- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Humber River—Black Creek
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,163.57
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to finally have the opportunity to present these petitions.
Over eight million people are suffering from eye diseases, and 1.2 million live with vision loss or blindness. Therefore, petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill C-284, an act that would establish a national strategy for eye care, as soon as possible.
This was done a few days ago, and I am very pleased that it was done.
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Mr. Speaker, as I have been working on the eye care bill, Bill C-284, I have learned that many people take their eyesight for granted.
Today I want to recognize Dr. Steve Arshinoff, the president of the Eye Foundation of Canada, a remarkable ophthalmologist from my very own riding who improves the lives of many Canadians. Dr. Arshinoff has been actively helping remote communities as well by spending up to three weeks a year with the travelling Eye Van project for over 30 years. This initiative, plus many others, has been a beacon of hope for those needing eye care outside of the most populated areas, especially indigenous communities. His dedication, expertise and compassion have transformed countless lives with his other projects as well throughout the world. Initiatives like these make Canada stronger, healthier and more vibrant. I want to thank Dr. Arshinoff for his unwavering commitment to Humber River—Black Creek and all Canadians.
To enhance the good work of Canada's eye health community, I ask all members to support Bill C-284 tomorrow afternoon.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an exciting day for me, as the presenter for this bill. From the beginning, I dedicated this bill to my grandmother, who was blind when she passed away; to my aunt, who had macular degeneration and was blind when she passed away a few weeks ago; and to my mentor, Paul Valenti. All suffered from blindness through various diseases.
As we celebrate October as Vision Month and Children's Vision Month, I am honoured that I got our bill moved forward this fast, even though it seemed like ages to me. However, at least it moved forward and is here at the last hour. I want to thank my fellow MPs for their support, especially the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay; the member for Scarborough North; and the Assistant Deputy Speaker, the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing. All were very helpful in helping to trade up the system that we work in, in order to get this moved forward with their additional support. I also want to thank the Hon. Don Boudria, a former colleague whom we all know and a good friend to many of us in the House, for his continued support and invaluable advice at each stage of this bill as to how one gets a private member's bill through the system faster than the regular system.
I thank the countless organizations that have been calling for an eye strategy for Canada since 2003, including the Canadian Council of the Blind and Michael Bergeron, Dr. Keith Gordon and Jim Tokos; Fighting Blindness Canada and Dr. Marie Simonese; the CNIB and Thomas Simpson; Canadian Association of Optometrists and Laura Laurin and François Couillard; the Canadian Ophthalmological Society and Dr. Phil Hooper; and the University of Waterloo, with Dr. Stan Woo. There were so many who were helpful in moving this forward.
Members have heard from many of my colleagues that probably one in five Canadians has an eye disease, and some of them are unaware of that. A big part of what I want the eye strategy to do is to raise that awareness of how important one's eyes are. There are many children under 18 and seniors over 65 who are still not getting eye exams. By the time they get an eye exam, especially for a senior, they may quite possibly have developed glaucoma, retinopathy or many of these other eye diseases.
Seventy-five per cent of eye diseases are preventable, but in order to prevent them, people have to know they have the problem. We all neglect it, me included, usually until it is too late. We have an aging population. The pandemic also delayed paying attention to what was happening among a lot of people.
I am pleased to see that we have gotten this far on the bill. I look forward to working with the Senate as soon as possible. The Senate is very aware that the bill is coming, and senators have been asking when the bill would finally get through the House. I will now turn my time and effort over to working with the Senate to get it through as quickly as possible.
Canada has waited for a long time. The vision community has been waiting for years for us to live up to a commitment that not only our government but also other governments have made. We have made a commitment to the United Nations as well that we would have an eye strategy. As a result of the upcoming vote, hopefully this coming Wednesday, we will get a vote from the House of Commons and move the bill off to finalize the work in the Senate.
Again, I thank all my colleagues for their encouragement and support. I look forward to next Wednesday, having this vote here in the House and really moving it forward. I thank everyone who is here in the House very much.
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Madam Speaker, I want to sincerely thank all of my colleagues in the House. All of their comments were so sincerely delivered and so accurate on all of the issues that matter to us in this particular issue that we are trying to move forward.
