Canadian Coroner and Medical Examiner Database, 2019

Released: 2020-11-06

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected communities and families throughout the country in various ways. Many communities and families have been affected by deaths attributed to COVID-19, and many have been affected by the indirect impacts of the pandemic. One area of concern is the possible impact of the pandemic on deaths that are accidental, suicides and homicides.

Today, new information on deaths investigated by coroners and medical examiners (C/MEs) for the 2019 reference year is available from the Canadian Coroner and Medical Examiner Database. These data are provisional, as they are based on deaths reported by the provinces and territories for which the investigation is complete. However, they provide an important pre-pandemic baseline for understanding the pandemic's potential indirect consequences, including increases or decreases in deaths from unintentional and intentional injuries, as well as possible changes to the circumstances surrounding these deaths. Although the circumstances are not always known, important insights can be gained from looking at what C/MEs have reported, and these insights provide a starting point for implementing preventative measures.

Deaths among 15- to 29-year-old males are most likely to be investigated by a coroner or medical examiner

C/MEs investigated approximately 13% of all deaths in Canada. These investigations more often involved males (63%) than females (37%).

Deaths among 15- to 29-year-old males and females were most likely to be investigated by a C/ME. In particular, in 2019, 50% of deaths among males aged 15 to 29 were investigated by a C/ME. This can be explained by a greater number of younger males dying from accidents, suicides and homicides, and this is consistent with findings from previous years.

Chart 1 
Deaths investigated by a coroner or medical examiner as a percentage of all deaths among males, by age group, 2019

Just over half of the deaths investigated by coroners and medical examiners are from natural causes in 2019

Death investigation is the responsibility of each individual province or territory, and, as a result, each jurisdiction has developed its own system and legislation to fulfill its mandate of investigating deaths that are sudden, unexpected or unexplained. C/MEs are required to categorize deaths according to the manner of death, also referred to as the means by which the death occurred. The five manners of death are natural (disease), accidental (unintentional injury), suicide (self-inflicted injury), homicide (injury with intent by another to cause harm) and undetermined (C/ME unable to attribute one of the manners of death).

In 2019, just over half of the deaths investigated by C/MEs were deemed to be natural, followed by deaths deemed accidental (34%), suicides (12%) and homicides (1%). Undetermined causes accounted for 2% of deaths. Although the overall distribution has not changed since 2006, there have been changes to the number of death investigations attributed to each manner. For example, the number of natural deaths investigated by C/MEs has decreased since 2006. In comparison, the number of accidental deaths remained fairly stable until spiking in 2016. The number of accidental deaths remained elevated until 2018, at which point the counts returned to levels below those from 2006 to 2015. The increased number of accidental deaths, which include drug overdoses, observed during the 2016-to-2018 period aligns with the opioid crisis.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).