Bill C-643 (Historical)

National Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day Act

An Act to establish National Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day

This enactment designates the third Friday of September in each and every year as “National Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day”.

National Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day Act

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the bill we are debating this evening would establish a national spinal cord injury awareness day. I support this bill and I encourage all of my colleagues to support it, since people with spinal cord injuries face daily challenges, and the public needs to be made aware of that.

We need to increase awareness of what these individuals go through. They face many problems in dealing with their disability. It is not just a matter of highlighting the dangers of high-risk activities, as is often the case in awareness campaigns. We also need more awareness about the needs people with spinal cord injuries have and the obstacles and challenges they face.

A spinal cord injury cuts communication between the brain and the body and leads to full or partial paralysis of the limbs and torso. The extent of the paralysis depends on the location of the injury on the spinal column and its severity. A low injury causes paraplegia, which refers to paralysis of the lower limbs, while a high injury would cause quadriplegia, paralysis of all four limbs.

Given that the spinal cord controls the functioning of the lower and upper limbs, people with spinal cord injuries often must use a wheelchair. The consequences of this type of paralysis lead to very costly care. The cost of traumatic spinal cord injuries is estimated at $2.7 billion a year for every newly injured person. In addition to the costs for care, the costs of reorganizing one's daily life need to be factored in. When you are in a wheelchair, you need to reorganize your home or space to have access to everything without too much difficulty. That is very expensive.

Awareness days are a useful tool to educate people and raise funds. We must not overlook that.

Making the third Friday of September national spinal cord injury awareness day will help the cause of organizations that run campaigns across the country to raise funds for research, care and financial support for victims. Even a small contribution from the general public would make it possible to change the lives of those affected by spinal cord injuries, their loved ones and their families as well.

In 2013, about 86,000 people and their families were affected by spinal cord injuries in Canada, and some 4,300 new cases are added each year.

Investments in the health care system are necessary. The government must show leadership and must not abandon the provinces. This bill reminds us just how much we need investments in our health care system. An awareness day makes it possible to highlight the needs of people with disabilities in terms of both health care and resources. We need to be able to count on a federal government that is willing to work with the provinces and territories and make long-term investments to ensure that our public health care system meets the needs of all Canadians.

Health care is a priority for all Canadians, and it should be a priority for their government too. However, the Conservatives are undermining our cherished public health care system.

They have unilaterally imposed cuts of $36 billion in transfer payments to the provinces for the next 10 years. These cuts are undermining our health care system. Currently, Canadians are not receiving health care in a timely fashion when they need it. Our seniors, for example, are receiving inadequate levels of health care. Most federal government expenditures are dropping alarmingly at the very time when the population of Canada is aging. As a result, the provinces and the territories are inheriting a huge financial burden.

Concretely, we are seeing medical clinics close their doors. In my constituency of Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, three clinics have closed already and a fourth will do so in 2015. This is unacceptable. The government must adhere to the principles of the Canada Health Act.

If the Conservative government is not capable of maintaining a funding formula that will allow the provinces and territories to fund universal access to quality services, it should step aside and let us do it. We on this side of the House will listen; we will sit down with the provinces and territories in order to find appropriate solutions. The NDP has a plan to strengthen our health care system because we all deserve to have access to care, regardless of where we live.

In fact, the NDP will fill the gaps that the Conservatives are leaving in health, especially the health of those with disabilities. The Conservatives have had five years in which to come to grips with the problem of the real poverty that many people with disabilities are experiencing. They have done nothing to improve the workplace accommodation measures for persons with disabilities who are trying to be part of the workforce. The caregiver tax credit is of no use to many people with disabilities, since they do not even have a taxable income. It does not even apply to the spouses who care for their disabled partners. As we can see, much remains to be done to help those living with disabilities in our country.

In conclusion, I invite all my colleagues to support designating the third Friday in September as national spinal cord injury awareness day. Let us not forget that most accidents happen in the summer and the third Friday is a busy time for spinal cord rehabilitation centres. This is the reality surrounding this bill that we should keep in mind. I hope that, for once, the Conservative government will consider it.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today to say that the Liberal Party will be supporting Bill C-643, which, as we know, seeks to establish a day to recognize the impacts that spinal cord injuries have on Canadians, the health care system, and the economy.

This bill would bring awareness to this serious and debilitating condition. We support that idea because not a lot of people understand and know about spinal cord injuries. They think it is something that happens after a car accident and do not understand the full nature of it, the costs to the health care system, and the long-term residual effects on its victims.

