Thank you for the question.
I appreciate all of the testimony and suggestions today and I appreciate hearing about the collective support that exists for the bill.
You are correct that a major component of the bill is about raising awareness, because there is a lack of awareness regarding the inadequacy of current screening, but I would note that it goes beyond raising awareness. It's not about breast screening in general; it specifically targets dense breast tissue, since that, in my opinion, is where the weakness in the screening exists, and it's about putting a particular focus on those Canadians with dense breast tissue whose health care needs are not currently being met when it comes to breast cancer.
The goal of the bill is to identify approaches that are needed to improve information that is provided to women. Providing that information to women will allow them to make informed health care choices. Doing so would also help determine where there are information gaps relating to breast density in the context of breast cancer screening. The bill also advocates sharing with the Canadian breast screening initiative information related to the identification of dense breast tissue during screening as well as approaches to follow-up.
Obviously, a lot of the screening is done through provincial and territorial governments. We can, I guess, provide guidance, but the actual screening will depend on the goodwill of the provinces and territories, because obviously it's under their jurisdiction. I do think that through the federal Parliament we can provide effective guidance and leadership in this area.