Mr. Speaker, I attended the funeral of my niece Cheryl two weeks ago and, six months before that, the funeral of her father.
Cancer impacts all families. It does not care about age, income, job, dreams for the future or where one lives.
In rural Canada, it is often difficult to access health care in a timely manner. Add in the additional challenges of Canada's more remote places, where air travel to see a doctor is often a requirement and complicates access even more. Our health centres and staff can do amazing work, but they have their limitations.
I really want to make sure we proceed with our platform promise, to “make sure that every Canadian has access to a family doctor or primary health care team,” and to improve “the quality of care for the nearly five million Canadians who today lack access”, because our lives depend on it.