Madam Chair, because the member for Vancouver Centre is from British Columbia, as I am, I wanted to say something about the program in B.C. Its new program was started in 1997, and was the first of its kind in Canada in that it created a new remote access computerized registry to record an individual's decision on organ donation.
Although we had a process before, it was really very flawed. First of all, it was only available to B.C. drivers, so it obviously missed a huge segment of the population. Most importantly, the information regarding organ donation was not accessible to health care professionals in an immediate and consistent fashion, and obviously we know that time is of the essence.
We have had a new system since 1997. It allows individuals to make an educated choice of, for example, which organs they want to donate. It gives a choice, which is then legally recorded.
It seems to me that B.C. has had a pretty good system. I appreciate the member's comments that having this consistently across the country is what is lacking. I do not want to single out any province and say it is not doing very well, because each province has tried to do it, but surely in this situation we can have a national registry, as the member has pointed out, and have consistency, so that we can get maximum results.
For me the biggest issue is to also raise awareness about organ donation generally with the public. Why--