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.

Judy Sgro

$500,394.00