Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to recognize some constituents of mine who have travelled to Ottawa this week to raise awareness about autism spectrum disorder.
Members of the Families for Early Autism Treatment and members of the Autism Society of British Columbia have come to Parliament Hill to meet members of Parliament and inform Canadians about this disorder.
Autism is a neurological disorder that impairs social interaction and communications skills. Despite autism's sometimes serious impacts, there is treatment available to help many of those affected. For example, applied behavioural analysis therapy has proven beneficial for many autistic children.
While funding for this therapy is at the discretion of Canada's provincial governments, our new government is proud of the $1.1 billion increase in the Canada health transfer that we have provided in budget 2006. Our government is also proud to invest $3.5 million annually in research into the causes and treatment of autism.