Madam Speaker, I am here today to speak to Bill C-210. This bill would change the Canada Revenue Agency Act to allow for people in Canada to sign up for organ donation on their income tax form.
I want to thank the member for Calgary Confederation for bringing forward this bill for a second time. As this is National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Month, it is important that this is the debate we are having at this time.
This is a hard one to talk about because of the emotional nature of this process. Currently, we know that there is a provincial and territorial jurisdiction. This means, sadly, that someone could be in desperate need in one province or territory and have no way to access organs that people have identified they want to donate. This means that people cannot get their second chance.
As a New Democrat, I fundamentally believe that we must make every possible effort to ensure that every Canadian who needs an organ or tissue transplant receives it. This is so important, and I support this because it allows people, while they are doing their taxes, to check another box, to show that this is something, if they were in the saddest circumstances, they would be able to provide.
We know that one donor could save up to eight lives and benefit more than 75 people. That is a tremendous generosity. Yet, at 18 donors per million people, Canada's current donation rate puts us at the lower third of developed countries.
Allowing Canadians to register to donate their organs and tissues through their tax return would help increase registration rates. This would improve consent rates and also help to build a donation culture in Canada. If we think about this being something that we do once a year to review, it would give that opportunity for us to have conversations with our loved ones about the decisions we have made.
We know that across Canada people are dying on wait-lists because our organ donation rate is so low. At present, only 20% of Canadians have joined their province's organ and tissue registry.
This is such an important bill because it allows the federal government to coordinate with provinces and territories to allow Canadians to register as an organ and tissue donor through their taxes.
There is a lot of concern here, sometimes, about the bill with its unauthorized sharing of personal information. This would allow for individuals to be required to give consent.
In my riding, I have read multiple articles about constituents, or have talked to constituents themselves, who have talked to me about the gift that it is when they receive a transplant. What I hear from people, again and again, is how they do not take a moment of their life for granted, as a donor. The gratitude they have for the person who gave them their second chance is incredibly powerful.
Not too long ago, I read about a constituent named Darvy Culleton, who received a double lung transplant. He was born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder that affects the lungs and other major organs, and was told from a very early age that he would potentially only live until around the age of 29. When he was 29, he got his transplant, and now has married his wife, Megan, and they have a baby. Although he did not know much about his donor, he said that every day he lives with a deep and profound gratitude, one that is shared by his family.
In the last Parliament, the same legislation, then Bill C-316, was passed unanimously by the House of Commons. Unfortunately, it did not get passed through the second House, the Senate. In 2016, we know there was some concern that the Liberals brought forward about this bill, and it did not move forward in the way that it should have, because it was under provincial jurisdiction. I am very happy to see that people are coming together, understanding that this is the way we could make this work through the system.
I know that for New Democrats in this House, the opt-out system is something we are very supportive of. We know that countries that have an opt-out system, which means people are automatically put into the list unless they take themselves out of it, see record-high donation rates. This is part of the approach that has made Spain a world leader in organ donation over the past 25 years. We know that in Australia the donor rate grew tremendously through the opt-out legislation that was put forward.
This is always a hard thing to talk about, because it is really about a sad situation that leads to somebody else having an opportunity. I want to thank the member for bringing it forward. I want to thank all the people across Canada who put their names forward to be organ or tissue donors. I want to stand in solidarity with the people who live life because somebody else was generous with theirs.