Madam Speaker, it is good that the government is pursuing maternal and child health, but the path that it is taking is completely bizarre, illogical and utterly unscientific. Health systems and trained workers are important, but they are only as good as the tools that they have in their hands. What do they need? Yes, they need diagnostics. Yes they need power. They need access to medications. They need access to a full range of family planning options so they can treat the patient.
I am a physician. I have worked in Africa. I have delivered more than 200 babies. Women have died in hospitals. Why on earth is the government not giving these women and children the option to life that we have in our country?
One of the reasons the number of maternal and child mortalities has been reduced in Canada is that Canadian women and men have access to a full range of family planning options. Why do women need this? If a woman is too old, too young, or has babies too frequently, she is at risk of dying. As the member said, 63,000 women die each year, and 20 times that number suffer life-altering injuries, including obstetric fistula.
In order for people to deal with this and to save lives, they need to have in their hands family planning tools.
Will the government do the right thing and honour the commitments it made last year in Italy to allow that to happen?