Good afternoon. I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear today and for its commitment to study the important issue of diabetes. Thanks in particular to the all-party diabetes caucus and chair Sonia Sidhu for their dedication to this cause.
In Canada today, one in three people lives with diabetes or pre-diabetes. In some communities, that rate soars to 60%. Canadians in their twenties now face a 50% chance of developing diabetes in their lifetime, and in first nations communities the risk is 80%. More than twice as many Canadians live with diabetes today as in the year 2000.
Diabetes is an epidemic, an epidemic that fuels health inequities, particularly touching seniors and those of South Asian, Asian, and African ethnic backgrounds. Those inequities are even more striking in indigenous communities, which face both much higher rates of diabetes and far inferior health outcomes in those affected.
Yet it's not an epidemic that Canadians or governments are taking concerted and coordinated efforts to address. Though the WHO recommends that countries have a national diabetes strategy, our last one fizzled away in 2013 following a scathing report on its underperformance by the Auditor General. Diabetes is just not a top priority in our country. But it must be.
If we continue with the status quo, the direct costs to our health care system will top $5 billion per year within a decade, and indirect costs will triple that. The human suffering involved is incalculable, particularly for the most vulnerable in our society. Today alone, 480 people will receive a diagnosis of diabetes; six people will suffer a lower limb amputation due to diabetes; our health care system will spend $14 million treating Canadians with diabetes, dozens of whom will experience a medical crisis—stroke, heart attack, kidney failure—necessitating a hospital admission today. Many will even die of diabetes complications.
As stark as that reality is, it doesn't have to be our future. Research and international experience show that with coordinated, focused action we can turn the tide, saving valuable health care resources and improving millions of lives.
It's time for urgent change. This is not an epidemic that can be addressed with personal willpower and shame. To blame and stigmatize those living with type 2 diabetes for their disease is not only unhelpful, it's a vast oversimplification. Type 2 diabetes is caused by a complex array of factors, including genetics, lifestyle, and such environmental factors as poverty, food insecurity, and a disease-promoting food and physical environment.
It's also not a problem that can be effectively addressed without concerted, coordinated effort. Provinces and territories each working on diabetes in their own way will not facilitate the economies of scale and rapid knowledge sharing that are the hallmarks of transformative change. Canada has benefited in the past from the creation of focused initiatives, such as the successful Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and the Mental Health Commission of Canada, to develop and implement national strategies. While the federal government alone can't solve a health crisis, it can play a critical leadership role in convening and coordinating provincial, territorial, and municipal partners.
To really turn the tide of diabetes, we need a nationwide approach that helps all Canadians know their risk of diabetes, reduces individual risk factors, promotes healthier environments, and creates measurable, attainable health outcomes.
In 2018, Diabetes Canada is spearheading just such an approach. To tell you more about this, I turn to Kimberley Hanson, who is leading this initiative.