First off, it's important to say that diabetes is a non-partisan chronic condition. With that, I want to thank you for your leadership in organizing the diabetes caucus and bringing MPs from all different parties to talk about the issue. Thank you for your leadership on that.
When it comes to shortages, we've seen shortages with Ozempic, which came about in relation to plastics—not necessarily the manufacturing of the medicine but that process. Making sure that there is an opportunity for supply to be created from beginning to end in Canada—because we are reliant on having products shipped in from the U.S. or from other places—and looking into having our own domestic supply will be key.
In my opening statement, I talked a bit about Canada's new defence industrial strategy. Everyone is asking me, “Why is a health charity looking at the defence industrial strategy?” It's because there's a life sciences fund in there, and that life sciences fund can do a few things. It can provide capital investment for domestic insulin manufacturing facilities, procurement guarantees and long-term supply contracts that can create predictable demand. Those are the things that we would like to see to ensure that insulin can get to everybody in this country.
We have over four million people in this country who are already diagnosed with diabetes. The number for prediabetes makes that number jump from anywhere between 10 million and 12 million people. There are a lot of things we can do, and I think the government has the tools necessary to act right now.