Hear, hear!
House of Commons Hansard #382 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was health.
House of Commons Hansard #382 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was health.
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
[Members and athletes sang the national anthem]
Ladies and gentlemen, athletes, good afternoon.
Welcome to the House of Commons.
Canadians across the country are proud of you. Everyone realizes the years of training, sacrifice and determination that it takes to become world-class athletes like you.
You are all champions and a source of inspiration for your fellow citizens, especially younger Canadians. Today is an opportunity for us to recognize your coaches and your families, as well as the mission staff, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee for their constant support.
Through your efforts, team Canada won 27 medals, including 9 gold medals, at the Olympic Games. That is not all. You won 29 medals, including 10 gold medals, at the Paralympic Games.
On behalf of all parliamentarians, I thank you for representing our country with such distinction. We are extremely proud of you. Once again, congratulations.
We are going to need a bigger parliament after the next Olympics to accommodate you all. Thank you for coming.
Pursuant to order made Thursday, November 7, the names of the Olympic and Paralympic athletes are deemed read and will be printed in the Debates of the House.
Canada's 2024 Olympic and Paralympic athletes:
Abigail Dent, Ana Laura Portuondo Isasi, Audrey Lamothe, Briana Scott, Caeli Mckay, Charity Williams, Claire Scheffel, Courtney Stott, Daniel Gu, Daniel Dearing, Emma Finlin, Emma O'Croinin, Emy Legault, Erin Attwell, Evan Dunfee, Fay Ebert, Florence Tremblay, François Cauchon, Javier Acevedo, Jazz Shukla, Jill Moffatt, Jonnie Newman, Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski, Katie Vincent, Kelsey Mitchell, Kenzie Priddell, Madeline Price, Mariam Abdul-Rashid, Matt Berger, Maximilien Van Haaster, Maya Meschkuleit, Michael Foley, Michele Esercitato, Michelle Harrison, Molly Simpson, Nicholas Matveev, Olivia Lundman, Paige Crozon, Pamela Brind'Amour, Raphaelle Plante, Rebecca Smith, Riley Melanson, Sade McCreath, Samuel Zakutney, Sarah Mitton, Scarlett Finn, Shannon Westlake, Tye Ikeda, Zachary Clay, Abi Tripp, Alexander Elliot, Alison Levine, Anthony Bouchard, Arianna Hunsicker, Aurélie Rivard, Charles Moreau, Charlotte Bolton, Clémence Paré, Cody Caldwell, Danik Allard, Erica Scarff, Felicia Voss-Shafiq, Greg Stewart, Hannah Ouellette, Julia Hanes, Kate O'Brien, Kyle Tremblay, Marissa Papaconstantinou, Meghan Mahon, Michael Sametz, Nathan Clement, Nicolas Guy Turbide, Noah Vucsics, Peter Isherwood, Renee Foessel, Rio Kanda Kovac, Sabrina Duchesne, Sheriauna Haase, Stefan Daniel, Tamara Steeves, Tara Llanes, Tess Routliffe, Zachary Gingras, Jackie Boyle,
Aaron Brown, Aiyanna Stiverne, Alex Axon, Alex Baldoni, Alex Moore, Anicka Newell, Antonia Lewin-LaFrance, Avalon Wasteneys, Blake Broszus, Boady Santavy, Caileigh Filmer, Camille Carier Bergeron, Camryn Rogers, Connor Fitzpatrick, Cordano Russell, Craig Thorne, Duan Asemota, Ellie Black, Emily Bugeja, Fares Arfa, Georgia Lewin-LaFrance, Heather Bansley, Jacqueline Madogo, Jean-Simon Desgagnés, Jeremy Bagshaw, Jessica Sevick, Kate Current, Katherine Plouffe, Kelsey Wog, Kristina Walker, Lauren Gale, Lauriane Genest, Linda Morais, Lois Betteridge, Lucia Stafford, Margaret Mac Neil, Marie-Éloïse Leclair, Maude Charron, Michelle Russell, Naïma Moreira-Laliberté, Natalie Davison, Sarah Douglas, Shallon Olsen, Skylar Park, Sloan MacKenzie, Sophia Jensen, Sophiane Méthot, Sydney Payne, Thomas Fafard, Toshka Besharah, Tristan Jankovics, Tyler Mislawchuk, Virginie Chénier, Zoe Sherar, Allison Lang, Amanda Rummery, Amy Burk, Annie Fergusson, Ashlyn Renneberg, Austin Smeenk, Bianca Borgella, Blaise Mutware, Brianna Hennessy, Cindy Ouellet, Emma Van Dyk, Emma Reinke, Heidi Peters, Iulian Ciobanu, Jesse Zesseu, Jolan Wong, Katelyn Wright, Katie Cosgriffe, Keegan Gaunt, Mary Jibb, Michael Whitehead, Nicholas Bennett, Patrice Dagenais, Patrick Anderson, Priscilla Gagné, Reid Maxwell, Sarah Melenka, Shelby Newkirk, Whitney Bogart, Eliezer Adjibi, Kristen Siermachesky.