My colleagues mentioned that our colleague from Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing introduced Motion No. 86 some years back, trying to move this issue, trying to get vision onto the radar screen here at the federal level. Countless times, whether it was 2007 and 2009, we have talked about it, but nothing has been done about it. I can say that I think the closest we have come to it is where we are tonight.
We have reached this point here tonight because of all of the members who are here. From last June, when I introduced the bill, the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP were right there, standing together with Liberal colleagues to support something that we knew was important.
One of the things that we heard about tonight was the number of organizations and the number of people who were anxiously waiting for this to happen. Some of them have said that they have been waiting since 2003 for the federal government to take some sort of leadership on this issue. I am glad to have had the opportunity to be able to get it this far.
There are so many organizations that are watching this discussion tonight, including the Canadian Council of the Blind, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, the Canadian Association of Optometrists, the Canadian Ophthalmological Society and Waterloo University, which is doing outstanding work in the area of eye care.
There is a lot of emphasis on what we are doing, and there is a lot of hope. The millions of people who are suffering from various categories of vision loss are counting on us tonight to send this bill off to committee so that the health committee can have a look at it. They are counting on us to ensure that it is not going to end up as just a whole lot of talk by elected officials, as happened before, with nothing delivered.
I think it is imperative that we move the bill over to the committee so that we can truly get some serious work done on something that is way overdue. We all know someone who is suffering from macular degeneration or blindness or various other eye diseases. I, for one, do not want to see them disappointed, and I know none of the members want to see them disappointed either.
The earlier we get the bill to committee and move it along there, the better. Listening to the excellent comments that were made tonight and the speeches from members, who all spoke so well, there is no need for me to reiterate anything. It has all been said.
The question becomes, what do we do with it? Do we waste another two weeks or so? I do not think we need to do that. Time is too valuable in the House. We only have three weeks left. If we could get the bill moved to committee this evening, we could get started doing that work. It would be a sign of hope and of sincerity from all of the members in this House.
I hope members will appreciate the urgency of the need to move the bill along. We do not have six months ahead of us; we have three weeks. It would really be a great bonus to all of those in the vision loss community if we could simply move it over with a voice vote and not have to waste another two weeks of House time, which is very valuable, especially at this particular time.
I thank all of my colleagues who spoke so very well. I appreciate their support. More importantly, the vision community appreciates their support immensely.
I look forward to our finishing off this discussion this evening.
Madam Speaker, I thank you for being the one who introduced this initially, and I thank you for all of your assistance in moving it forward, along with my other colleagues.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge February as Age-Related Macular Degeneration Awareness Month.
Macular degeneration is among the top five eye conditions leading to serious vision loss. It affects individuals' ability to read, to drive, to socialize, to recognize people. It largely impacts individuals’ independence and quality of life. In fact, many of us in this room may also develop age-related macular degeneration. There are over eight million Canadians, one in every five, living with a blinding eye disease that could be prevented. Research has shown that if it is diagnosed early and people have access to treatment, blindness truly can be prevented.
In June 2022, I introduced Bill C-284, establishing a national eye strategy to help stop blindness. I would like to thank my colleagues for supporting the bill and I cannot wait to work with all of them to help move the bill forward. Together, we can deliver long-awaited eye health care solutions for all Canadians.
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-284, An Act to establish a national strategy for eye care.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy today to have the opportunity to introduce this bill calling for a national strategy on eye care, something that, for many years, Canadians have been calling for, and something that the government has promised many times before that.
I want to acknowledge that I am introducing this bill in memory of my grandmother, Annie Steeves, and I continue to see my aunt Ruby Gentile and my long-time friend and mentor Paul Valenti, who suffer from blindness.
There are over eight million Canadians living with a blinding eye disease that could be prevented. Research has shown that, if it is diagnosed early and people have access to treatment, blindness can be prevented. I ask all of my colleagues to just imagine how their lives would change if they lost their eyesight. We take it for granted, and we do not stop to think enough. Over eight million people currently live with a blinding eye disease that puts them at risk, and these numbers are expected to grow to almost 14 million people.
Many of us currently in the House may also develop macular degeneration, and I would like to see February designated as macular degeneration awareness month.
The Canadian Council of the Blind, Fighting Blindness Canada, CNIB and countless other organizations have been calling for an eye strategy for Canada, to move forward with the commitment made previously to develop a national eye strategy that will protect the eye health of all Canadians.
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