Mr. Speaker, Friday is International Women's Day. I would like to wish a happy day to all Canadian women and to congratulate them on the progress made on promoting women's rights.
But women are vulnerable. For example, 52,000 North American women die of breast cancer each year. In the ten years of the Vietnam war, 48,000 women died on the battlefield. Over the same period, more than 300,000 American women died of breast cancer. This terrible disease is usually hereditary, but no one is safe.
Last year, in Vancouver, more than 3,000 people showed that they care about other people's lives by taking part in the walk against breast cancer. We must remind everyone, and particularly women, to be on the lookout and to learn to recognize the symptoms of this disease, which can be beaten if detected early enough.
A word of warning for all but especially to women that life is often up to us. Congratulations to the BC Breast Cancer Foundation for its work in this area.