Winter in Ontario and Quebec isn’t a season—it’s a weapon. It creeps under doors, lingers in your lungs, and turns park benches into deathbeds. For some of us, winter is a seasonal inconvenience: slippery roads, annoying shoveling, cold toes. For others, it’s a gauntlet that can and will kill them. And here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to. People aren’t freezing to death because the weather is bad. They’re freezing to death because society has decided it’s not that big of a deal.
If you’ve skimmed the news recently, you’ve seen it. People in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa—dying alone, surrounded by everything but compassion. The man found frozen outside a métro station. The young woman who turned to ice in a downtown park. And what’s the city’s response? Condolences. Promises to “review protocols.” Maybe some vague nods toward “solutions.” That’s it. If you’re waiting for outrage, accountability, or action, don’t hold your breath—you might freeze too.
Let’s not pretend we don’t know why this is happening. It’s not rocket science. It’s not “unfortunate” or “complex.” It’s simple: we prioritize appearances over people. Condos over shelters. Policing over housing. PR over human lives. Shelters are overcrowded. Warming centres are rare and hard to access, or at capacity. Housing is a pipe dream for most. Meanwhile, those in power are busy shrugging their shoulders and whispering, “Well, what can we do?”
Here’s what they can do: stop tearing down tents. Stop turning “no loitering” signs into policy. Stop talking about “homeless” like they’re some kind of abstract concept and not human beings who live and die in this city. Ottawa alone is a joke: shelters packed to bursting, housing waitlists that stretch into the next decade, and people literally freezing to death on the doorsteps of places that claim to be “resources.” But sure, let’s keep calling encampment clearings a “safety measure.” Safety for who? The people who don’t want to look at poverty on their way to brunch?
And don’t get me started on the justifications for these clearings. “It’s not safe for them to live outside,” they say as they bulldoze someone’s only protection against the cold. You know what else isn’t safe? Hypothermia. But sure, by all means, let’s keep protectecting the people to death.
This isn’t a failure of resources; it’s a failure of priorities. The same cities that say they can’t afford affordable housing seem to have no trouble finding money for luxury developments, overpriced studies, and PR campaigns about how much they care. The same governments that cry poor when it comes to building shelters somehow have endless budgets for police raids on encampments.
Meanwhile, the rest of you just… accept it. Sure you’ll shake your heads at the headlines, maybe donate an old coat, and move on. And every time you do, you let the system stay broken. Every time you simply shrug and say, “Well, it’s complicated,” you’re letting politicians and policymakers off the hook. Every time you tell yourselves, “It’s not my problem,”you’re making it our problem.
Here’s the truth: people freezing to death in Canada isn’t normal. It’s not inevitable. It’s not the weather. It’s neglect. It’s policies that treat poverty like a personal failing instead of a systemic disaster.
So, what’s the plan? More condolences? More press conferences? Or maybe—just maybe—we could start demanding a system that actually values human life. Affordable housing. Warming centers that stay open all winter. Shelters that aren’t overflowing and understaffed. Policies that treat people like people, not problems to be swept under the snowbank.
Until then, the next time someone freezes to death on our streets, let’s call it what it is: murder by indifference. Winter isn’t the killer. Public indifference is.
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