<p>We examine the hypothesised population dynamic that non-suicide-related deaths systematically remove potential suicides from the population. If true, suicide rates and death rates should exhibit a consistent negative correlation. In Canada, weekly suicide and death rates display stable seasonal patterns that typically fluctuate in opposite directions. However, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted this pattern, with elevated mortality occurring during atypical times of the year. This disruption provides a unique natural experiment to test whether corresponding changes occurred in suicide rates. Using Canadian time-series data from 2010 to 2019, we model weekly suicide rates as a function of death rates, and then apply this model to predict suicide rates for 2020 using observed 2020 death data. Results show that, on average, suicide rates decrease by 0.28 standard deviations per 1 standard deviation increase in the death rate. The model accounts for 23.6% of the variance in observed 2020 suicide rates. Notably, a sharp increase in death rates during the spring of 2020 coincided with a suppression of suicide rates, and this suppression was captured by the model. These findings support the existence of a demographic mechanism in which elevated non-suicide mortality reduces the number of individuals at risk of suicide, thus dampening suicide incidence during periods of high mortality. Further analysis suggests that higher death rates during colder seasons, likely driven by communicable disease transmission and increases in circulatory system diseases, coincide with suppressed suicide rates. This attributes certain fluctuations in suicide rates to competing risks population dynamics.</p>