Provisional death counts, January 2024 to April 2026

Following today's release, Statistics Canada is discontinuing the monthly release of provisional death estimates. The release of monthly provisional death estimates was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide critical health insights to decision makers, public health officials, healthcare workers, and concerned Canadians. Such estimates are no longer required monthly. The next annual release of data on deaths and the causes of death in Canada will occur on March 25, 2027, and will cover the 2025 reference year.

The data released today are provisional, as they are not based on all the deaths that occurred during the reference period because of reporting delays. Provisional death counts are based on what is reported to Statistics Canada by provincial and territorial vital statistics registries. Provisional death estimates for all provinces and territories have been adjusted to account for incomplete data with the exception of Quebec, Manitoba and Yukon. Starting in September 2022, Quebec implemented electronic death registration, leading to timelier reporting of deaths in the province. As a result, adjustments for reporting delays are not needed for Quebec records (after September 2022). Adjustments to account for incomplete data were not applied to Manitoba and Yukon records due to inconsistent patterns of reporting that impact the accuracy of adjustments.

The provisional death counts and estimates released today may not match figures from other sources, such as media reports, or counts and estimates from provincial and territorial health authorities and other agencies.

The Provisional Deaths in Canada Dashboard allows users to examine recent mortality trends by comparing the number of deaths being observed with previous years. Comparing provisional death counts and estimates over time can be useful for understanding trends in mortality.