Session: 38:2
Date: 31-May-2007

BONE MARROW AWARENESS MONTH ACT, 2007

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): I am pleased to rise this morning and join in the debate on Bill 225, the Bone Marrow Awareness Month Act brought forward by the member from Essex. I'm used to seeing him on Thursday morning sitting as the Speaker of the Legislature so it's a little unusual for me to be looking across. But I thank him for bringing forward this very important private member's bill.

I appreciate the intent. I'm sure some of us have been directly or indirectly involved in a situation with someone who has fought cancer, leukemia or a related illness where the treatment may require a bone marrow transplant. I was a nurse before I was elected to the Legislature from the riding of Haliburton-Victoria-Brock. When I worked in Florida with a fellow Canadian nurse, she ended up having leukemia and flew back-she was originally from Newfoundland-and was able to receive a bone marrow transplant here in Toronto. It was very successful. She's back in Newfoundland resuming what nursing duties she is allowed to do because, of course, with a transplant you can't be directly involved with a lot of infected patients.

When I worked in the ICU, I was involved with transplant recipients. The work done by the doctors and nurses there is phenomenal. It was mentioned that Nursing Week happened a couple of weeks ago and the opportunity that we had to go into our hospitals and speak with our registered nurses, our doctors and the health care professionals. Being a nurse before I came here, I can tell you the words that you don't want to hear are, "There is nothing more than can be done." It's hard on all of us, including the families, but it's hard on us working. Our goal is to make people better. When you hear those words, you feel absolutely powerless.

When we have the opportunity to make more people aware of how they can save lives and how strangers can save lives-I don't think many people know about that, and that is the important part of bringing this bill forward today, to make people more aware of the bone marrow registry and how they can sign up. They don't need to know anybody. They might not have a connection. The member who just spoke spoke about the ethnic connections with bone marrow. The fact that Canadian Blood Services is doing that list is very important.

I had a group in my riding that received a Trillium grant last week, Hospice Kawartha Lakes. It's a tremendous organization of staff and volunteers who work there to provide care for bereavement and to patients during illnesses. I'm very proud to have such an organization in my riding.

For so many, a bone marrow transplant is the only thing that can be done to save a life in the brave fight against leukemia. Those folks who are willing and perfectly able to, do want to donate.

The declaration of Bone Marrow Awareness Month, as I said, brings more people on board. The member from Parry Sound-Muskoka's daughter, who is finishing her master's at the University of Toronto and is working at Sick Kids, has signed up already in the bone marrow registry. It's wonderful that Abigale does that, but a lot of us don't know about it. That is what the intent of this bill is.

My colleague from Oak Ridges brought forward legislation regarding organ and tissue donation, Bill 67, the Organ and Tissue Donation Mandatory Declaration Act. Both of these bills-Bill 225 today and Bill 67 that my colleague from Oak Ridges brought forward-are not forcing anyone to make a decision to be a bone marrow donor or an organ and tissue donor. What these pieces of legislation are intended to do is help people to confront these very important issues periodically in the course of their lives and encourage consideration of this life-giving issue.

I want to thank the member from Essex and the member from Oak Ridges for bringing forward this type of legislation, which I think holds the answers to saving a lot of people's lives. I appreciate the short opportunity that I've had to speak to that, I commend the member for bringing this forward and hope it receives all-party support.

ENERGY CONSERVATION

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): Yesterday, Dalton McGuinty joined Governor Schwarzenegger to pump up Ontario. He posed for so many photo ops, you'd think he was on the red carpet at the Oscars. We know that back in 2003, Dalton McGuinty was quite pumped up from waving around his big red book of broken promises. The minute he became Premier, he began turning his back on the environment. It's nearly four years later and he still has not presented a plan for climate change, and the coal plants are still spewing out the same emissions he promised to end.

Yesterday morning, while the Premier was in front of the cameras at Queen's Park, pretending to care about climate change and reducing emissions, away from the cameras, there was an entourage of no less than 10 vehicles, most of them SUVs, idling the entire time-idling and ready for a quick getaway to MaRS-not the Mars from the famous blockbuster movie Total Recall, but the MaRS Discovery District research centre, which is only a few blocks away. I'm actually surprised the Premier didn't want to have taxpayers' money pay for the short flight there. Evidently, MaRS has no landing ramp.

What's even worse, these vehicles were outside of Queen's Park, idling and spewing emissions on the very same day the Premier's Minister of the Environment issued a smog warning in Toronto and throughout the province.

It's clear that in Dalton McGuinty's world, he's got his act well rehearsed and has memorized his lines, "Do as I say, not as I do." John Tory is a true leader, who has presented a plan on climate change with real targets and a real plan to deliver on those targets. What has Dalton McGuinty presented? We're quite certain that, with all his broken promises, Dalton McGuinty won't hesitate to join Arnold Schwarzenegger for the filming of the movie True Lies, part two.