Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to be the second person to talk about what we think we should be discussing here.
First, here is a little bit about me and my background, because it leads to what I would passionately like to bring to the table here.
As a provincial minister and an MLA for a number of years in Alberta, working alongside my honourable colleague Darshan Kang, I was involved in a lot of areas with respect to aboriginal relations, and also international relations. I focused for many years in those areas.
For about the last three years of my MLA career, I was focused on a particular issue in health. I met a young lady who approached me one evening at an event, indicating to me that she was dying of liver disease. She saw no way of getting a liver transplant in the near future, and her life was going to be cut very short. It had quite an impact on me. She was asking for help. Of course, what do you do as a politician? You look into the issue when you feel strongly about it. That had a huge impact on my life.
I focused in the last three years of my career on that particular area. I introduced a private member's bill in the Alberta legislature. It was Bill 207. I have the bill right here. I'm quite proud of it. I introduced it as a private member's bill.
I served my last few years as a private member in the Alberta legislature, and I introduced this bill. It was the Human Tissue and Organ Donation Amendment Act, 2013. Mr. Darshan Kang knew it very well. He supported it, along with his caucus colleagues. It was unanimously supported throughout the assembly.
It was a bill that would incorporate a human organ and tissue donation agency in the province of Alberta, which would entail the inclusion of an electronic organ registration system. It incorporated a driver's licence. Anytime you renewed your driver's licence, they would ask whether you would like to be an organ donor. There was an awareness campaign with it as well. It was quite an intense bill. It took a lot of work by a lot of passionate people with whom I worked on this bill.
I was very happy to see it pass and a number of the issues implemented. Of course, there was a change in government, with the NDP Notley government coming into power. I have to give Premier Notley some credit, in that she continues to move forward with progress on this agency. I am very pleased with that.
What I would like to ask the standing committee today is to undertake a study to examine evidence related to the state of the human organ and tissue donation procurement system in the country, to study and focus on the level of awareness by the people of Canada and the level of preparedness of our health care workers throughout the country, in every hospital, to react at a moment's notice when there is an opportunity.
I hear of many, many instances of opportunities that could not be taken advantage of because the infrastructure was just not there. The training of the staff is just not there, and we continue to not do a whole lot about it. Right now, 4,500 people are waiting on organ transplant lists in this country, and, on average, 256 people a year die waiting for transplants. Kidney disease is on the rise. Baby boomers are getting older. I expect there will be many more demands on our infrastructure.
We have 2,000 people waiting for cornea transplants right now. Every year, 1,600 more people are included on that waiting list here in Canada, so the demand continues to increase. I would ask, humbly, that we put together a study on this issue and bring in experts.
I have lists of many experts who can come here to talk to us and to indicate to us the needs and what we need in order to have a robust procurement system here in the country. I think it's very important. I would humbly ask my colleagues around the table here to take a serious look at it. I would be the first to give the chair a list of names of people to come here to speak to us.
Thank you.