% | — |
| (Unranked) | Dementia | ~8.5% | Would rank 3rd if rankable |
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024, Table 13-10-0394-01 (Released January 13, 2026)
Cancer has been the single leading cause of death in Canada since the early 1990s, when it overtook diseases of the heart, and 2024 was no exception — cancer accounted for over one quarter (26.2%) of all deaths, and it remained the #1 killer among both males and females and across all provinces and territories. Heart disease continues to sit firmly in second place at 17.7%, meaning that together these two conditions alone are responsible for close to 44% of every death in Canada. That combined dominance has barely shifted year over year, underscoring just how deeply entrenched chronic disease mortality is in the Canadian health system.
Two notable ranking shifts occurred between 2023 and 2024. Influenza and pneumonia jumped from 8th to 6th, with deaths rising by 20% as the suppression effects of pandemic-era social distancing faded. Meanwhile, COVID-19 fell from 6th to 9th, with deaths dropping by 36.6% to 5,056 in 2024 — still significant but far removed from the 19,906 COVID-19 deaths recorded in 2022. Equally important is the note on dementia: with 27,825 deaths in 2024, dementia is not formally rankable under the classification system used, but Statistics Canada confirmed it would place third among all causes — ahead of accidents — if it were included. This is a critical and often-overlooked dimension of Canada’s death rate data for 2026.
Life Expectancy in Canada 2026
LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH — CANADA (Years)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Both Sexes Male Female
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2019 | 82.22 yrs | 79.82 yrs | 84.05 yrs
2022 | 81.30 yrs | 79.02 yrs | 83.55 yrs ← Pandemic low
2023 | 81.68 yrs | 79.48 yrs | 83.88 yrs
2024 | 82.16 yrs | 80.03 yrs | 84.29 yrs ← Near full recovery
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Source: Statistics Canada, Table 13-10-0837-01 (Released Jan 13, 2026)
| Metric | 2019 (Pre-Pandemic) | 2022 (Pandemic Low) | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Life Expectancy — Both Sexes | 82.22 years | 81.30 years | 81.68 years | 82.16 years |
| Life Expectancy — Males | 79.82 years | 79.02 years | 79.48 years | 80.03 years |
| Life Expectancy — females | 84.05 years | 83.55 years | 83.88 years | 84.29 years |
| Gain from 2023 to 2024 — Both Sexes | — | — | — | +0.48 years |
| Gain from 2023 to 2024 — Males | — | — | — | +0.55 years |
| Gain from 2023 to 2024 — Females | — | — | — | +0.41 years |
Source: Statistics Canada, Table 13-10-0837-01; The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Released January 13, 2026)
Life expectancy at birth in Canada rose to 82.16 years in 2024, climbing 0.48 years from 2023 and sitting just 0.06 years below the pre-pandemic 2019 level of 82.22 years. This marks the second consecutive year of improvement, a trajectory that reflects declining mortality rates across age groups and a tangible easing of COVID-19’s demographic toll. The gain was more pronounced among males, who added 0.55 years to reach 80.03 years, compared to females who added 0.41 years to reach 84.29 years — a gender gap of approximately 4.26 years that remains one of the persistent features of Canadian mortality demographics.
At the provincial level, the biggest gains in life expectancy in Canada in 2024 were seen in the western provinces — Alberta gained +0.82 years, British Columbia +0.62 years, and Saskatchewan +0.68 years. Notably, females in British Columbia achieved a life expectancy of 85.07 years, surpassing even the 2019 pre-pandemic level of 84.96 years — the only demographic in Canada to fully exceed pre-pandemic benchmarks. These regional variations highlight the uneven nature of Canada’s health recovery, with the west leading the rebound while other regions continue to lag. For those tracking the Canada death rate by province 2026, these life expectancy differentials are among the most telling available signals.