The front end of a spinal cord injury is acutely traumatic and places great costs on the acute health care system, such as long-term hospitalization. A lot of care is necessary, depending on the severity of the spinal cord injury.

Then there are the long-term health implications. People who have suffered spinal cord injuries tend to have very reduced mobility and life expectancy. They also have impaired neurological recovery and are unable to recover some of the use of their central nervous system.

What is surprising to a lot of people is that currently 95,000 Canadians are living with spinal cord injuries. This number is expected to rise with the increasing age of the population, because age, interestingly enough, is a factor in spinal cord injuries.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal is predicting 4,300 new cases each year. The number of persons suffering with spinal cord injuries will increase as the population ages. Approximately 51% of spinal cord injuries are a result of trauma, such as car accidents, skiing injuries, and so on. We know that is true. Most people think that is the only reason, but there are also non-traumatic injuries, such as ALS, cancer, and degenerative diseases of the neurological system that cause the spinal cord to be severed or damaged so that the spinal cord is not continuous and does not work.

The Rick Hansen Foundation estimates that the economic costs for newly injured Canadians is approximately $2.7 billion. That is a huge amount of money. This cost includes not only acute, long-term, or chronic health care but also new equipment and modifications made to people's homes to enable them to live with the long-term injury they have sustained. For instance, the lifetime medical costs for a quadriplegic exceed $3 million in the lifetime of that one person. With respect to a paraplegic, we are looking at $1.6 million in lifetime costs. For many Canadian families the average cost of a simple manual wheelchair is $4,000 to $5,000, and the average cost of a power wheelchair is about $10,000 to $15,000. Those costs are not currently covered under the health care system.

We also know that people who are confined and unable to move because of long-term injuries, such as spinal cord injuries, suffer from higher levels of depression and ill health consistent with a changed ability to cope with life. Depression in people with spinal cord injuries is one of the biggest reasons they tend to go to see family physicians.

With respect to awareness of spinal cord injuries, people do not know or realize that while 51% are from trauma, the other 49% are from other effects, such as seniors becoming older and falling or as a result of basic neurological defects such as ALS and the like. People think the spinal cord has to be severed to cause a traumatic injury.

Therefore, if we do anything this day, we need to bring awareness of this problem to Canadians with respect to the costs to the health care system, to families, and to society, as well as the loss of person-days of work. Many people are not able to work in the system or can only do certain jobs. It is important for people to understand this and to realize the importance of research on spinal cord injuries with respect to how we can bridge that damaged spinal cord to allow people to live with some quality of life. We are now finding out that research is showing that if a spinal cord injury is caught early enough, some regeneration of the spinal cord is possible.

This is good. It is helpful for all of the people for whom the tragedy of a spinal cord injury is not only one of cost and loss of productivity but also of loss of ability to do things they used to do before, as well as the depression and the mental health problems that come with it.

If this day would improve awareness for Canadians, then we can get the political will to do the necessary research in prevention of spinal cord injuries, treatment of spinal cord injuries, and recovery from spinal cord injuries.

We learn. I was one of the Chair-Leaders on the Hill trying to get around in wheelchairs and suddenly realized that ordinarily I should not use the disabled section of the women's washroom. I had this realization because I was waiting there in a wheelchair while someone who was able was using it. Lack of consideration in that simple area was enough to show how difficult mobility is for people with spinal cord injuries.

Motor vehicle accidents, including those involving all-terrain vehicles, account for 31% of spinal cord injuries, so we might want to look at how we regulate the use and safety of all-terrain vehicles. Seniors and age are issues, as 46% of injuries result from falls, while 5% result from acts of violence and 18% result from sports and recreational injuries and other unknown and degenerative diseases.

New methods for treating spinal cord injuries are being worked on, but we need to ramp it up, because the ability to continue with life the way one knew it is invaluable. We cannot even weigh the cost of not being able to do that to the human person.

Work is being done at UBC, my home province, and in 2012 CIHR gave a grant for research on cardiovascular health in persons with spinal cord injuries. The main cause of death of persons with spinal cord injuries has become cardiovascular disease, because of their inability to be mobile and the inactivity that followed, so work is being done now to see how we can prevent cardiovascular disease in persons with spinal cord injuries. There is hope for that.

We can improve the quality of life and save the health care system up to $70 million annually, but the most important thing is to give back to persons with spinal cord injuries the ability to regain their lives, do the things that they formerly could do, and have a full quality of life.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to speak to Bill C-643, An Act to establish National Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day. We have a number of awareness days in the House, and for me, this is one of the more important ones we have had since I have been here, which is nine years.

