Madam Speaker, that is very gracious of you. I appreciate it, because it is a special day. I want to thank Terry for 24 years of putting up with this. I will take these glasses off because they will fog up as I talk in the debate today.
It is a great debate. It is something that I think the House will support, but it is also something that I am hoping, after my 18 years here in the chamber, will actually get some action. How many times do we have to talk about diabetes and issues like it and not have any real action. Why are we waiting? What will change between now and 10 years from now? Nothing. We know diabetes has a significant consequence on our population. We know it has a significant consequence on our economy and a significant consequence on what we do every single day, yet we still do not have a national strategy. We have not supported it through either a provincial or a federal plan.
I do not see this as a jurisdictional issue, whether it be Quebec, British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan or Newfoundland. I see it as an issue that kind of brought me to politics. As an employment specialist for persons with disabilities and as a PSW, I met people with diabetes who had extra complications in their lives. Why we would not provide the support for medications and proactive engagement in their treatment is beyond me as a legislator in this House and in this chamber. Having discussions and spending time on this issue is kind of incomprehensible in many respects. We know that if we actually do the right things, we can support people. The modest things that are necessary would give them extra life, extra employment, inclusion and, most importantly, the sense of fulfillment that we all enjoy.
We know that the percentage of our population who have diabetes is rising and we know that there are solutions for that, yet here we are today, debating a bill, which is fine, but we are not acting. That is where I have an issue with this situation right now. It is that we need to move forward.
We all have a unified vision that this is a serious issue for all Canadians, and the House and the chamber acknowledge that, but we are still going through a process that is very draconian with regard to getting results for people who are suffering from diabetes. I am really happy to discuss this because it still raises this issue and brings us another step forward, but I hope we can actually go farther than that.
When we look at the issue of diabetes, we see it is one of those things that is affected by the consumer element and the products and foods being pushed onto people. At the same time, we expect people to manage their disease with medication, but some people do not have any choice. Some of us can drive to a grocery store or elsewhere to get food and other supplements that are better choices, rather than having go to stores in their own neighbourhoods, but other people cannot, because they have to take a bus or rely on other people or do not have the support or experience to look at all the ingredients on the labels of the products they need.
The situation is that diabetes is different for those privileged to have an income that allows them to deal with it through a logical plan and provides supports to do those things and make those choices. Then there are other people who have to deal with it but cannot get out of their apartment. They are stuck with limited choices. They do not have the choices that other people have to help themselves. They know that, so they have to do the things necessary just to manage the situation.
I am hoping this motion will propel the government to do something. We can have lots of slogans, different motions, committee studies, all of those different things, but we know diabetes affects people right now, as I am speaking. There are solutions for it, like insulin, which is a pride of our country in terms of its development and use in society, but it is not without cost or effect on populations.
Young people with juvenile diabetes organize and spend their time and their youth fighting for political change by us here, which is a sad thing. How wrong is that? How wrong is it that we are asking young people to spend their time and their youth advocating a public policy we know is true and just? That is what gives me difficulty in this whole situation and what is going on here when we have all of those tools.
We have seen the things that were impossible before COVID-19 and now are possible. We have bailed out banks. A good example is Bell. With $112 million of government assistance, Bell laid off people and made $5 billion in profit, but at the same time we cannot afford strategies for diabetes. Those are good examples of what was impossible before COVID-19 and are possible now.
I am hoping we will see the light with regard to diabetes through the legislation before us, Bill C-237, and other bills that come before the House. I am hoping we will actually start to act. It is important, because none of the debate here really matters, in the sense that it does not affect an individual at the end of the day unless it reaches the goal line. Hopefully, the discussion today will translate to real results.
The Liberal administration had a supermajority in the past Parliament but now has a minority, so we can push things like this forward. I am hoping the government will do that. I do not think we need a five-year study to tell us the effects of diabetes. We do not need more research and development to understand its connection to human bodies and how it affects us as citizens in our communities. We need action.
The discussion here today should be about whether we are going to act or not. That should be the benchmark. The benchmark should be whether we are going to act.
And we should act on this now, not in five years but in five weeks. There should be an initiative to support what needs to be done. The research is there and the population is there, and we can certainly see the inequity in the demographics and research, which shows that people can deal with this issue better if they have money versus not having money, which puts a greater onus on us from the expectations of the population.
It is of even greater importance than ever before for us to act now. Because of COVID-19, we know what we can do to prevent health issues. We can do that with pharmacare, dental care and a series of things, but if we do not act, it does not mean anything. That is the reality. Why do we need another study to understand diabetes? I do not understand that. I will support this bill and the NDP will support it. We will be behind it, pushing really hard for real results, but action is necessary now. It will save us money and give us the opportunity to save lives. I am thankful that this bill has come forward.