Cancer Deaths in Canada 2026
CANCER DEATHS AS % OF ALL DEATHS — CANADA
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2020 |███████████████████████████ 25.2%
2021 |███████████████████████████ 25.4%
2022 |████████████████████████████ 25.3%
2023 |████████████████████████████ 25.9%
2024 |█████████████████████████████ 26.2%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Source: Statistics Canada, Table 13-10-0394-01 (Jan 13, 2026)
| Metric | 2023 Data | 2024 Data |
|---|---|---|
| Total cancer deaths in Canada | ~84,629 | ~85,600 (est.) |
| Cancer as % of all deaths | 25.9% | 26.2% |
| Leading cause among males | Yes | Yes |
| Leading cause among females | Yes | Yes |
| Leading cause in all provinces/territories | Yes | Yes |
| Cancer as leading cause of death since | Early 1990s | Early 1990s |
| Lung & bronchus cancer death rate (2023) | 41.8 per 100,000 | — |
| Colorectal cancer — 2nd highest cancer death | Yes | Yes |
| Cancer + heart disease combined share of deaths | 43.7% | ~43.9% |
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Table 13-10-0394-01), Released January 13, 2026; Statistics Canada Health of Canadians Report, 2024 (March 5, 2025)
Cancer remains the undisputed leading cause of death in Canada in 2024, accounting for 26.2% of all deaths — a figure that has remained consistently above 25% for the past several years. It is the top killer among both males and females, in every province and territory without exception, and it has held that position since the early 1990s. In 2023, 84,629 Canadians died from cancer, and preliminary 2024 data suggests that figure has edged slightly higher. Lung and bronchus cancer continues to account for the largest share of cancer deaths, with a death rate of 41.8 per 100,000 population, followed by colorectal cancer as the second most deadly cancer type.
The persistence of cancer at the top of Canada’s leading causes of death reflects both the country’s aging population and the fact that cancer is heavily age-dependent — the older the population, the higher the incidence. Among Canadians aged 45 to 64, cancer was the leading cause of death, followed by heart disease and accidents. Among those aged 65 and older, cancer and heart disease were the top two, with stroke rounding out the top three. Public health experts note that cancer and heart disease share key modifiable risk factors — smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity, and alcohol — which means investment in prevention remains one of the most cost-effective tools available to reduce Canada’s cancer death rate over time.
Deaths by Age Group in Canada 2026
LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH BY AGE GROUP — CANADA 2024
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Age Group | #1 Cause | #2 Cause
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1–14 years | Accidents | Cancer
15–24 years | Accidents | Cancer / Suicide
25–44 years | Accidents | Cancer / Suicide
45–64 years | Cancer | Heart Disease
65+ years | Cancer | Heart Disease
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Source: Statistics Canada, Table 13-10-0394-01 (Jan 13, 2026)
| Age Group | #1 Leading Cause | #2 Leading Cause | #3 Leading Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–14 years | Accidents (Unintentional injuries) | Cancer | Congenital malformations |
| 15–24 years | Accidents | Cancer | Suicide |
| 25–44 years | Accidents | Cancer | Suicide |
| 45–64 years | Cancer | Heart Disease | Accidents |
| 65 years and older | Cancer | Heart Disease | Cerebrovascular diseases (Stroke) |
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Table 13-10-0394-01), Released January 13, 2026; Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2023
The age-specific mortality pattern in Canada tells a dramatically different story depending on where you sit on the demographic spectrum. For younger Canadians aged 1 to 44, accidents and unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death — a category that includes drug overdoses, motor vehicle incidents, and falls. This is why the opioid crisis registers so acutely in mortality data for working-age Canadians; the Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed that accidental poisonings remain the leading cause of death for males aged 20–49 and females aged 20–39 in 2024. Cancer and suicide round out the top three for teens and young adults, highlighting the intersection of physical and mental health in younger mortality.
For Canadians aged 45 and older, the picture shifts decisively toward chronic disease. Cancer overtakes accidents at age 45 and remains dominant through all older age brackets. Heart disease moves firmly into second place, and by age 65, stroke (cerebrovascular diseases) claims the third spot — a reflection of the cumulative damage of cardiovascular risk factors over decades. The demographic reality embedded in these numbers is unmistakable: Canada’s mortality burden is concentrated in its older population, and as the baby boom generation ages further, the absolute weight of cancer and cardiovascular death on the health system and on Canada’s overall death rate statistics is only expected to grow through the remainder of this decade.
MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) Deaths in Canada 2026
MAID DEATHS IN CANADA — GROWTH TREND
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Year | MAID Deaths | % of All Deaths | Annual Growth
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2019 | 5,631 | ~2.0% | —
2020 | 7,595 | ~2.5% | +34.9%
2021 | 10,064 | ~3.3% | +32.4%
2022 | 13,241 | ~4.1% | +31.6%
2023 | 15,343 | ~4.7% | +15.8%
2024 | 16,499 | 5.1% | +6.9%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Source: Health Canada, Sixth Annual MAID Report, November 2025
| MAID Statistic | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Total MAID deaths in Canada | 15,343 | 16,499 |
| MAID as % of all deaths | ~4.7% | 5.1% |
| Year-over-year growth rate | +15.8% | +6.9% |
| Track 1 deaths (reasonably foreseeable death) | ~14,718 | 15,767 (95.6%) |
| Track 2 deaths (death not reasonably foreseeable) | 625 | 732 (4.4%) |
| Track 2 growth rate | — | +17% |
| Median age of MAID recipients (2024) | ~78 years | 77.9 years |
| Province with most MAID deaths (2024) | — | Quebec — 5,998 |
| Total MAID deaths since legalization (2016–2024) | — | ~76,000+ |
| Requests received by Health Canada (2024) | 19,660 | 22,535 |
Source: Health Canada, Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada, 2024 (Released November 28, 2025)
Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) has grown from a niche legal provision into one of the most statistically significant contributors to mortality in Canada. In 2024, 16,499 Canadians received MAID — representing 5.1% of all deaths in the country, or more than 1 in every 20 deaths. The growth rate slowed substantially to 6.9% in 2024, down from 15.8% in 2023 and the pandemic-era averages of above 30%, a pattern that Health Canada notes may signal stabilization — though it cautions that several more years of data will be needed to confirm this trend. Since MAID was legalized in 2016, over 76,000 Canadians have died through this pathway.
The provincial distribution is highly uneven. Quebec accounts for 36.4% of all MAID deaths despite making up roughly 22% of Canada’s population, and has the highest rate at 67 MAID deaths per 100,000 people. Ontario contributes 30%, followed by British Columbia at 18.2%. The median age of MAID recipients in 2024 was 77.9 years, and cancer was cited as the underlying condition in the majority of cases. A particularly closely watched figure is Track 2 MAID — cases where the person’s death is not reasonably foreseeable — which grew 17% in 2024 to 732 deaths, raising ongoing questions from disability rights advocates and health ethicists about whether Canada’s safeguards are robust enough to protect vulnerable Canadians from premature death through this pathway.
Opioid Overdose Deaths in Canada 2026
OPIOID OVERDOSE DEATHS IN CANADA — ANNUAL TREND
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Year | Deaths | Daily Avg | Change
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2016 | 2,861 | ~8/day | Public health emergency declared (BC)
2019 | 3,823 | ~10/day | Pre-pandemic level
2020 | 6,306 | ~17/day | Pandemic surge
2021 | 7,560 | ~21/day | Peak year
2022 | 7,328 | ~20/day | Slight decline
2023 | 8,614 | ~24/day | ← Highest on record
2024 | 7,146 | ~20/day | −17% from 2023
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, March 2026
| Opioid Death Statistic | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Total apparent opioid toxicity deaths | ~8,614 | 7,146 |
| Year-over-year change | — | −17% |
| Average daily opioid deaths | ~24/day | ~20/day |
| % of deaths that were accidental | ~96% | ~96% |
| % of deaths involving fentanyl (2024) | — | ~75% |
| Opioid deaths in BC, AB, ON combined | — | 80% of national total |
| Opioid-related hospitalizations (2024) | — | 5,514 (−15%) |
| ER visits — opioid-related (2024) | — | 24,587 (−15%) |
| Total opioid deaths since 2016 | — | 55,032+ |
| Males as % of opioid deaths | ~74% | ~74% |
| Age group most affected (2024) | — | 30–39 years |
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada, Opioid- and Stimulant-related Harms in Canada (Released March 2026); PHAC joint statement with Chief Medical Officers of Health, 2025
The opioid overdose crisis in Canada showed its first meaningful and sustained improvement in years in 2024, with 7,146 deaths — a 17% decline from 2023’s record-breaking toll of approximately 8,614. That translates to an average of 20 Canadians dying from opioid overdose every single day in 2024, compared to 24 per day in 2023. While the direction of change is genuinely encouraging, the Public Health Agency of Canada is clear that these numbers remain 2.5 times higher than the daily death toll of 2016, the year BC declared its public health emergency. Over 55,000 Canadians have died from apparent opioid toxicity since national surveillance began in 2016.
British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario account for 80% of all opioid deaths in Canada, though all three provinces saw decreases in 2024. In contrast, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Northwest Territories saw increases — a regional disparity that reflects both differences in drug supply toxicity and access to harm reduction services. Fentanyl and its analogues were involved in approximately 75% of all opioid deaths in 2024. The demographic profile of victims remains consistent: 74% are male, the 30–39 age group bears the heaviest burden, and Indigenous communities continue to experience disproportionate and rising harm relative to the national average. The Canada opioid death rate in 2024 may be improving, but the crisis is far from over.