[And Canada’s 2024 Olympic and Paralympic athletes having left the Chamber:]
The committee will now rise.
The House resumed from November 28 consideration of the motion that Bill C-380, An Act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (plastic manufactured items), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
It being 3:53 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-380 under Private Members' Business.
Call in the members.
The Deputy Speaker Conservative Chris d'Entremont
I declare the motion defeated.
I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded division, the time provided for Government Orders will be extended by 12 minutes.
Chris Bittle LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to six petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.
Interparliamentary DelegationsRoutine Proceedings
Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook Nova Scotia
Liberal
Darrell Samson LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Rural Economic Development and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the following reports of the Canadian Branch of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, or APF: the reports respecting its participation in two parliamentary missions to the United Nations in New York, United States of America, on February 22 and 23, 2024, and from April 3 to 5, 2024; the report respecting the Global Conference of Women Parliamentarians in Doha, Qatar, on June 26 and 27, 2024; the report concerning the bureau meeting, the 49th annual session and the 10th edition of the APF's Francophone Parliament of Youth, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from July 4 to 9, 2024; and the report concerning the 39th regional assembly of the APF's America Region, in Toronto, Canada, from August 7 to 9, 2024.
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canada-China Legislative Association's 24th bilateral meeting in Beijing and Shanghai, China, from March 24-29.
Lena Metlege Diab Liberal Halifax West, NS
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 25th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights entitled “Supplementary Estimates (B), 2024-25: Vote 1b under Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada, Vote 1b under Canadian Human Rights Commission, Vote 1b under Courts Administration Service, Votes 1b and 5b under Department of Justice and Vote 1b under Law Commission of Canada”.
Ben Carr Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Orders 104 and 114, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 73rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership of committees of the House. If the House gives its consent, I intend to move concurrence in the 73rd report later this day.
Kody Blois Liberal Kings—Hants, NS
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 21st report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food entitled “Supplementary Estimates (B), 2024-25: Votes 1b, 5b and 10b under Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food”.
Ben Carr Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, I move that the 73rd report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, presented to the House earlier this day, be concurred in.
The Deputy Speaker Conservative Chris d'Entremont
All those opposed to the hon. member moving the motion will please say nay. Hearing none, it is agreed.
The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay. Hearing no dissenting voice, I declare the motion carried.
(Motion agreed to)
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Mr. Speaker, I move that the 20th report of the Standing Committee on Health, presented on Wednesday, June 19, be concurred in.
It is an honour to speak this afternoon. I will split my time with my great colleague and friend, the member for Peterborough—Kawartha.
It is with great sadness, though, that I have to rise in the House today to speak to the report from the health committee related to breast cancer screening guidelines in Canada. One of the things that we do know is that one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, which is not an insignificant statistic. Even more poignant is that one in 36 are expected to die from the illness. When we look at these numbers, we know that this is something that, as we look around the chamber, could certainly affect many of us who are here.
From a very personal perspective, I want to say that my own wife, Deborah, had breast cancer and now, as of this spring, will be an eight-year survivor. Again, not to be overly personal, but when somebody realizes they have cancer, either by screening mammography or because they have found a lump in their breast, as a spouse who has experienced it and as a former physician who has seen this happen many times, the whole world comes to a screeching halt.
