moved for leave to introduce Bill C-527, An Act to establish a National Organ Donor Registry and to coordinate and promote organ donation throughout Canada.
Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure on this World Kidney Day to introduce an act to establish a national organ donor registry and to coordinate and promote organ donation throughout Canada.
The bill is intended to save lives by ensuring that Canadians in need of life-saving organs can benefit from the most efficient and coordinated system of identifying and matching donors to meet the needs.
We are painfully aware of the urgent need to improve our organ donation system. More than 4,000 Canadians are currently awaiting an organ transplant. One hundred and forty-six Canadians died in 2007 while awaiting for an organ. Of the 242 who died while waiting the year before, 73 were waiting for a kidney.
It is my belief and the belief of many others that we can benefit from this kind of legislation. It can make a difference in the lives of Canadians who are desperately in need of organs today.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)