Kirsty Duncan, MP

Is anyone looking out for MS patients?

View this article and others by Kirsty at http://www.ipolitics.ca/author/kduncan.

Canadians who travel abroad for medical treatments, including cosmetic procedures, are entitled to receive follow-up care at home. The experiences of people who have travelled offshore for treatment for chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) indicate that this patient population is facing systematic discrimination.

This situation has persisted despite statements from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) and the Scientific Expert Working Group (SEWG) on CCSVI, and raises questions about the relationship between the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the CIHR, and their respective roles in affecting both provincial and federal health care policy.

In September, 2011, I introduced my private member’s bill C-280 calling for a national CCSVI strategy that includes access to aftercare for patients who had travelled abroad for treatment. This was necessary because many treated offshore for CCSVI who required follow-up care in Canada were being turned away from emergency departments — even told to return to the clinic where they were treated, which usually entails air travel. After two readings, the bill was defeated on February 29, 2012.

Access to information searches reveal that as early as December 21, 2010, CIHR President Alain Beaudet was to have met then-CMA President Jeffrey Turnbull to discuss “the possibility of the CMA producing a position statement regarding patient access to physicians for those who have received the Zamboni procedure”. Additionally, “CIHR would be willing to provide the CMA with any necessary support in order to produce this statement”.

Yet on February 27th, 2012, only two days before the defeat of my private member’s bill, I received a first correspondence from the then-president of the CMA, Dr. John Haggie, who wrote on behalf of his 76,000 members to oppose the bill.

This letter represented the CMA’s first public objection to the bill, even though Dr. Haggie had ample opportunity to raise concerns before both a House and Senate committee.

Senator Jane Cordy and I later met with President Haggie and his colleagues, who appeared completely unaware of the plight of returning Canadians treated for CCSVI abroad, and the lack of follow-up care in Canada. He also was unaware of the fact MS patients continue to be denied appointments and that critical medical tests were being cancelled.

Additionally, he was unaware that patients had been told that their drivers’ licenses would be revoked if they inquired about pulling out of clinical trials for new MS drugs.

While the government dropped the ball on follow-up care, the family of Roxanne Garland in Saskatchewan was left reeling from her death this past summer after she struggled to obtain follow-up care.

Dr. Alain Beaudet wrote to the Colleges of Physicians with this instruction on February 29, 2012: “MS patients who have received a venous procedure abroad should be reassured that they will be continued to be cared for by their physicians and/or regular MS specialists as any other patients.”

Does the minister of health stand by this directive? Or is the government’s position that follow-up care is primarily the responsibility of provincial and territorial governments to ensure that no Canadian is denied post-treatment and follow-up care (ATIP)? If the latter, what role will the federal government have if patients are being denied follow-up care by a province or territory?

Many of the estimated 75,000 Canadians who struggle with multiple sclerosis — an incurable condition — are obliged to travel out of the country for treatment, yet they continue to be unduly penalized and put at serious risk by our world-class medical system. I once again call upon the minister of health to be transparent and explicit in her position on this issue.

Her government says it supports the Canada Health Act (CHA), which ensures patients have access to medically necessary care when they need it under the five principles. If a province denies access to that care, the province is in contravention of the CHA.

I also call upon the minister to include follow-up care as an agenda item at the next Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers of Health conference, and to commit to taking a public stand on the subject by advocating for follow-up care, something CIHR itself saw as a real issue over two years ago.

This issue of follow-up care speaks to one of the central principles underpinning the health care system in our great country — that quality health care is a fundamental right of all Canadians. Canadians with MS have a right to something much better than the muddled status quo.

Petition on Physical Activity

Ms. Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this petition regarding physical activity. A lack of physical activity is a major public health issue in Canada. Canadian children are getting more than six hours per day of screen time, and are spending more than half their waking hours sitting down. Only 9% of boys and 4% of girls meet the Canadian physical activity guidelines. The petitioners call upon the government to work with the provinces and territories to develop a comprehensive pan-Canadian strategy to promote physical activity, to commit to the resulting strategy, and to make the necessary investments.

Speech on Bill C-60

Ms. Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of representing a wonderful riding, the riding of Etobicoke North, the community where I was born and raised. We are proudly one of the most multicultural ridings in the country, but sadly, we also have our challenges.

Recent statistics show that almost 20% of our residents are not yet citizens. Our families face family reunification challenges and language and job barriers. Almost 25% of our families are headed by single parents who work two and three jobs just to put food on the table. Almost 20% of our riding is engaged in manufacturing, the second highest percentage for the entire country.

In stark contrast, only 5% are involved in management, with 301st ranking of 308 ridings in Canada. I am sharing this because we need real investment in our families and in our communities, particularly during tough economic times. What we do not need are broken promises such as the Conservatives promising that they would not cut the rate of increase to transfers for health care, education and pensions.

The previous cuts to old age security, a move that would cost our seniors tens of thousands of dollars in support, is still causing outrage in my community. Single moms ask how the Prime Minister could do this, that he promised not to touch pensions. They have children and have to work. How will they pay for their children’s education? They have no money to put away for retirement. What will happen to them?

Humber College students are saying that once they graduate they will have no job and that is not fair. They ask why they are being treated differently by their country. Grandparents continue to come in wanting to know why their grandchildren are being targeted by the Government of Canada.

Today we are debating Bill C-60, the first Conservative omnibus bill following its 2013 budget which impacts at least 18 different government portfolios. While there are some items in the bill people could generally support, for example better allowances for veterans, more incentives for charitable giving, these are mixed with many negative measures that will hurt the people of Etobicoke North. I simply cannot support these negative measures.

