moved for leave to introduce Bill C-497, An Act warning Canadians of the cancer risks of using tanning equipment.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Surrey North for seconding my bill that would create an act warning Canadians of the cancer risks of using tanning equipment.
Her family and my family all too well know the dangers and risks of skin cancer, in particular melanoma, and I have been wanting to bring this bill forward to draw everyone's attention to the dangers of using tanning equipment.
Last summer the World Health Organization, under the advice of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, made the recommendation to move tanning equipment to the highest cancer risk category and is now calling tanning beds carcinogenic to humans.
Young people are most at risk and so the bill would develop warning labels and increase signage in tanning salons to ensure that people could see these risk factors, know that there is a chance of getting skin cancer, as well as other premature aging and other issues associated with the use of tanning equipment.
More importantly, we must ensure that the youth of our country are not unnecessarily using these devices. Research has shown that if one starts tanning before the age of 30 in artificial tanning beds that one's risk of cancer increases 75%.
Therefore, these are huge risk factors and we need to ensure that we are doing everything we can from a standpoint of consumer awareness, and this bill would make that happen.
I look forward to everyone's support.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)