Mr. Speaker, summer is finally here and today is Melanoma Monday. My wife Kelly is a melanoma skin cancer survivor. While she was fortunate enough to beat it, not everyone is as lucky. Out of the 5,500 Canadians who are diagnosed with melanoma annually, 950 will die from it.
Melanoma is easy to prevent: avoid getting sunburns, cover up and wear sunscreen, stay in the shade, and stay out of tanning beds. Using tanning beds at a young age increases the risk of skin cancer by 75%. The WHO has ranked tanning beds as a level one carcinogen to humans, making them as dangerous as tobacco, mustard gas and asbestos. Tanning beds are lethal.
In the last two Parliaments I have pressed for tougher regulations for the tanning industry. In February, the Minister of Health and I announced that the government was strengthening the rules for warning labels on tanning beds. Some provinces have banned youth from using artificial tanning equipment. I encourage the remaining provinces to follow suit.
Today the Canadian Dermatology Association is screening parliamentarians for melanoma. I encourage all Canadians to protect the largest organ in their body, their skin.