Mr. Speaker, this is National Organ Donor Awareness Week.
Becoming a tissue or organ donor is an important personal decision we need to discuss with family and friends. What we need to keep in mind during that process is that by agreeing to be an organ donor, we can one day provide the gift of life to someone else.
Organ donation has not, unfortunately, always been a tradition here in Canada as it has in most other industrialized western countries. That is why 150 of the 3,500 or so people on waiting lists for organ transplants die every day for lack of an organ. Yet in this country we have access to the best transplantation technologies in the world, and to top-flight surgeons. What we lack is the needed organs.
National Organ Donor Awareness Week is a time for each of us to think about becoming a donor, to learn more about it, and to make a decision—