Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the bill today, especially on the heels of my colleague, the member for Sudbury, who has done amazing work on consumer protection issues for Canadians. In fact, I would call him a true consumer advocate. Therefore, it is great to speak after his speech on the consumer protection issues involved in the bill.
I have learned a lot from the bill. I did not know that cosmetic contact lenses were not a class II medical device. In fact, I did not know what a class II medical device meant, despite the fact that I have worn coloured contacts. I am wearing contacts right now, although this is my natural eye colour. I did not know any of this because I was able to purchase my coloured contacts many years ago from my optometrist. That is not the situation that we have with this bill.
Because I needed corrective lenses, I had to see an optometrist. I have to meet with him regularly and get regular checkups. I was instructed on how to properly handle my contact lenses, how to insert them and how to clean them properly. In fact, he always advises me when there is a new type of contact lens that comes out, which allows more oxygen into my eye. It is not something I know anything about. I trust his expert advice, when he says there is a new contact that is be better for my eyes because it does allow more oxygen in. I learned all of this because they are corrective lenses. When I was in high school, I had a slight green tint to my contacts, but they were still corrective lenses, so I still received the proper training and proper monitoring.
Last year I had a regular checkup with my optometrist. When he took a picture of my eye, there was a dark spot on it. He said that it could have been a freckle or it could have been something quite serious, but that he would not know until time had passed to see if the size of it had changed. Immediately, I was so terrified that I did not want to go back to see him. I know that is not logical, but sometimes we are not logical. Sometimes we just react with our gut emotions. I did not want to know if this was something dangerous. It made no sense, but it was how I felt.
However, because I had to see him to get my prescription renewed to order new contacts, I was forced into the position where he had to do another checkup. That is a really positive thing.
Some people complain that we might be regulated to death. In the situation like this, we are trying to protect Canadians to ensure they are healthy and safe.
If someone like me, an informed and educated consumer, a consumer who is familiar with the product, is too scared to go back to get a photo taken of the back of my eye to see if there was something wrong, too scared that I wanted to avoid knowing the truth about the health of my eye, imagine, for example, young people, large consumers of non-corrective or cosmetic contact lenses, not knowing how to handle them properly or not knowing the risks involved, and there are incredible risks. They think it is just for Halloween so they will get fun lenses so they can look like a cat, or a vampire or whatever. It seems pretty harmless. People wear contacts all the time. However, they can have pretty serious eye injuries. They can have an allergic reaction. There could be a bacterial infection. They could have inflammation or swelling of the cornea, scratches on the cornea, even loss of sight. However, the one thing with the Halloween contacts is some of these reactions can happen in as little as 24 hours.
We think it is just this silly little costume thing, but this is very serious. It is eye health. We only have one shot at this. Imagine having some of those kinds of impacts happen in as little as 24 hours. Some of these things are very difficult to treat and sometimes they are permanent.
I watched a CBC piece about a woman who went to Panama to get permanent contact lenses. There is an operation where a hard disc is inserted in the eye to permanently change the colour.
This woman is now legally blind. She can only see shapes and colours. She has had to have numerous surgeries, one surgery to take these disks out and then numerous cornea surgeries. It was heartbreaking to see. This was a young beautiful woman. This is how desperate people are sometimes to alter themselves cosmetically, that they go to such lengths. This surgery cannot be done in Canada, thank goodness. However, people actually spend their savings to go down to Panama so they can have blue eyes. It is hard to imagine, but that is the reality.
If that is the reality, we need to be doing everything we can to make sure Canadians are safe. When it comes to corrective contact lenses, absolutely they should be a class II medical device. It only makes sense.
My colleague from Sudbury used the term “low cost, high reward change”. This is not going to cost us anything. It is something that has been demanded. It has been asked for. Health professionals have been warning Canadians for the last 10 years about these risks. They have been urging the government to actually come forward and make these changes.
One of the first responsibilities of government should be to protect the health and safety of Canadians from potentially dangerous products. That is a no-brainer. It does not matter if people believe in big government or small government. This is fundamentally about what government should be there for. It is there to help us, to protect us, to make sure we are safe.
One thing about the bill that I think we have heard some folks chat about is that this bill is only the first step because, by and large, contact lenses are regulated provincially. It is a good first step. It is a necessary first step. However, what we are going to have to see is the federal government taking on more of a leadership role and working with the provinces to make sure there is an effective regulatory regime established for cosmetic contact lenses.
On that point, I would note the leadership shown by the member for Sarnia—Lambton in bringing forward this bill. I commend her for what she has done. Effectively what she has done is stepped up to the plate where her minister has failed to. We have been hearing about this for years. In 2000, Health Canada issued a warning. Health Canada issued a warning about cosmetic lenses and recommends that people only use them under the supervision of an eye care professional. Where is the Minister of Health on this? She is utterly absent in all the mandates where she has been serving, utterly absent on stepping in to play a leadership role in protecting the health of Canadians.
I just wanted to add those who have actually been championing this in civil society, to say that this is the kind of leadership we need from our government: the Canadian Association of Optometrists, a huge champion of this; the Canadian Ophthalmological Society; and the Opticians Association of Canada. They have all been publicizing the risks that are associated with cosmetic contact lenses, and they have all been asking Health Canada to regulate them under the Food and Drugs Act.
They recognize the jurisdictional issues here, too. By and large, it is the provinces that would be regulating contact lenses. They are saying both federal and provincial regulations are needed to treat cosmetic contact lenses the same as corrective lenses.
Going back to the evidence, I talked about some of the groups that are actually bringing forward this idea and being champions. There really is an abundance of evidence and research—
