Mr. Speaker, this is Heart on the Hill Day with the celebration of the Heart and Stroke Foundation visiting Ottawa.
Cardiovascular disease is still Canada's number one killer. February is National Health Month. Therefore I am proud to rise today to pay tribute to a tremendous organization, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
In particular I want to praise the work of the branch of this foundation in my home province of Saskatchewan. It would come as a surprise to most people to know that in Saskatchewan this organization has an army of some 20,000 volunteers. It is sad for me to say that many of our top researchers have left Saskatchewan simply because of a lack of funding.
I join with the heart foundation and my provincial colleagues to ask the federal government to significantly invest in heart research. In the province of Saskatchewan 80% of the $1,070,000 spent on health research comes from volunteer collections.
I salute the work of the volunteers for the Heart and Stroke Foundation across this nation and indeed for the province of Saskatchewan.