Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here to speak to Bill S-248, an act respecting national physicians’ day.
I would like to begin by commending the Hon. Art Eggleton for introducing this bill in the other place prior to his retirement, as well as the member for Vancouver Centre for sponsoring it in the House.
Bill S-248 seeks to designate May 1 of each year as national physicians' day in honour of the vital role that physicians play in caring for patients and in supporting the health and well-being of Canadians.
A variety of commemorative periods already exist to recognize the contribution of health professionals, such as Family Doctor Week, Oncology Nursing Day, National Physiotherapy Month and Paramedic Service Week. However, these commemorative periods were not proclaimed by a legislative initiative, but were designated through an annual declaration by the Minister of Health.
The approach of this bill to proclaim a national day through legislation for a health care professional is a novel one. As was stated during the debate on the bill in the other place, and as I am sure we all share, we would like to hear more of this in this chamber.
A national day would serve to recognize the phenomenal contributions of physicians. It could perhaps also act as a means of recognizing the growth of the medical profession itself, from a fairly low-skill occupation with little in the way of formal standards or regulations at the beginning of the 19th century to the medicine practised in this new millennium, whose cures astonish and give us hope even in our darkest hours.
However, these considerations aside, I would like to take the opportunity presented by this bill to describe the actions that the federal government already takes to support the work of Canada's 86,644 physicians, 250 of whom I might add are directly employed by the federal government in the Canadian Armed Forces.