RUSSELL CALLS FOR ACTION ON ABORIGINAL DIABETES

OTTAWA, December 9, 2009  — Labrador M.P. and Liberal Aboriginal Affairs Critic Todd Russell today called for the renewal of the Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative (ADI).

“The Canadian Diabetes Association has warned that the growing wave of diabetes will cost the economy and the health care system billions,” Russell said. “Nowhere is the diabetes epidemic more visible and having more of an impact than among Aboriginal communities, yet the grassroots Aboriginal efforts to fight the disease are being left behind by the Harper Conservatives.”

Begun under the former Liberal federal government in 1999, and renewed for a further five years in the Liberal government’s 2005 budget, the Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative has funded diabetes prevention efforts in Aboriginal communities across Canada. Despite the accomplishments of the ADI in tackling this growing public health concern, the Conservatives have not co-operated with ADI project partners in planning for the future of diabetes prevention after the existing funding expires early next year.

“Many of the Aboriginal organizations and projects which had begun to do so much good work thanks to the ADI have had no choice but to start winding down their operations,” Russell said. “Some, like the Labrador Metis Nation in my own riding, have already been forced to stop important health-promotion programming.”

“If the Conservative government has a plan and a funding arrangement in mind beyond the end of this fiscal year, it should signal its intent now, before offices are shuttered, staff are let go, and valuable time and momentum is lost.”

According to a Canadian Diabetes Association report released this week, people of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis ancestry are three to five times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than the overall Canadian population.

“The physical and economic well-being of Aboriginal peoples and communities are threatened by this disease, and at rates which far exceed even the alarming growth in diabetes across Canada,” Russell said. “The need is there. We cannot afford to have any setbacks in the progress that Aboriginal communities have already made.”

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Todd Russell, MP

Labrador

(613) 996-4630