Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today because I want to draw attention to yesterday, which was World Cancer Day. February 4th each year is World Cancer Day, and it’s an important day that we all must acknowledge.
Yesterday might have been World Cancer Day, but the truth is, every day is cancer day for someone or someone’s family. Just look around us. Even this Chamber has not gone untouched. We have people in this room and we even have people in our gallery who have overcome the struggle of cancer.
Cancer is not just an individual disease; it is certainly a family one. Whether we know them personally or we know them at a distance, cancer touches everyone. For those people and families who are lucky enough to get through remission, let us not forget that it becomes a lifetime struggle.
World Cancer Day should be, really, a call to arms for everyone. I would like to say a challenge of cancer in its own way, like Mount Everest of our time, a mountain that is there to be challenged but a mountain that is to be conquered.
If you look across the stats, age matters little, gender doesn’t matter, background or even if you’re rich or poor has really no effect. Cancer finds people everywhere. Cancer affects everyone equally. What changes is people’s availability through prevention, detection and treatment. That’s where some of the imbalances start to take hold. Early prevention goes a long way, detection is key and treatment is obviously the solution, but to put all those three components together, that will be the item of success we must all target.
Truly, cancer is a global problem, and one we must all fight for, fight with, and fight against. Yesterday we were privileged to hear some interesting stories of survivors. Charlie Furlong, Patrick Scott and Shiri MacPherson were on a video provided by the Department of Health and Social Services. I want to acknowledge all three of them, but in particular I want to emphasize both Charlie Furlong and Patrick Scott placed their success on the relationship their partners had with them. The reason I say that, and I want to underscore, is because cancer is not an individual disease, it’s a family disease, it is a community disease.
In the Northwest Territories, 111 new cancer cases are diagnosed each year, and many of us think that it happens here more, but statistics prove that it’s just as common here as elsewhere.
In closing, I want to say that the richness of life is really about family and health. I encourage each and every one of you to take that to heart and make sure when you know your body best, take care of yourself, not just for yourself but for your loved ones as well.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