The most difficult thing, of course, is not knowing what is next, not knowing how severe the illness is and not knowing exactly what the treatment is going to look like, how they are going to feel, how long it is going to last or how terribly it is going to affect them, their family and those who are there to support them. Sadly, it also presents a significant financial burden often for Canadians who live in rural communities and have to go back and forth to appointments in larger centres at their own expense. That is not an insignificant thought either. Taking time off from work further exacerbates that difficulty. Certainly, I am thankful every day that my wife has made the incredible recovery that she has.
From a statistical perspective, breast cancer is also the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Canadians aged 30 to 49, which really brings us to look at why it is so important that the current guidelines, which suggest that Canadian women should begin screening for breast cancer via mammography at age 50, should be reduced and screening offered to women at the age of 40.
It really does pain me to think that this is a political issue. The difficulty is that those who bring forward the science around this, sadly, are not being listened to. It is the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care that puts forward these guidelines. It does not mean that the guidelines are binding to physicians, but certainly many jurisdictions would use those recommendations from the Canadian task force to inform decisions related to offering mammography to women earlier.
Part of the discussion is absolutely abhorrent when we begin to consider it. Some of the testimony that we heard was that screening women earlier would lead to finding things that would have to be investigated and, in the end, would turn out not to be cancerous, and of course that creates some anxiety. There were actually witnesses who suggested that the anxiety would be overwhelming. From the perspective of someone who has gone through it in a few different ways, it would be much more anxiety producing to miss something and know that someone had a much further-advanced cancer than they would have if it had been caught earlier.
As we look at some of the statistics around this, there was a study published that looked at this particular issue and said Canadian women 40 to 49 years old were diagnosed with significantly fewer stage 1 and more stage 2 and stage 3 breast cancers than women aged 50 to 59. That means that, because younger women were not being offered screening mammography, their cancers were diagnosed at a much more advanced stage. As many people here in the House and watching on TV would know, when cancers are diagnosed at a later stage, the person is given a much worse prognosis or outcome and that is certainly something that we want to avoid in cancers.
Those cancers that are diagnosed at an earlier stage are more easily treatable, and the outcomes are significantly more favourable. We also know that the five-year survival rate is 74% for stage 3 breast cancer and only 23.2% for women who have stage 4 cancer. That is just to support the notion that the earlier the stage at which breast cancer and other cancers are found, the more favourable the outcomes are.
It is also interesting, when we begin to look at this, that this same study we are talking about found that earlier screening led to significantly improved survival rates among women in their forties with breast cancer who lived in provinces where they were allowed to receive screening in their forties. Once again, we see this new evidence that is out there.
Part of the difficulty with the task force is that it only wants to accept randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trials. What does all of that scientific gobbledygook mean? That means that one group would have a treatment and the other group would have a sham treatment, and then we would compare the outcomes without either group knowing which one they were in. That would be unethical to do, because we know at the current time that screening for breast cancer is a proven treatment.
What we need to understand now is that the outdated information, often from the 1960s, does not necessarily apply to the significant advancements in imaging that we now have in the 2020s. Because that new information is not being included in the decision-making process, what we are finding is that the folks on the preventive task force do not want to change the guidelines in spite of the fact that there is overwhelming evidence to do the contrary.
I think it also important to outline to Canadians that this is about women in the 40- to 49-year age category, and there is also an interesting scientific notion of “potential years of life lost”. For instance, if a 45-year-old woman dies at age 45 and would have lived to 85, that is 40 years of potential years of life lost. We also know that many women are, as is anybody in society at age 40 to 49, in the heyday of their working careers. They are wives. They are mothers. They are sisters. They are daughters. They are aunts. As we look at that significant portion of the life that is lost, we know that in Canada things can be better than that.
Dr. Paula Gordon, a clinical professor at UBC, informed members of the health committee in June of this year that “women aged 40 to 49 are 44% less likely to die of breast cancer if they have mammograms.” We also heard that breast cancer in younger women is often “more aggressive” than that in older women and spreads faster if left untreated.
There are a couple of other notions that need to be brought forward here. It has also been reported that the peak incidence of breast cancer for Black and Asian women is 10 years earlier than among white women, and racialized minorities are particularly harmed by the current outdated guidelines. We also know that, in the United States, the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended last year that women begin receiving mammograms of a screening nature at age 40. Why we continue to use these outdated guidelines is very nonsensical.
