Madam Speaker, it is also an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-210, introduced by the member for Calgary Confederation. I understand, based on some of the discussion today, that he had also introduced a similar bill to this one in the last session of Parliament.
I know from my own experiences how challenging it can be to work and navigate through the system and to hit those pitfalls and challenges along the way when trying to introduce a private member's business. However, to have the opportunity to come back and do it again, I really admire the passion the member has shown in his determination to get this issue on the table and in the centre of the public's attention.
When it comes to a tissue and donor registry, as I indicated in the question I had asked earlier, I often wonder why it has taken so long just to get to this stage in having this discussion. I will focus on that for a bit and then I want to talk about the significance of putting this on the tax form and the intuitive way the member has gone about doing this, which I think is really going to highlight the need for this for so many Canadians.
First, I will talk briefly about an experience I had as it relates to organ and tissue donation.
I am not familiar nor do I know of anybody who has received an organ or has had his or her life significantly altered as a result of receiving an organ. However, when I was mayor of Kingston, going back seven or eight years, I was invited to a ceremony at the Providence Motherhouse in Kingston. As politicians, we are invited to so many of these various events and after a while they all start to appear to be the same. However, this one really sticks out in my memory. This was an opportunity for people who had received organs from other people to celebrate that they had those organs.
Different speakers spoke about the way that getting the organ had changed their lives and how their lives had been impacted by the new opportunities they had. They talked about their lives before versus after. It truly, for me, was an eye-opener to what it meant to somebody. Sometimes, with the scientific talk and everything that goes on in the medical field, when we learn about these things, we quite often think it is pretty neat and interesting stuff. However, until we start to really hear the stories from the people who are impacted by these changes in medicine and these ways we can now save lives where we never were able to before, until we have the opportunity to experience that, I do not know if we really can appreciate the contribution that something like this has to somebody's life.
I will always remember this, because part of the push at this event was to celebrate the lives saved and to hear the stories, but also to bring about awareness as to why it was so important to ensure that registries existed and that people got on the registries. As we know, it is an opt-in system in most parts, if not all, of Canada, and previous people talk about this, and that is one of the struggles. A lot of people do not want to think about this kind of thing. I will be totally honest with everyone that before I had been to this event, I had never wanted to actually think about dying and what would happen to my organs. It is something I think that, very innately, people do not want to think about, and so people try to push it off and say they will maybe think about it another day.
However, when we consider the impact that we could have in saving lives and the impact it has on the families, as the member for Calgary Confederation mentioned in his speech, of the individuals who have passed on, knowing that they have contributed to another life that has been saved truly, is remarkable.
Going back to this event, I will never forget talking to some people there and thanking them for having invited me. I remember going straight home and telling my wife about this. Because people in Ontario can indicate it on a driver's licence or health card, I immediately signed up as a donor. I knew that if anything was going to happen to me, being totally honest about it and thinking clearly about it, there was nothing I could do to prevent or stop it, but what I could do was improve somebody else's life. Why would we not want to do that? Why would people not have that desire, knowing that if they were in a fatal accident, unfortunately ending their lives, why not use that as a way to improve somebody else's life moving forward?
I really commend this. I had always wondered why we did not have an opt-in system. My NDP colleague from North Island—Powell River brought the point up about why we did not have a default system where everybody would be in and people could opt out based on personal, religious or any reasons individuals might have. They should have the right to make that choice, but by default, that would put so many more people into the system, people like me who did not want to think about it but when I did, recognized I did not have an issue with this, that it was really a good thing.
What the member for Calgary Confederation has proposed recognizes that we might not be able to have that system given the complexities of the way our provinces work together and with the federal government in whose jurisdiction this might be under. However, it would put this right on the front of a form that Canadians are responsible to fill out every year. If accountants fill this out every year, they will ask their clients how they would like them to check the box off. It would force people to make that decision on an annual basis.
I know that by default, this would generate so much more interest in it and would force people to have to think about it. As I said earlier, I did not want to think about this until I was confronted with the realities of about it. Knowing people will have to think about it and make that decision is important. It puts the onus on individuals to make a decision and this way their families do not have to be put in that position later on. People can declare early on whether they would like their tissue and organs to be donated.
The government spent just under $37 million in budget 2019 specifically to work on collecting data and putting it together in a more cohesive way so it could be shared throughout the country. Various territories and provinces have been working on this information. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe Quebec is an observer to that and might not be in this group.
All of that aside, this takes on a whole new dynamic, a dynamic that would put this in front of people when they do their tax returns. It is a form that every Canadian has to fill out. Therefore, it is a great opportunity to push this issue and put it at the centre of people's attention.
I want to thank the member for Calgary Confederation for bringing this forward. In minority Parliaments like this, it is very easy to bring other ideas forward, some that might be a lot more partisan and political in nature, but the member has truly hit the nail on the head in finding something that appears to have bipartisan support throughout the House. I applaud him for that.