Mr. Speaker, my Bloc Québécois colleague is making a not-so-subtle attack on the leader of my party regarding the gains we have made in pharmacare for people with diabetes and for women who want oral contraceptives. Soon, all of that can be negotiated with the provinces, at the time of their choosing, obviously.
I would like to remind the member that the Union des consommateurs, the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, the Centrale des syndicats du Québec and the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux are all calling for public universal pharmacare. It bears repeating that Quebec civil society is in favour of this approach, which is the best way of controlling and lowering the cost of prescription drugs. I would invite my Bloc Québécois colleague to read the Hoskins report, which provides a lot of insight on this issue.
I would like to commend my NDP colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, for his private member's bill, which will be a big help to Quebeckers and Canadians. I am going to talk about more than just concussions, which are a major health issue for many young athletes. Concussions are a real problem in many sports. I would obviously invite the sports federations to be diligent and responsible when it comes to these young people's equipment, training and games. Unfortunately, young Quebeckers, young Montrealers, are sometimes getting brain injuries.
Obviously, my NDP colleague's bill is not limited to concussions. It is a little-known fact that for every National Hockey League player who gets a concussion while playing hockey, over 5,500 women in Canada unfortunately experience the same type of injury as a result of domestic violence. I think it is worth pointing out that my colleague's initiative will help expand research, awareness and education on this particular scourge as well.
After reading up on brain injuries and this bill's noble objective of establishing and developing a national strategy to “improve brain injury awareness, prevention and treatment as well as the rehabilitation and recovery of persons living with a brain injury”, I can confirm that this affects a huge number of people.
More than 165,000 people suffer traumatic brain injury every year in Canada. It is not always visible. Sometimes it is not the result of an accident, shock, domestic violence or abuse. I was fascinated by the idea that brain injury is a silent epidemic, that it can happen at any time, at any age, that it can strike children, teens and adults. It is a much bigger problem than most people realize. Traumatic brain injuries are 44 times more common than spinal cord injuries, 30 times more common than breast cancer and 400 times more common than HIV-AIDS. This affects a lot of people.
This bill has an absolutely clear objective. It is important to note that this is being done collaboratively and in partnership with others. What my NDP colleague wants is for the federal Minister of Health, in consultation with representatives of the provincial governments, indigenous groups and relevant stakeholders, to develop this national strategy to support and improve awareness, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and recovery for people living with a brain injury.
It is hard to argue against the virtues of this dialogue, this partnership, which is designed to identify best practices and pool research to find solutions together, that is, with the federal government, provinces, indigenous groups and the relevant associations all working together. A number of groups across Canada have been consulted and support this bill. In particular, the Regroupement des associations de personnes traumatisées craniocérébrales du Québec supports the idea of a national strategy championed by the federal government in partnership with the provinces. I would like to emphasize once again the importance of this private member's bill introduced by my NDP colleague.
I am not going to use up all my speaking time. That way, there will be some extra time for my colleagues who will be closing this debate in the next few minutes.
I would like to congratulate my colleague on his work. I hope that his bill will receive the support of all parliamentarians so that we can find solutions for everyone who has the misfortune of dealing with a brain injury.