I would first like to congratulate the member for introducing this legislation. It is obviously an important issue to the member for Montcalm, but it is also important for members from ridings across the country. Spinal cord injuries are happening all over Canada because of accidents and other things. As the previous speaker mentioned, disease can cause issues with the spinal cord.

My spouse works for an organization that helps young people with physical disabilities, and spinal cord injuries is one of them. It is a tremendous burden, if that is the right word to use. “Challenge”, I think, would be a better word. Such an injury is a tremendous challenge not only to the individual who is suffering from a spinal cord injury but also to the family members and friends who are asked to look after them.

The previous speaker from the Liberal Party mentioned that about 95,000 Canadians live with neurological conditions caused by spinal cord injury. My research shows that it is actually likely that in 2011 it was closer to 120,000. There are a significant number of people in this country suffering from issues due to spinal cord injuries. They are often life-altering, of course, to individuals and their families. We see that in the House with our colleagues. We have been very fortunate that our colleagues who have spinal cord issues overcame those challenges, ran for office, and were elected to the Parliament of Canada. It took a tremendous amount of courage on their part to make that happen.

These injuries also have a significant impact on the Canadian economy. It sounds cold for me to say that, but there is a loss of opportunity both for individuals who suffer from spinal cord injuries and for their families, who have to take time and effort away from what they might otherwise be doing in terms of being productive in jobs or other areas and instead look after their loved ones. That is a loss.

In 2013, a study supported by Health Canada and the Rick Hansen Institute estimated the following:

...the lifetime economic burden per individual [with traumatic spinal cord injuries] ranges from $1.5 million for persons with incomplete paraplegia to $3.0 million for persons with complete tetraplegia....

Bill C-643 reminds us of the importance of recognizing the courage and determination of those with spinal cord injuries as well as the perseverance of the scientists whose research has improved the lives of hundreds of people with spinal cord injuries.

We have a lot of bills these days. This one in particular is important, because it would bring attention at least once a year to the challenges that individuals face and would also bring awareness to the public. We need to leverage these days that we have and not just pay lip service to the issue.

That particular day of the year would be an opportunity for all organizations, individuals, and families to rally together to make sure that governments, organizations, not-for-profit organizations, communities, and even community planning have an understanding of the issues and challenges facing people who suffer from spinal cord injuries. It would be an opportunity to make sure we have the resources and opportunities for those who have suffered from a spinal cord injury, whether those resources are in finance, research, or a physical plant, as was previously mentioned.

I think the mover of this bill should be fairly excited, because I think the vote is going to be unanimous in the House. I certainly support it. I know that our government supports the actions we need to take to help prevent these injuries in the first place and supports research for the development of innovative treatments for those who are suffering from spinal cord injuries.

From 2006 to 2014, the Government of Canada invested close to $57 million in spinal cord injury research, including more than $6.5 million in 2013-14 alone, through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which we all know is a great organization. It provides support in a number of areas of health research for the betterment of Canadians.

Research projects supported through this investment cover a broad range of issues related to spinal cord injuries, from regeneration to repair of damaged nerves and nerve fibres in the spinal cord to the development of new guidelines on best practices for the treatment of patients. This investment also contributed to improving our understanding of how the spinal cord transmits neural signals between the brain and the rest of the body.

For example, last June, CIHR announced an investment of $1.7 million for a research project at Dalhousie University on mapping how a family of neurons in the spinal cord controls subconscious movements. This fundamental knowledge is an important first step in the development of new tools to restore movement in patients suffering from neurological injury or disease.

As we learn new things that are brought to us, it always amazes me the importance and quality of scientists we have in this country. We are proud as a government to be supporting those scientists who are doing great work, which is way beyond my comprehension. I am very thankful that we have people with that skill level, knowledge, and commitment to finding health solutions, including for spinal cord injuries in this country.

Another good example of research supported by CIHR is the project of Dr. Yves De Koninck of Laval University. It aims to improve our understanding of how nerve cells regulate pain and how this process is altered in the spinal cords of individuals with nerve damage. This research will contribute to designing treatments for preventing and alleviating chronic neuropathic pain or increased pain sensitivity in people with traumatic spinal cord injuries.

This fantastic scientist received the Barbara Turnbull award for his contribution in this important area. The annual award has been presented since 2001 by CIHR, the Barbara Turnbull Foundation, and Brain Canada to raise awareness of the thousands of Canadians who are living with a spinal cord injury and to promote research in this area.