It is important to remind those watching at home that when the Conservatives came to power in 2006, they inherited from their Liberal predecessors 10 straight years of balanced budgets, an annual surplus that was running at the rate of $13 billion every year, lower debt, lower taxes, a sound Canadian pension plan and 3.5 million net new jobs. The last time a Conservative government actually balanced a budget for Canada was 101 years ago in 1912.

Bill C-60 creates the illusion of action regarding jobs and training. The government proposes to claw back the $2.5 billion per year labour market money that it now sends to the provinces and renegotiate it with provincial governments. This amounts to recycling existing money. There is nothing new. No additional federal investment.

My community needs jobs and each day at least one young person calls our office looking for work and we help them find jobs week after week. The youth unemployment rate remains a staggering 14.2%, nearly twice the rate for other Canadians. Today, 404,000 young people lack a job and another 171,000 have simply given up and dropped out of the labour market.

Another reason I cannot support the bill is because it increases taxes. For example, new Conservative taxes on safety deposit boxes totalling $40 million a year; new Conservative taxes on credit unions amounting to $75 million a year, and the list goes on. But what I really object to is the new Conservative increase of tariff taxes, taxes on imports which will take about $333 million every year from Canadians.

The people of Etobicoke North do not want the cost of baby carriages to go up 3%; bicycles to go up 4.5%; blankets to go up 5%; ovens, cooking stoves and ranges 3%; plastic school supplies 3.5%; pillows 6%; vacuum cleaners 5%. I have heard from Canadians battling cancer, who must fight their disease every day, that their cosmetic wigs will go up by an astonishing 15.5%. It is absolutely shameful.

When all of these measures are fully implemented, as well as some other taxes that are buried in the legislation, the burden will add up to more than $2 billion per year in new Conservative taxes on Canadians.

I did make a specific request to the Minister of Finance for budget 2013, as families in Etobicoke North asked, and respected the minister’s request that ideas be cost neutral or non-spending steps. My appeal was for a joint meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers of health and agriculture to develop a plan of action to work with stakeholders across the country to improve student nutrition because children in my riding and across the country go to school hungry, and hungry children cannot learn.

Forty per cent of elementary students and 62% of secondary school students do not eat a nutritious breakfast. Poor nutrition status leads to poor health outcomes for children and Canadian children from all income brackets are vulnerable to inadequate nutrition, especially the one in five Canadian children who lives below the poverty line.

In addition to making the human argument, to do the right thing and to honour the promises Canada has made to our children, I even made the economic argument for student nutrition. The Boston Consulting Group reports that, on average, high school graduates contribute an extra $75,000 to the economy. They earn higher salaries than dropouts, pay increased taxes, have lower health care costs, and are less dependent on social assistance. If providing food at school increases graduation rates by only 3%, a pan-Canadian school meals program in high schools at a cost of $1.25 a day could result in an annual net payback of more than $500 million annually.

The potential economic stimulus for Canadian agriculture is also considerable. Realistically, 70% of the pan-Canadian nutrition program could have domestic content, with an annual return to Canadian producers of $1.5 billion. Not only do our children want healthy food now, but they also want a healthy environment to grow up in and raise their children and grandchildren. While no cuts to the environment are specifically mentioned in budget 2013, Canadians should remember that cutting is actually a three-year program with a $13 million reduction this year, growing to $31 million, then $58 million, and, ultimately, representing a 5% cut for Environment Canada.

Budget 2013 offers mere scraps for the environment and in no way makes up for the war on the environment and science the government has been and continues to wage: for example, $4 million for marine-based ecosystem conservation, when the government has promised to protect 10% of marine areas and yet has protected only 1%; $10 million for the conservation of fisheries and a salmon conservation stamp after eviscerating the Fisheries Act; and a new tax credit for clean energy worth a tiny $1 million for a global $1 trillion industry.

Perhaps most concerning of all is the lack of action on climate change when the government is under increased study for its environmental and climate change record, particularly by our largest trading partner, the United States, and the fact that record-low Great Lakes levels, which many experts attribute to a changing climate, are mentioned but not acted upon in the budget. For a government that is desperate to greenwash its record, budget 2013 and Bill C-60 clearly show that the environment is only an afterthought for the Conservatives, although Liberals support the funding for the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

In closing, I do not support this bill because it will make life harder for the people of Etobicoke North to make ends meet and does nothing to help youth find work. My hard-working constituents should not have to pay for the government’s wasteful spending.

Speech on Bill C-460, a sodium reduction strategy

Ms. Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, World Salt Awareness Week falls between March 11 and 17. However, unlike last year, there does not appear [...]

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Petition on Climate Change

Ms. Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present four petitions regarding climate change, our most pressing environmental issue and perhaps the [...]

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Letter to the Minister of Health regarding safety of MS drugs

Dear Minister,   On April 9th, 2013, Biogen Idec Canada announced the Health Canada approval of TECFIDERA (dimethyl fumarate) delayed-release capsules, as a first-line oral treatment [...]

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Petition on CCSVI

Ms. Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this petition on CCSVI. Canadians with MS want to know when Conservative MPs [...]

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For the last time, Mr. Oliver — climate change is real

View this article and others by Kirsty at http://www.ipolitics.ca/author/kduncan.   Even flat-Earth proponents came around eventually. What will it take to convince Natural Resources Minister Joe [...]

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Speech on Opposition Day Motion on Climate Change

Ms. Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, climate change is the most pressing environmental issue facing the planet. Climate change is real, it is happening [...]

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Petition on CCSVI

Ms. Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this petition on CCSVI. Canadians with MS want to know when Conservative MPs [...]

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