Family mourns Winnipeg man taken off life support after overdose from opioid-laced drug
CBC
A family said goodbye to a 31-year-old man on Friday after he was taken off life support following an overdose from poisoned drugs in a northern Manitoba community nearly one week ago.
Harlan Fourre was found unresponsive at an establishment in The Pas on April 22 after RCMP say he ingested what is believed to have been an opioid-laced drug.
He was put on a ventilator shortly afterwards, and his father Joseph said the family got to spend a few hours with Harlan on Friday before he died.
"We didn't know how it was going to go … so we kind of made the decision that, well, it's up to Harlan now," Joseph told CBC News.
"He decided to spare us and he [died] nine minutes after we disconnected his life support. He passed peacefully and it's a great loss to our family."
The family lit a sacred fire in Harlan's honour on Friday that will burn for four days and nights.
Some of his organs are being donated, which speaks to the caring person that he was, said Joseph.
"It just made sense to honour his life with that last act of giving that gift to someone else."
There were 418 suspected drug-related deaths in Manitoba in 2022, according to preliminary data released by the province on Thursday.
"It's a horrible number. That number shouldn't be that high," said Joseph, who received many messages over the last week from other parents who've lost children because of tainted drugs.
People struggling with addiction are not the only ones losing their lives in the opioid epidemic, he said.
"We're not talking about the active addict — we're talking about a kid who had his whole life ahead of him," he said, adding that parents should talk with their children about dangerous drugs, especially with graduation season coming up soon.
"Have those hard conversations about what's out there. Times have changed and there's a murderer out there, and that murderer is called fentanyl," he said.
"Educate them so you don't have to feel what I'm feeling right now, and [do] what I have to do over the next course of the week … [to] bury an incredible man, my son Harlan."
After walking a few laps around the shop, Maria Castagna picks up a glass ornament in the form of a pink, sparkly ice cream cone and smiles widely.
Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham says he has much unfinished work from his first term in office, as he prepares to make his pitch to voters ahead of the 2026 election.
Moving to Canada from Singapore meant losing close social connections for Iris Akbar, but Akbar says the gift was in finding an affirming space with friends that became like family.
Women and children staying at Regina Transition House now have access to Santa’s workshop — a safe space where mothers can choose Christmas gifts for their children.
A man from Powell River, B.C., is thankful to be alive after a stranger helped him while he was choking at a restaurant during a visit to Whistler.
When it comes to Hamilton readers' favourite library books of 2025, romance and mysteries are in close competition.
From the Detroit Lions losing to Apple iPhones that spontaneously update, Windsorites had things that bugged them this year.
Calgary emergency rooms are “in a state of critical overcapacity” ahead of the anticipated peak of flu season — and to cope with the surge and wait-room crowding, officials are urging doctors to speed up their decisions on whether to admit patients, according to a memo obtained by CBC News.
Northern Ontario's highway system needs improvements in order to make travel safer, a highway safety advocate said.
Hundreds of thousands of used tires are piling up across Ontario as some companies responsible for tire recycling have stopped processing tires amid reduced provincial recycling regulations for tire producers, industry experts say.
People in Guelph facing homelessness will soon have a new place to go during the day.
Islanders are reminded to plan their rides ahead of holiday festivities if they plan on drinking alcohol or using cannabis.
Even before Gwen Healey Akearok began her new role as Nunavut’s Minister of Family Services, she was tuning into the Office of the Auditor General’s (OAG) hearings on the state of the Family Services department.