CIHR is also supported by a number of research initiatives that have contributed to advancing knowledge on the effects of spinal cord injuries and the most effective treatments to address them. For example, from 2004 to 2010, CIHR and its partners invested more than $82 million to support a major strategic initiative called the regenerative medicine and nanomedicine initiative. Research supported through this investment focused on the renewal of bodily tissues and organs, the restoration of function with natural and bioengineering means, and the development of new materials to diagnose, treat, and repair damaged tissues.

Many of us have a friend, a neighbour, a family member, or a colleague right here in this House who have suffered a life-altering spinal cord injury. While there have been many scientific advancements to help in treatment and sometimes in recovery from these injuries, there is still much to be done. Bill C-643 will help raise awareness so that everyone can learn how they can play a role in preventing spinal cord injuries.

I would like to thank hon. colleagues for their attention and invite them to support this legislation when it comes to a vote.

[Manon Perreault, Independent, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my thanks to all the members who participated in this debate. Everything I have heard here this evening is truly heartwarming. This debate was held in an exemplary fashion and with the utmost respect for our function.

Creating a national spinal cord injury awareness day will make a positive contribution to Canadian society. I would like to tell all my distinguished colleagues that persons with disabilities from all over Canada have contacted my offices to express their gratitude, and I have to share their thanks with my colleagues.

Let me also thank all those who made the study of this bill possible, all those who helped design and draft the bill, and all those who helped move it forward. The seriousness of their commitment shows an exemplary level of concern with prevention and with raising awareness not only of the challenges facing those with spinal cord injuries, but also of the treatments and research in this area of expertise.

By going through the many stages that led to this bill, which I am honoured to put before the House today, I think I have gained a better appreciation of the real needs of those living with spinal cord injuries. Let me explain.

I have gained a greater understanding of what an initiative like this special day can contribute. This bill is representative of the purpose of the political work we are all here to do because it helps us better ourselves as a society in meaningful ways.

Sometimes we get the feeling that we are not doing enough, but in this case, even though this bill seems like a modest initiative at first glance, it is an incredible tool that leads us to a new stage in our progress toward accepting people with disabilities in Canada. This step forward will lead to others and so on.

The quality of life of all our fellow citizens, whether they are affected by spinal cord injuries or not, will improve. The goal is to make social acceptance more universal and to raise awareness among employers of the unsuspected qualities of those with spinal cord injuries, thereby making our communities more effective, productive and just.

The practical nature of this reality and the idealism of these principles work well together in this much-needed bill. We have to promote acceptance within social networks and value inclusion because it is both compassionate and for the common good.

In my opinion, one of the foundations of our work is ensuring that the best decisions are made to help our society progress, that the best policies are employed for the common good and that our measures are effective when they are implemented.

I truly believe that this bill to create a national spinal cord injury awareness day is a step in the right direction, and of course I will continue to speak in support of this bill until it passes in the House of Commons.

To back my point of view, I turned to a number of stakeholders. I asked a lot of questions and tried to get some answers, and I listened to the opinions of many experts and workers on the ground. I also learned about many approaches and initiatives in the area of spinal cord injury.

There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done, but we have reached a consensus regarding the best actions to take. Creating a national spinal cord injury awareness day seems to be the approach that best meets the various needs of that community. This measure has the potential to be extremely beneficial to a broad cross-section of Canadians, all without any cost. We simply cannot do without this crucial bill. The ball is now in our court. We have examined the issue and reached our conclusions, so now let us make it happen.

There has been so much brainstorming, collaboration and passionate discussion; so many people have invested in a common goal; so much effort has been made and energy spent selflessly. Let us follow the example of these often anonymous people who, by doing their small part, have managed to put together a simple, yet effective bill. We must take this opportunity to do our part and vote in favour of the bill to create a national awareness day.

I want to mention two organizations: Spinal Cord Injury Canada, whose director, Bobby White, has supported me from the beginning, and Moelle épinière et motricité Québec, with Walter Zelaya.

I am sure we will get there. We can, we must, and we will. Canadians are dignified and proud. Let us create a spinal cord injury awareness policy that reflects that.

Let us see this bill as a positive reflection of our society, a commendable unifying effort that everyone can stand behind. On behalf of people with disabilities in Montcalm, Quebec and Canada, I want to sincerely thank my colleagues. I am deeply touched by everything they had to say about spinal cord injuries.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The vote is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)