Mr. Speaker, April 25 is World Malaria Day, a time to remember that more than two million people a year, many of them children, die of this disease.
Tackling this scourge must involve strengthening developing countries' primary health care systems and the selective spraying of DDT. When the latter was done in South Africa, it showed a 90% reduction in malaria cases, with no effect on the environment.
This June, as host to the G8 and G20 summits, Canada must play a role in leading the world's richest countries to invest in the primary health care systems of developing countries. This will enable us to treat most of the world's major killers, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, tuberculosis, malaria, HIV-AIDS and malnutrition, and it will reduce maternal and childhood deaths.
Our government cannot and must not lose this opportunity to have the most profound impact on the lives of the world's poorest. Let us use April 25 as a time to double our efforts to tackle malaria and the world's major killers.