Mr. Speaker, last week was very important, because Canadians were encouraged to generously donate blood. I made my first donation when I was 18, but the cruel and discriminatory rules set by Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec against gay and bisexual men prohibited me from continuing to donate.
In 2012, because of biomedical technological advances to detect HIV in blood, there is no need for this discrimination. In fact, a team of researchers with the Canadian Medical Association Journal recommended that gay couples who have been in a stable, monogamous relationship for one year be able to donate blood.
These researchers suggested that, with such a measure, the risk of receiving HIV-infected blood would be only 1 in 11,000,000. Since we do not have a stable supply of blood from year to year, we are not in a position to refuse the generous donations from these gay couples, whose sexual practices are just as safe as those of heterosexual couples.
I am calling on the Minister of Health today to put an end to this discrimination against gay men. It is an insult to assume that our blood is not clean enough for you.