These words were spoken at today's gathering for international overdose awareness day:

Good morning and thank you for joining us today. My name is Annette Pedlar and I’m the Executive Director of SafeNSound, a drop-in center located in downtown Owen Sound.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging all that the land that we gather on offers us. The land around us has provided for time and eternity medicine that has supported many individual’s healing journeys. In looking forward on our healing paths we can look to the land to guide us and teach us. I’d also like center with deep respect, the history, spirituality, and culture of the Anishinaabek, Six Nations of the Grand River, Haudenosaunee, and Wendat peoples on whose traditional territories we gather. Along with Metis people who shared this land and these waters. May we all, as Treaty People, live with respect on this land, and live in peace and friendship.

I wanted to make space to give voice to the wide range of emotions we all are going to feel today. A foundational element of the day is to make visible the community of support that exists so please take the time and space you need to take care of yourself and if you’re not able to care for yourself in the moment, tell someone close to you. Please know that you’re not alone in this experience and that the community around you loves you and wants to support you infinitely more then we want to write your name at this event next year.

Today’s event is a partnership between Public Health and SafeNSound with the support of the Owen Sound Police Service, National Overdose Response Service and SOS. At 11:30 we will welcome Gelja and Jacob to share their stories but the mic will be open for people to share as the morning goes on, if you have a truth that you would like to share we all want to hear it. Please write the names of loved ones on the rocks provided, they will go into the garden at SafeNSound. Please write to elected officials or other change makers. We have post cards and will pay for the postage.

The first international overdose awareness day was started by Sally J Finn in 2001 at a Salvation Army in Melbourne Australia. I’d like to share some words that Sally has written about the day- 

At its heart, Overdose Awareness Day is a day that commemorates the death of a loved-one. As death and injury to people who suffer overdose is felt across every socio-economic and cultural span of the world, Overdose Awareness Day knows no boundary. And, intrinsic to the day is the opportunity for all communities to acknowledge that drugs and the possibility that they can cause overdose, are a part of all our lives. And so, we must draw together to oppose the regime of punitive policies that governments around the world, impose upon us in regard to drug use.

Today there are well over 125 events being held across Canada, and around 1000 events being held around the world in countries as far from Owen Sound as: France, Pakistan, Burundi and Estonia. Addiction may look different in all these places but the pain we feel is universal and unites us across colonial boarders.

This year’s event is themed “recognizing those people who go unseen”. We’re here today to say we do see you. 

• To the young people battling an addiction while trying to hide it from parents who will they know will kick them out; we see you, and we love you.
• To the men in the trades who die of overdoses at the highest rate of any demographic within our work force, we see you and love you 
• To the parents too scared to access addiction-based services because you fear your children will be apprehended, we see you and love you
• To those of us who have lost a best friend, sister, father, mother, brother, child, mentor, we see you and love you 
• To those of us that have reached out for help only to hear that there were no beds available a local detox and rehab facilities, we see you and love you. 
• To the people amongst us who continue to be impacted by non-fatal overdoses and have incurred disability or carry shame and stigma, we see you and love you 
• To the front-line workers who carry some of the highest levels of stress in our workforce but are often under paid and under-supported and cope through the use of substances, we see you and love you 
• To the unsheltered participants who come into SafeNSound and tell me that they hadn’t used for months until the previous night because it was so cold and they didn’t have anywhere to go and they needed to numb the pain, we see you and love you 
• To the parents and family members whose heart begins to race every time they hear a knock on the door fearing it is news of their loved one passing, we see you and love you 
• To our friends who proudly tell a worker that they’ve adopted harm reduction practises and are met with comments about how they should really just stop using, we see you and love you 
• To those who don’t recognize that their substance use is a problem, we see you and love you 
• To those of us who are carrying the pain of this crisis, but don’t have the words to express what they are feeling today, we see you and love you 
• To everyone who we will never know the names of we see you and love you 
  
  

Sobriety does not equal superiority. Let me repeat that again, sobriety does not equal superiority.

Addiction impacts people at different stages in life and looks different for everyone.

Addiction continues to be criminalized and when discussing issues related to our downtown you’ll often hear people list crime, homelessness and addiction as equals. They are not.

I’d like to finish by sharing a few more words from Sally:

Overdose Day, therefore, stands up for the right of everyone to have control over their bodies, it champions the right to privacy, and demands that we have the right to enjoyment. It is a day of hold up a banner for what is right and fair without fear. It is a day that aims to cast off the burdens of secrets and to relinquish guilt. It is a day to celebrate life and the joy that all of us bring. It is a day that recognises that no matter how the path of life was followed, a person should not be diminished by judgements we might make over aspects of that person's life. And so, we release a symbol, the silver badge, into the community to signify that overdose is a cause of death and injury that for many means the loss of someone who can never be replaced.

Thank you all again for joining us today.