Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words on Bill C-304, An Act to provide for the development of a national strategy for the treatment of autism and to amend the Canada Health Act.
First, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Charlottetown for the work done in this House on this bill.
Bill C-304 is a very important bill, as we can see from the debate on it, although a private member's bill may well work toward defining and differentiating different parties views of who will be left behind and who will not.
I am very pleased to rise and offer my support to Bill C-304, as it provides a national strategy, in law, for the treatment of autism.
The bill incorporates three main provision.
First, we are asking the Minister of Health to convene a conference involving the ten provincial and territorial health ministers to discuss the important issue and begin crafting a national strategy for the treatment of autism.
Second, we are asking the Minister of Health to table a formal strategy for the treatment of autism before the end of 2007.
Third, the bill asks that the Canada Health Act be amended to include applied behaviour analysis, ABA, and intensive behavioural intervention, IBI, as medically necessary for required services.
These measures are considered provisions designed to address a very real health problem in our country, one that affects thousands of Canadian families, no less detrimental than the diagnosis of terminal cancer or any other maladies that affect Canadians in general.
Let me tell members about a real life situation in my province of New Brunswick. I know a couple who have three children. They are seven, five and three years old. The first two of these children were diagnosed with autism. One of the children did not speak until he was three and a half years old. He had been very aggressive and he had many odd self-stimulatory behaviours. The parents did not know how to cope with the problem. He was described by a pediatric neurologist as severely autistic. The second child appeared to be less severely autistic, but she did not learn to speak until she was three years old, did not interact with her peers and seemed withdrawn from the outside world.
When the diagnosis was made some time ago, the discussion centred around appropriate treatment. Unfortunately, ABA was just in its infancy with respect to recommended treatment in the province of New Brunswick. There was no funding available and no professional help available.
These two very fine people, Charlotte and Luigi Rocca, read books. She retired from her law practice and devoted herself to her two autistic children. Through ABA and the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years, the results are astounding. These two children, to use one example of their achievements, at the grade two level lead the class now in their reading skills in English. They are involved in soccer and tae kwan do, not exactly sports that require retreat from the madding crowd around us. They are two very well developed, normal children. However, this did not happen with the help of the New Brunswick medical care system or the Canadian national Health Act.
ASD is a complex of potentially devastating problem for parents such as the Roccas. It affects people's ability to communicate, form relationships and interact with their environment. Within the spectrum there are specific diagnoses: pervasive development disorders, Rett syndrome, Asperger syndrome and child development disorder.
Symptoms can vary widely. Some who suffer from ASD are capable of leading normal, healthy, happy, productive lives. Many more, however, require extensive treatment to mitigate or compensate for unresponsive, uncommunicative and sometimes violent and self-destructive behaviour.
After a diagnosis, if children receive treatment early enough, typically before the age of six, and intensively enough, typically 30 to 40 hours per week, studies have shown that up to 50% can recover to the point of being indistinguishable from their peers. Even those who do not recover completely can show great improvement.
The debate is over. ABA and IBI treatments work. Both are designed to teach autism sufferers how to function in the world. When they are employed, the results can be dramatic and encouraging.
Until recently our understanding of both the incidence and special costs of autism was fairly primitive. However, the most recent, reliable information suggests that as many as one in 167 Canadian children suffer from some form of ASD.
We also know there is no cure and that there are financial burdens borne by families mostly in this country. The treatments can be as high as $60,000 a year. It is an extraordinary load to ask average Canadian parents who are victimized by this disorder to carry for even a short period of time, but the evidence is clear that the money spent on the treatment is effective and we can do something about it by making it a national health question. What can parliamentarians do to help lighten the load? They can do as the hon. member for Charlottetown has done in proposing this bill.
The courts have already rejected the argument that governments share a responsibility to treat autism and there are other constitutional issues to consider. How far should the federal government go on a health issue that properly falls within provincial jurisdiction? This has been referred to by my colleagues. However, the member for Charlottetown and I believe that the House has a moral responsibility to do everything it can. Make no mistake, we can do a lot. The Canada Health Act comes from Parliament.
Currently, medicare does not provide for the treatment of autism. Without sufficient public health care coverage, families will continue to mortgage their homes, extend their lines of credit or even bankrupt themselves as they desperately search for ways to pay for the cost of treatment. Many who run out of options will simply have no choice but to select treatment on the basis of affordability rather than clinical need.
How is that different than an American system of medical care delivery? How is it different to say that if parents have money they can get ABA or IBI, the treatment necessary to make their children performing members and integrated into society. The treatment works. It is very expensive and it should be afforded under any national health care scheme.
The act is not asking that much. It is asking, first, that the Minister of Health convene his counterparts, the ministers of health throughout the provinces and territories. In my province of New Brunswick the minister of health is very open to this suggestion.
The second suggests that the Minister of Health, who may be well on the road to doing this, posits and strategizes a national strategy to combat autism. While this may have been done outside the confines of this place, we think the bill before us, presented by the hon. member for Charlottetown, is the appropriate way to ensure that it is done in a proper manner.
It is not fair, equal or just. Protecting all of the citizens of Canada from crippling illnesses that financially burden families unfairly and end up in treatment of maladies different throughout the provinces and different according to one's means could not have been the vision of Tommy Douglas. This could not have been the vision of those who have modified the health acts across this country over the last 40 years.
Beyond this, there is a big difference in the availability of treatment across Canadian provinces, as we have just indicated. In Alberta, for example, children have full access. In Ontario, kids have access up to a certain age. In other provinces, such as in my province of New Brunswick, it is simply not available except perhaps through means tested social services or welfare programs.
Again I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and all members of the House: Is that fair, particularly when we have the Canada Health Act to help us develop new policies and programs that will benefit our most vulnerable citizens? Clearly, we must acknowledge that provincial health care plans are just that, provincial. We must respect the division of powers between federal and provincial levels of government, but that does not mean that we should abrogate our responsibility as parliamentarians within the constitutional framework.
Again, Bill C-304 is a noble effort to deliver a national health care strategy for the treatment of autism and to treat all Canadians afflicted by this in a fair and equal manner.