There are about 470 women aged 40 to 49 who die of breast cancer each year. I think of how many lives we could save by changing these guidelines. I think that, on behalf of all Canadians, when new science becomes available, it is important that it gets called out, and we say that things need to change and they need to change rapidly.
On behalf of all Canadians, I would certainly say very strongly to the preventive task force that its guidelines need to change and they need to change quickly, because truly, in this instance, lives are at stake.
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Cumberland—Colchester for that speech and his leadership on this issue before the health committee.
The public may not know, but the matter that is presently under debate in the House is one that was moved at the health committee in the middle of a study on breast cancer screening guidelines. It was moved pre-emptively, before the study was completed. As luck would have it, the draft report is presently before the committee and is being reviewed.
This is an example of a piece of work that has been undertaken very much on a non-partisan basis and probably represents the good work that can happen here when Canadians are put first and party differences are put aside.
I would like to invite my hon. colleague to talk a bit about the evidence that was heard at the committee before and after this report was tabled, and his expectations and hopes for the recommendations that will come out of the final report on this issue.
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Charlottetown as well. Certainly, as he is the chair of the health committee, we often have our differences, but I would say he is most often fair and sometimes even kind. I know that is a big admission.
That being said, as we look at the evidence, one of the studies we talked about specifically was a 2022 study published in Current Oncology, which states that the current Canadian breast cancer screening guidelines, initially published in 2011 by the Canadian task force, pose a dangerous threat to Canadian women's health. It goes on to say the screening guidelines are based on ancient data, from as early as the 1960s, that provided the recommendation that screening for an average-risk woman begin at age 50.
It is incredibly important that when new evidence becomes available, it is adopted as quickly as possible. Even these task force recommendations are from 2011.
I think it is sad we have to have political intervention in a scientific area of expertise because those scientists refuse to be different and do the job they are asked to do on behalf of Canadians. When we know lives are at stake, it is incredibly important that things change today, not tomorrow.
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his nuanced and compassionate speech. I also want to thank the entire Standing Committee on Health for this study, which is so very important.
Research into breast cancer must continue. Discoveries are being made quite regularly, including with respect to genetics and DNA. There are some genes that predispose a person to preventable breast cancers.
In certain hereditary cases, would it also be appropriate to include this genetic research to see if a woman is more at risk than others of developing breast cancer?
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Mr. Speaker, it is a bit hard for me to say everything I want to say with the right words in French, so I will switch to English.
The specific terminology is a bit difficult, at least for me, in French.
What we know is that genetic information is going to be more important. Partly, we have to consider that in the context of screening large portions of the population. It could interfere with things such as getting insurance if one knew one was at greater risk than the general population, so we have to look at that very carefully.
It will be very important as time goes on to know that certain cancers are linked together, such as colon cancer, ovarian cancer and breast cancer. The more knowledge Canadians have, the better the informed choice they will be able to make, rather than having to rely on their own decision-making.
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Mr. Speaker, as luck would have it, I am a breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed before 50. I was at the committee that day and spoke about the impact it had on my small children, who were still in elementary school.
The member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake shared her story about being a child when her mother got breast cancer and passed away. The member and I immediately clicked and said we would do this for people, we would put together a motion to have the task force reconsidered, basically.
I am going to quote from Dense Breasts Canada, which said that “the Task Force [should] be disbanded and rebuilt.”
I faced push-back from the Liberals on this motion. They said it was not important enough.
I wonder if the Conservative member would share why it is so important to listen to women who have experienced this in their life and to get this done.
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Mr. Speaker, I would like to give my congratulations to my hon. colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam.
One of the important things, especially in this particular study, is that there is an incredible collision between women like the hon. member, who have lived experience, and the science. When we see those two things colliding and giving us the same messages over and over again, it behooves us, those of us who have the privilege of having a voice, to stand up and shout as loud as we can and to say the current state of affairs is unacceptable and things need to change today.
Chris Bittle Liberal St. Catharines, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With respect to questions on the Order Paper, I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for me to answer a number of questions today.
Questions on the Order PaperRoutine Proceedings
December 4th, 2024 / 4:45 p.m.
St. Catharines Ontario
Liberal
Chris Bittle LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing
Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 3075, 3078 to 3080, 3082, 3084, 3085 and 3088.