According to a report, life expectancy in Canada has decreased for the third straight year in 2022, and more Canadians died of COVID-19 than in any other year since the pandemic started.
Statistics Canada’s analysis of deaths in 2022 reveals that the average Canadian’s life expectancy reduced to 81.3 years in 2022, a full year lower than the 82.3 years it recorded in 2019.
The report said: “Life expectancy declines when there are more deaths, when deaths occur at younger ages, or a combination of both.”
COVID-19 became the third-leading cause of death for Canadians in 2022, overtaking accidents and unintentional injuries for the first time since the emergence of the pandemic in 2020.
The report said: “This increase may in part be due to the exposure to new highly transmissible COVID-19 variants and the gradual return to normalcy.”
Cancer and heart disease were the first and second most common causes of death and they accounted for 41.8 per cent of all deaths in 2022.
According to the report, New Brunswick witnessed the highest reduction in life expectancy among provinces, dropping more than one year to 79.8 years from 80.9 in 2021. Saskatchewan’s life expectancy witnessed the highest reduction over the past three years combined, dropping a whole two years to 78.5 in 2022 from 80.5 in 2019. Prince Edward Island was not included in the yearly data analysis by province.
An increase in deaths among younger people in 2022 was partly attributable to deaths under investigation by a coroner or medical examiner, which typically include suicides, homicides and drug toxicity deaths.
Statistics Canada said over 19,700 Canadians died of COVID-19 in 2022. Seniors bore the brunt of the increase, with citizens aged 80 and older witnessing a 78-percent increase in COVID deaths last year compared to the year before.
The report said citizens aged 65 and older accounted for 91.4 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths in 2022.
The rate of COVID-19 deaths in Atlantic Canada was over seven times higher last year compared with the year before — the biggest increase in any region of the country, the statistics agency said.
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