Thank you, Mr. Easter.
Ninety-nine years ago, in a Toronto hospital, a ward full of children who were dying of type 1 diabetes lay in comas. A group of doctors, led by Frederick Banting, moved through the room, injecting the children one by one with a new extract they had discovered and called “insulin”. By the time they were injecting the last child, the first one was waking from his coma. These children were among the first of the countless millions whose lives have been saved by the momentous discovery of insulin in Canada in 1921, which gave Canada its first Nobel Prize in medicine.
In less than a year, the world will celebrate the 100th anniversary of that discovery, and all eyes will once again be on Canada, but when the world looks to Canada to see how we are faring at treating diabetes, they will be disappointed.
Canada is in the worst third of developed countries for prevalence and costs of treating the disease. The problem of diabetes is very bad and rapidly getting worse. People are highly concerned right now with the coronavirus, despite the fact that by all reports it is less deadly than SARS. For context, a total of 44 people died of SARS in Canada. That many die of diabetes every two days.
Diabetes is growing in prevalence at a rate of more than 40% per decade. Every three minutes, a Canadian receives a diagnosis of diabetes, joining the ranks of the 11 million Canadians who already live with diabetes or prediabetes.
Vulnerable Canadians are particularly at risk. Seniors, Canadians with lower incomes and people of Asian, Latin, African and indigenous ethnic backgrounds are more likely to develop diabetes and its complications, so much so that whereas a 20-year-old in Canada today now faces a 50% lifetime chance of developing diabetes, if that 20-year-old is first nations, that risk is 80% or greater.
This year, more than 5,000 Canadians will receive a lower-limb amputation due to diabetes. More than 7,500 will die of it. Our health care system will spend $30 billion this year on the direct costs of treating the disease. Diabetes is a runaway train.
The solution to this growing epidemic is diabetes 360°, an action plan developed by the whole diabetes community that will result in greater prevention, screening, treatment and management, leading to better health for all those affected by diabetes. It is an evidence-based strategy to achieve measurable patient health outcomes, which will be assured by a data dashboard that will help us all monitor the diabetes burden in Canada and assess our progress in reducing it.
We expect that we can reduce the number of Canadians diagnosed with diabetes by 110,000 per year once diabetes 360° is implemented. I should note that those benefits begin to accrue from year one. At a cost of only $150 million total over seven years, diabetes 360° would only need to prevent 12,000 cases of type 2 diabetes to pay for itself. Put another way, the payback period for this program is less than a month and a half.
Diabetes 360° would not only save the health care system $11 billion in the seven years that it would take to implement, but it would also save employers a further $9 billion. At an average corporate tax rate of 26.5%, that represents an additional $2.4 billion in corporate tax revenue for our government over those seven years.
The Standing Committee on Health studied diabetes 360° and the need for a diabetes strategy in Canada in depth during the last session of Parliament, and their recommendation was that diabetes 360° should be implemented.
The diabetes community is united behind diabetes 360°. It was developed by more than 120 stakeholders, including academia, NGOs and private industry. Canadians fully support this strategy. Tens of thousands of them have been emailing their MPs, signing petitions and speaking out on social media in support of diabetes 360°. An Ipsos Public Affairs poll conducted last fall showed that 87% of Canadians feel that the federal government needs to do more to help the provinces and territories address diabetes.
Provinces want diabetes 360°. Three have already publicly committed to implementing provincial versions of it—British Columbia, P.E.I. and Manitoba—and many others are actively exploring it. More than 100 health care providers from the provinces sent letters to Minister Hajdu and their provincial health ministers just yesterday, asking for the leadership of the federal government in implementing the diabetes 360° strategy.
In closing, faced with an epidemic of staggering human and financial costs, and with the 100th anniversary of one of Canada's greatest discoveries right around the corner, the time for action is now. Fund diabetes 360° in budget 2020.
Thank you.