Mr. Speaker, 150 Canadians die every year while waiting for organ transplants. Four thousand people are on the waiting list. This will double in the next 8 years and will rise to more than 16,000 in the next 20 years.
What the government has done, despite repeated solutions from the Standing Committee on Health and motions passed in the House, is create a council that will increase awareness. That is not the problem. Ninety per cent of Canadians are aware of and support organ donation.
What we need is a plan. Here is what the government should do. First, it needs to ensure that there is a donor form in every patient's chart. Second, it needs to create a national registry of donors and potential recipients. Third, it needs to implement mandatory reporting of all brain deaths. Fourth, all living donors must have access to EI. Fifth, donor co-ordinators are needed in all hospitals.
This is Organ Donor Awareness Week. The government should act on the solutions it has been given and I hope all Canadians sign their organ donor cards.