Winnipeg police found three adult bodies at a home in Inkster Gardens Wednesday morning.
Officers attended the scene in the 100 block of Petriw Bay shortly after midnight for a medical call.
When police arrived at the home, they saw an unresponsive male within the home and forced entry.
WPS said they found the bodies of one man and two women all under 40 years old, as well as an unknown amount of white powder and various drug paraphernalia.
Police are unsure what the white substance is and cannot confirm at this time if it is fentanyl, and or, carfentanil.
“That’s certainly the suspicion at this point that it may be in fact fentanyl, and we are taking all the precautions we are because of that suspicion,” Const. Rob Carver said.
Carver explained that police are trying to find where the drugs found in the home came from, as it might be linked to further drug activity within the community.
“We want to know the source of the drug,” he said. “This residence might be a nexus of an investigation regarding that, but there’s nothing illegal at this point in the house, other than the presence of a potentially controlled substance.”
The man and two women were the only people in the house, police said.
The emergency call WPS received, which lead them to the home, was made by a person connected to the individuals. Police said they were concerned for their well-being.
Police said investigation is ongoing.
Manitoba’s acting Chief Medical Examiner Dr. John Younes told CTV News the number of fentanyl deaths has been rising steadily over the past few years.
So far this year, Dr. Younes said he has seen between 10 and 12 cases where fentanyl was involved in a death but he said more people are dying as a result of cocaine use.
He described drug use as a sort of “Russian roulette” because in some cases drug users may not know the drug they’re taking contains fentanyl.
“It certainly is alarming,” Younes said. “The number of fentanyl cases has been going up steady.”
The Winnipeg Regional Health said it has seen an increase in severe overdoses in people between ages 15 and 24 but the WRHA said it’s unclear if fentanyl is responsible, because it doesn’t track the cause of overdoses.
Manitoba Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen said the province needs to do a better job collecting data about opioid overdoses.
“I’ll tell you frankly as the Minister of Health I’ve been frustrated in terms of trying to get data and real-time data in terms of individuals who’ve died as a result of an overdose,” Goertzen said.
Goertzen will attend a summit with federal and provincial health ministers in Ottawa this week dealing with the mounting opioid crisis.
With files from Josh Crabb.
