National Strategy for Eye Care Bill

Honourable senators, I rise to speak briefly on Bill C-284. I don’t usually get to speak on Wednesday, so this is a special honour.

You’ve heard the numbers with respect to vision: the extent of vision loss among Canadians in the millions; the economic losses in the billions; the emotional effect of loss of enjoyment of life; and the cost to Canadians who suffer — often unnecessarily — from vision loss. These are heartbreaking messages, and I hope they will motivate us to act with respect to this bill.

My own motivation to speak today, though, is inspired by two things: first, the wise, thoughtful leadership of Senator Ravalia on this matter; and, second, personal experience.

One of the remarkable things about this version of the Senate is the diversity of expertise residing in our individual senators. Each of us in this place looks to make meaningful contributions, often drawing on our own non-Senate experience and expertise and hopefully finding ways to make contributions that are consistent with our values and hopes to build a better Canada. Senator Ravalia is an exemplar in this regard, drawing from his experience as a medical doctor, his knowledge and his empathy for so many — including many patients suffering from vision loss, particularly in cases where this was preventable.

Senator Ravalia has agreed to sponsor this meaningful bill. It will not cure vision loss, but it will mandate the development of a long-overdue national strategy to address a scourge experienced by so many. I’m confident that its value is incontrovertible. I’m confident it is incontrovertible from your perspective as well. It is a bill from the heart. It feels to me as though this bill — a bill from the heart — is a model of the man who sponsors it in this place. I hope we will appreciate this work and commitment on his part and his partner in the other place, member of Parliament Judy Sgro.

Thank you, Mohamed. I’m honoured even in this small way to be associated with your work. We will all bask in the reflective glory of this achievement, both when the bill is passed and in the years ahead when a national framework makes a real difference in reducing preventable vision loss.

My second motivation in speaking today is personal. My mother passed away a few years ago at the age of 95. She was a loving, kind, devout woman and a supportive spouse to our father. My father tended to occupy a larger-than-life place in the close, loving family, but my mother was a critical anchor to it.

For pretty much the last 25 years of her life, my mother lived with steadily advancing macular degeneration and was legally blind for pretty much the last 20 years of her life. However, my mother was fortunate in so many ways — ways in which others who suffer from vision loss are not. She had a happy marriage of 55 years, a loving husband and wonderful children. She’s not here to dispute that. It’s kind of fun when there are no rebuttals.

Our family was not wealthy, but we lived comfortable lives, and my mother had a deep, deep religious faith — deeper than anyone I have ever known. I mention these things for two reasons. First, unlike many in her situation, although her own steadily declining loss of vision caused a meaningful diminishment in her life, she was fortunate and aware of it. This was one negative aspect of an otherwise fulfilling and meaningful life.

For example, she loved to travel. When it came to travel, she had the view that one third of the joy of travel was the anticipation, one third was the experience and one third was the remembrance. Even with macular degeneration, she still loved to travel, and the more exotic, the better. Though the experiences were much diminished by vision loss — and she had to hear more and more of what we told her we saw — she still had a great experience in those regards.

With respect to “the more exotic, the better,” I have one example. One year, when she was about 80 and had lost most of her vision, we went on a trip to Uganda. While we were there, we stayed at a resort near a lake in the western part of Uganda in the heart of a pretty basic, unfenced reserve filled with, among other animals, hippopotamuses — if that’s the right plural. Walking back to our rooms after dinner one evening just at dusk, she and my daughter Kelly got out in front of the rest of us. Between my daughter’s lack of attentiveness and my mother’s lack of vision — a bad combination of “lacks,” let me tell you — they came within a few feet of walking into the rear-end of a hippopotamus enjoying an early evening feeding. We learned afterward that this was a very dangerous situation. Our host rescued them. However, my mother, stoic as ever, was of the view that if this was the way she would meet her maker — through a combination of lost vision and an unfriendly hippo — so be it.

She was this way with her vision loss too. It was her lot in life, she felt. Her powerful faith made this acceptance possible for her in life.

I greatly admire the way in which my mother accepted — even embraced — this infirmity, but all of us wish that she had been able to live her life more fully with good eyesight.

I hope — as I’m sure my mother could — that through the initiative of this bill, we will reach a stage where this kind of vision loss and so many other vision infirmities are a vestige of the past. It is, in some respects, a small tribute to my mother that I make these remarks.

I hope you will support this bill, help to send it across the finish line without delay and get this important work under way. Thank you.