Mr. Speaker, educating Canadians about the importance of women in medicine and the work that Dr. Emily Stowe did are important parts of what we are hoping to bring to the fore when we talk about May 1, which was Emily Stowe's birthday. Today, over 60% who are enrolling in medical school are women. We see that 50% of family doctors are women, over 45% of those going into medical specialties are women.
Women bring a very different perspective to practising medicine. They bring a humanity to it, which male colleagues do as well, but women see the world from a different perspective. There is a joke that there are more women patients than men, and so women understand what it is like to be a patient. They understand the needs of the patient better.
I am hoping that as we talk about Emily Stowe, we are talking about the fact that physicians are not just healers or there to prevent us from getting sick, but they are probably the best advocates we can have for those in poverty, the vulnerable and those whom society shuns. All of my physician colleagues go to bat on these issues. They do not get paid for it, but they do so because they know that it is important for the well-being of society and the patient.