Hon. Salma Ataullahjan: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week, an initiative that is celebrated in the second week of May.

As some of you may know, maternal and newborn health is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. In the past, I took the lead, as the rapporteur for the Inter-Parliamentary Union, or IPU, Committee on Democracy and Human Rights, in drafting a report on the role of parliaments in assisting women and children’s health services. I also played a critical role in a landmark resolution on the matter, and I am proud to say it was the first time a resolution of its kind was adopted by the IPU. As a result, I was named the IPU’s Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.

Over the years, my work on maternal and newborn health sadly fell to the sidelines while I focused on a number of other human rights issues. It is now time to bring this issue once again to your attention.

As we finally turn to a post-pandemic future, maternal and newborn health must be an integral part of our conversations. Close to a thousand women die from preventable complications related to pregnancy or childbirth each day around the globe. This a conservative number, as we continue to lack reliable data on maternal deaths in many countries. It is also estimated that in 2020, 2.4 million newborns died worldwide. If current trends continue, it is estimated that 48 million children under the age of 5 will die between 2020 and 2030, half of them newborns.

A Globe and Mail article recently shed light on our country’s lack of standardized review of maternal deaths, even though about 50 to 85 women die each year in childbirth or in postpartum, and over half of these mothers’ babies die as well. To make matters worse, First Nations and Inuit infants die two to four times more often than non-Indigenous infants. Although we are considered a wealthy country, Canada is currently ranked thirty-ninth in the world in maternal mortality according to the World Health Organization, and I plan to speak considerably more on this issue in the future.

Honourable senators, I would like to thank former senator Asha Seth for her continued advocacy for maternal, newborn and child health. Thanks to her work in the Red Chamber, we recognize the second week of May as Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Week. Thank you.