COVID-19 Deaths in Canada 2026
COVID-19 DEATHS IN CANADA — ANNUAL TREND
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Year | Deaths | Rank Among Causes
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2021 | 14,617 | Top 5
2022 | 19,906 | 3rd (peak)
2023 | 7,978 | 6th (−60%)
2024 | 5,056 | 9th (−36.6%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Jan 13, 2026)
| COVID-19 Death Statistic | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total COVID-19 deaths in Canada | 19,906 | 7,978 | 5,056 |
| Year-over-year change | +36% | −60% | −36.6% |
| Rank among leading causes of death | 3rd | 6th | 9th |
| % of all COVID-19 deaths aged 85+ | — | — | 54.1% |
| % of COVID-19 deaths under age 50 | — | — | 1.2% |
| COVID-19 deaths as % of all deaths (2024) | ~6.1% | ~2.4% | 1.5% |
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Released January 13, 2026); Statistics Canada, Health of Canadians Report, 2024
COVID-19 deaths in Canada declined by 36.6% from 2023 to 2024, falling from 7,978 to 5,056 and dropping the disease from the 6th to the 9th leading cause of death in the country. At its peak in 2022, COVID-19 killed 19,906 Canadians and ranked 3rd among all causes of death — a level that is now a distant and grim memory. The trajectory of decline is steep and sustained, but the disease has not disappeared from Canada’s mortality landscape; 1.5% of all deaths in 2024 were still attributed to COVID-19, and the virus continues to claim thousands of Canadian lives annually.
The demographic reality of COVID-19 mortality in Canada is stark. Over half (54.1%) of all COVID-19 deaths in 2024 involved Canadians aged 85 and older, while only 1.2% of COVID-19 deaths occurred among those under 50 — confirming that age remains the dominant risk factor for severe outcomes. Among those aged 85 and older, deaths were roughly evenly split between males and females in 2024. This age concentration explains why COVID-19 death trends closely track the health status of Canada’s elderly population and why outbreaks in long-term care facilities continue to be closely monitored. While COVID-19 is no longer a dominant force in Canada’s death rate statistics, it remains a persistent contributor that will likely feature in national mortality data for years to come.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s Deaths in Canada 2026
DEMENTIA DEATHS IN CANADA — ANNUAL GROWTH
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Year | Dementia Deaths | Would Rank
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2021 | ~21,000 | ~5th
2022 | ~23,500 | ~4th
2023 | ~26,551 | ~3rd (unofficial)
2024 | 27,825 | 3rd (unofficial, +4.8%)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
(Dementia is not a formally rankable ICD-10 cause under current classification)
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Jan 13, 2026)
| Dementia/Alzheimer’s Statistic | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Total dementia deaths in Canada | ~26,551 | 27,825 |
| Year-over-year growth | — | +4.8% |
| If ranked, would place | 3rd | 3rd (behind cancer and heart disease) |
| % of dementia deaths aged 85+ | — | 70.8% |
| % of dementia deaths that are female | — | 63.1% |
| Alzheimer’s disease rank (ranked causes list) | 9th | 8th |
| Alzheimer’s % of all deaths (2024) | 1.6% | 1.6% |
| Trend since 2000 (excluding 2020) | Steadily growing | Steadily growing |
Source: Statistics Canada, The Daily — Deaths, 2024 (Released January 13, 2026)
Dementia is one of the fastest-growing and most underappreciated causes of death in Canada. In 2024, 27,825 Canadians died from dementia — up 4.8% from 2023 — and Statistics Canada explicitly noted that if dementia were included in the formal rankings of leading causes of death, it would sit in third place, ahead of accidents and behind only cancer and heart disease. The reason it doesn’t appear that high in official rankings is a matter of disease classification methodology: dementia is not currently a rankable cause under the ICD-10 list used by Statistics Canada, meaning it is effectively invisible in the headline death statistics that most Canadians see.
The demographic concentration of dementia deaths is extreme: 70.8% of all dementia deaths in 2024 involved Canadians aged 85 and older, and 63.1% of dementia deaths were female — a reflection of both women’s longer life expectancy and sex-based biological vulnerabilities to dementia. The disease has grown consistently each year since 2000, with only a brief interruption in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, likely due to mortality displacement — the most vulnerable dementia patients dying of COVID-19 first. As Canada’s 65+ population continues to grow, the dementia death toll in Canada is projected to keep rising through 2030 and beyond, making it one of the most consequential and least discussed components of the country’s overall mortality statistics 2026.
Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.
