Mr. Speaker, I first want to acknowledge the great comments that speakers on all sides of the House have made and the amazing personal experiences that so many have had.
The first speaker was the member for Oak Ridges—Markham who spoke of his personal experience. Almost every speaker, including the speaker in the last hour of debate, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, spoke of their experience. It has certainly been a moving debate for all of us, really, and I appreciate all the comments and all the support.
The private member's motion started from the experience of two young boys in my riding. The whole purpose of the motion is to establish uniform and complete brain tumour records. It came from the parents of these two young boys.
One boy was Matthew MacDonald. He was diagnosed at age 11. He passed away from his brain tumour at age 14, but everybody who knew Matthew said he was an inspiration. He was designated an IWK hero at the Izaak Walton Killam Hospital. I am sorry I did not get to meet Matthew, but he sounds like he was quite a boy.
The second young boy in my riding was Brandon Dempsey. He was diagnosed at age four. He has had three brain tumour operations, chemotherapy and radiation. He is now 12 years old. He is in grade 7, and he has an 88% average, which is better than I ever did.
They are both inspirations as are their parents. I want to acknowledge their parents because they have worked tirelessly and campaigned to no end to increase the research availability and the information available on this subject. I want to commend Allison and Wanda MacDonald, the parents of Matthew, and Jennifer and Alan Dempsey, the parents of Brandon. It is only because of them that we are here today.
I also want to thank the Minister of Health for his support in this as well as the parliamentary secretary, and all the members of the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party and the NDP who have given their support to the motion to establish simple, consistent and complete records for brain tumour registry.
I want to thank the Prime Minister. We had our first hour of debate on this on December 12, and I knew that Brandon Dempsey would be here for that hour today. I asked the Prime Minister if he would take a moment to shake Brandon's hand as he left the lobby and the Prime Minister said he would be glad to do so. I really appreciated that.
Then a little while later the Prime Minister's Office called me and said that the Prime Minister wanted to talk to Brandon about his brain tumour and could I bring Brandon and his mother Jennifer up to the office. I was more than glad to do that. We went up and sat there and the Prime Minister and Brandon talked about his brain tumour. They talked about the effect of his operations. They talked about the private member's motion and what it could do. Then they talked about important things like baseball and hockey. It was really fascinating to see them match wits about hockey and I have to say that the Prime Minister, although Brandon knew a lot about hockey, held his own and he did us proud. It was a great experience for me, certainly a highlight of Brandon's experience, and made me proud to be a Conservative member of Parliament.
I want to thank the doctors and the hospital officials who have contacted us from all over Canada. I want to name them all, but I do not have time. However, I want to mention one. I mentioned some of them last time. I want to mention Dr. Rolando del Maestro. Mr. Speaker, you and I just looked at the book. It is an incredible book that the doctor wrote. He sent it to me with a note in it, talking about how Motion No. 235 could help brain tumour patients. I appreciated that so much. I was talking to somebody this morning who knows Dr. del Maestro. I was told that Dr. del Maestro just performs miracles for people who come in to see him with no hope.
I want to thank the victims of brain tumours. We had hundreds of letters from victims. I cannot read them all. I read some in the last hour, but I want to read one from Irona Fraser. Irona Frasier is a great grandmother. She is a victim of a brain tumour. She has had a brain tumour for 19 years. It is inoperable. She wrote:
--I consider myself lucky. I have to pray that your Motion No. 235 will pass in the House of Commons in February.
She gets to the crux of it. She says it better than almost any one of us have said it here today:
Several relatives in my family have suffered different types of brain tumours. It makes you wonder why this is. If they would take national standards across the country, I feel that this would help answer some of these questions.
If the motion passes and we achieve the goals we hope we will achieve, we will establish national standards, and we will find out why Irona and some of her relatives have this affliction. However, I thank her very much for her letter and for her support. I appreciate it very much.
We have had an impact on many countries all over the world, even as far away as Tanzania. We have had emails from people whose children have been victims of brain tumours. They saw this on braintumour.ca. It has been an incredible experience for us and I am glad to have participated in this experience.