Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to recognize National Nursing Week. This week we celebrate International Nurses Day, Indigenous Nurses Day, and Florence Nightingale's birthday.
Nurses are consistently ranked as Canada's most respected and trusted professionals, and it is no wonder. Nurses offer us care when we are most vulnerable. They are the front-line guardians of our public health care system and they work tirelessly to advocate for the needs of their patients. In particular, Canada's nurses have been a leading voice in the decades-long push for universal pharmacare in Canada.
Nurses take care of us and so we must take care of them. Unfortunately, over the past two decades, nurses have experienced an increase in workplace violence. On behalf of Canada's New Democrats, I call on all parties to work together to ensure that nurses never have to go to work fearing they will be abused.
I thank Canada's nurses for their incredible leadership in delivering better health care to all Canadians, especially my sister, Cheryl, who has been nursing for 30 years.