Mr. Speaker, last week I met with the Styba family from my riding whose 14-year-old daughter has type 1 diabetes. This disease reduces her quality of life and increases her chances of heart disease, stroke, blindness and amputation.
Canada has one of the highest rates of juvenile diabetes and the number of people with type 2 diabetes continues to grow dramatically.
I have seen the effects of diabetes first hand because my brother, Nick, is one of the more than two million Canadians who suffer from this disease.
It is for these Canadians that the Styba family has asked me to present a key to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Finance as a symbol of the need to address this growing problem.
November 14 was the first UN recognized World Diabetes Day. I ask the ministers and this House to consider the personal costs of diabetes. We are coming increasingly closer to finding a cure, but we must act now.