Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mark World TB day.
Dr. Brundtland, director general of the World Health Organization, said yesterday:
Tuberculosis, which many of us believed would disappear in our lifetimes, has staged a frightening comeback.
Today TB kills more adults than AIDS, malaria and all other tropical diseases combined.
It is the first disease to be classified as a global emergency by the WHO. This is not just a developing world problem. In Canada our aboriginal population suffers at a rate seven times greater than the rest of the population. We need to treat this disease seriously.
I thank Dr. David Brandling-Bennett, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization; Dr. Howard Njoo, director of tuberculosis prevention and control at Health Canada's LCDC; Dr. Neil Haywood, director of immigration health policy for Citizenship and Immigration Canada; Duane Etienne, health promotion officer for the Assembly of First Nations; and Deirdre Freiheit, chief operating officer and manager of government and corporate affairs for the Canadian Lung Association for their enlightening presentations—