Tony Lambert delphine1939@videotron.ca

25 Nov. 2006

Friday, November 24, 2006

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today the creation of a $260-million national cancer strategy that includes the creation of a new agency designed to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease faster.

"Cancer strikes without warning, plays no favourites and it touches all of us," Harper said at a news conference.

The Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control, which Harper promised during the last election, is a five-year "battle plan" to increase knowledge about the disease and help fight the disease.

Harper, along with Health Minister Tony Clement and Public Works Minister Michael Fortier, announced the plan at the Montreal General Hospital.

The plan is designed to help prevent, detect and treat cancer faster, Harper said. A national organization will be created to ensure that better resources and treatments are made available in all parts of Canada. The strategy will be a non-profit organization that operates at arm’s-length from the federal government.

The objective of the cancer strategy is to ensure that all Canadians benefit from cancer breakthroughs and treatments that are made in various regions of the country. When Quebec doctors discover a new treatment, for example, patients in British Columbia will have access to it, Harper said.

He said the new cancer strategy could pre-empt 1.2 million new cases of cancer and prevent 400,000 cancer deaths over 30 years.

Harper named Jeffrey Lozon, president and CEO of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, as the chair of the Canadian partnership against cancer.

In a report delivered last year to the government, experts warned Canada is lurching toward a crisis in cancer control, and there is a "real and present danger" the health-care system will not be able to afford treatment for the tidal wave of patients who will get the disease in the decades ahead.

On the basis of current trends, 38 per cent of Canadian women and 44 per cent of men will develop cancer during their lifetimes. As well, 24 per cent of women and 29 per cent of men will die from cancer. Over the next 20 years, an estimated 3.6 million Canadians will get cancer and 1.7 million will die from it.

Cancer experts say a national cancer plan is needed to provide more consistent care nationwide in such areas as screening programs to catch the disease in its early stages; clinical practice guidelines on the most up-to-date treatment; the types of drugs that should be publicly insured; standards on how chemotherapy is practised, prescribed and administered; and guidelines for palliative care.