Mr. Speaker, this debate reminds me of a visit I made to a grocery store in my community. A lady walked up to me with her daughter. The lady thanked me for having sent her a birthday card, as her autistic daughter stood in the aisle tapping her hands on the canned foods beside her. We talked for a little while, exchanged pleasantries and caught up. As the two of them were about to leave, her mother asked me when my birthday was so she could send me a card. I said told her it was June 3. Without even looking back at me, as she continued to tap away on those cans, the little girl said “That's a Tuesday”. We were in February, so I opened up my BlackBerry and sure enough, June 3 would fall on a Tuesday, a fact that she had instantaneously calculated, without even listening to our conversation. She did not even look back at us to show pride for her incredible intellectual accomplishment.
That led me to understand the treasures of the autistic mind, treasures that we do not yet fully understand how to unlock. They are treasures that have been glimmering in places all around the world.
I think of the famous Temple Grandin, who is an animal behaviour expert and the author of about a dozen books on autism and animal treatment. She has designed systems for slaughterhouses, which are now used to treat about 50% of the cattle that go into slaughterhouses and end up on the plates of American consumers across the United States. In fact, McDonald's has said that her standards are required of its suppliers because they guarantee humane treatment of animals.
How did she do this? How did she design these different systems? For example, there are dipping vats to disinfect the cows, grip flooring to prevent them from slipping, and curved pathways toward the stun guns so no animal can see the fate of the one before it, all designed to reduce the immense anxiety that would naturally come with that experience for the animal, which ultimately reduces the cost and increases the efficiency of animal treatment.
She did this because the visual track of her mind is 400% larger than the average mind, a fact that the University of Utah was able to establish when it did imaging of her mind. This incredible intellectual advantage was difficult to harness and easily concealed. When she was a child, it took her until age three to even learn how to speak. The amygdala in her brain was unusually large, which is the emotional nerve centre of her mind. A school bell sounded like a drill going off in her brain, which she explains in her wonderful book. These incredible sensory overloads almost incapacitated her completely, but for the fact that her mother believed in her and worked with her to teach her how to read, to speak, and write.
Meticulon, a company in Calgary, is turning autistic people into well-paid IT professionals so they can earn an independent life for themselves and eventually, hopefully, their families.
Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, has said that he believes autism is almost necessary to be a successful innovator in the high-tech sector. This is the potential we have the ability to unlock.
However, we need the knowledge that the autism partnership would bring, the best practices to expand those successes across the country. For the small cost of a few million dollars a year, less than the cost of one Bombardier executive's salary this year alone, we could disseminate that knowledge and create a real success for Canadians.
I call on all members of the House of Commons to support that opportunity by voting for the motion and enacting it as quickly as possible.